I didn't want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn't want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.

The Christian use of religion as a personal love affair both shocked me, and attracted me.

My mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended, she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.

I feel that the Christian experience and the Jewish one have much to give each other. If this open society continues and there is no return to political anti-Semitism, then this encounter, deeper than any theology, may happen.

I was not allowed a physical lover. Falling in love with Love was the best I could get.

Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.

Pious XII was too neutral to mention the gas chambers; decent people like my own family were turned into devils by crude Christianity.