There used to be a joke in Paris. What is the difference between the Chief Rabbi in France and the Cardinal of Paris? The Cardinal speaks Yiddish!" In August 2007, the archbishop of France died and they chanted Kaddish at his funeral, which is the Jewish prayer for the dead. They did this because he was actually a Jew. During the holocaust his family had hidden him in Poland with a Christian family, to prevent the holocaust from reaching him. Although this family never converted him, he converted himself. He said “For me, the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the world. That is my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.” I think that the main idea of the article in which I read this, is expressed perfectly in the author’s quote at the end: “Sometimes there are profound inconsistencies in our world.” I just love this last quote; it completely talks to me, because I, as well as many other people, am one of these profound inconsistencies. The archbishop’s story shows me that identity isn’t always what it seems to be. Not only that, but also that you can have multiple identities and sometimes you can even choose your own identity.
Who defines identity? In shule, when the topic of identity was raised, we had so many different ideas about what defines identity. One of the activities we did was, “What makes somebody Jewish?” We were given cards. On each of these cards was one thing that people may consider a factor in making somebody Jewish. We had to pick five out of these 20 cards that best fit what we though was most important about being Jewish. None of us had five identically matching cards; some of us didn’t even have any in common. After we did this activity I could just tell how controversial the idea of identity would be. Boy was I right.
I used to believe that your identity was exactly what you choose. Then we learned that during the holocaust it didn’t really matter what you considered yourself to be. If you wore a...