The televangelist, Pat Robertson, was my classmate at Washington and Lee University. Pat’s most recent prouncement on world affairs was that Putin’s goal in Ukraine “was to move against Israel, ultimately as predicted in the book of Ezekiel,” suggesting that Ukraine is merely a “staging ground” for an eventual Armageddon battle. Inasmuch as there is no way to question theological thought, he may be correct, but I do not nor have I ever believed Pat.

My older brother and I were members of a Boy Scout troop which met in the basement of a local Evangelical Methodist Church in Waynesville, North Carolina. One day our parents received a letter from the troop leader telling our parents that they should have us withdraw from the troop because we would not be “comfortable” attending meetings at the church. Actually, neither of us felt uncomfortable at the church—and we loved scouting—but we recognized this as another incident of painful exclusion. My late brother served in the Pacific during World War II and I volunteered out of Chamblee, Georgia to serve during the Korean War—we were, and I still am, fiercely patriotic, but our growing up in the South as Jews in the ‘40s was enough to make me feel not only “unwelcome” but definitely inferior. Not as bad as the “coloreds” who were not permitted in white schools, hospitals, or restaurants and had to be out of town by sundown—but my brother and I were not considered as being “real Americans.”

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