I am pleased now that I have lived in a gay as well as a religious ghetto, though it hasn't been very comfortable. Taken together, their limitations cancel each other out and I have seen the world more kindly and more honestly.

What would I have done if I'd been put to the test? Would I have risked my own life for people I hardly knew? Probably, I would have looked the other way at best or become another apologist for evil at worst.

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

Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.

To change, to convert? Why bother?

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 recovered my infant Judaism, but in a reformist version.