A Ben Franklin Transit van pool van was spotted by an officer as it was being driven without its lights on West 10th Avenue about 6:10 p.m. Intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles, business partnerships, and Jewish statesmen excite no more than passing comment. But then, conversely, it is also true of the Jews. Like most Gentiles, I read both the Old and the New Testament of the Bible, but neither Ben nor any of his Jewish friends have, so far as I can ascertain, ever honored the New Testament with so much as a glance. 'Certainly it is sanctimonious for society to reject him, I admit, to resent his success in business and the professions, his dabbling in politics, his strong international alliances. But I also maintain that there have been periods when almost all doors have been opened to Jews—a period in Poland, a period in Austria, and most notably, a liberal period in England which culminated its the rise of the Jew, Disraeli, to the post of Prime Minister. That held her for a minute. ', But, loving Ben above the rest of her children, she probably also said, 'Well, then, if you love her and are sure that she is the one woman for you, you have my blessing. 'The Jews are essentially an Oriental race,' she stormed, 'East is East, and Jews and Christians cannot really meet any more than Christians and Chinese. The Hebrew religion must be divorced from the promulgation of that race consciousness which every synagogue and temple considers as important a part of Judaism as prayer; it should be mortified at least to the point where it does not belittle the great ideal of western culture and civilization: Christ. Joshua and Ben Safdie are the New York-based writer/producer/director duo behind Bear-McClard-produced films Good Time and Heaven Knows What. You have admitted that His teachings sound beautiful, even if you do not believe He ever lived. Ben says there may be something in that, but he does not really believe it because he is not at all sure there is a God. It pleases him that he looks and acts like other people. 'Well,' I parry, 'but you believe that the Jews, and nobody else, are God's chosen people. There are plenty of Gentiles with prominent noses, and the difference between the Jewish church and, say, the Catholic is no greater than the difference between the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox church. Here we are then, Ben and I, a Jew and a German-American, married for four years, supremely happy, with a three-year-old son who has his father's quick brown eyes and my yellow hair. He looks upon Hitler as something malignantly unique, and it is no use trying to tell him that a hundred years hence the world will no more call Hitler a swine for expelling the Jews than it does Edward I of England, who did the same thing in the thirteenth century—an expulsion that remained in strict effect until the time of Cromwell, because a hundred years hence another country will be having its Jewish problem, unless…. Remember there are a dozen other less tangible discriminations against them. How can the host ignore the quarrels of the guest in his house?' Vacations, too, instead of being spent in the mountains or at the shore, getting away from relations, are spent visiting one another. ', 'Well,' argues Ben, 'suppose my people are what you call aliens. Out of courtesy I try to do as they do when I am among them, but their not reaching out to meet me halfway becomes a strain after a while. For all that, however, before our baby was horn Ben announced one day that if it were a boy he would like to have it brought up as a Jew. ', 'But, child, remember the racial and religious differences between you. We are just Ben and Gertrude to each other. But then up shot another one. However, it seems to me that, since both cannot be right in this quarrel of the centuries, adjustments must be made on both sides, and so I tell Ben. People have known Ben casually for two or three years without discovering he was Jewish. To me the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth mean that the Christ consciousness can be born only in the heart that is immaculate and pure, even as 'Israel' means any and all who live in the ways of God. Often Ben voices the age-old complaint of his race: the Gentiles think they are superior to the Jews. He would start by saying there was this and that about the Christians that he never could stomach. Jews are sensual, aggressive, ostentatious, cunning—that is a heritage they can never overcome. Every criticism of Jewry was a vaunting of Christian superiority. Here we are then, Ben and I, a Jew and a German-American, married for four years, supremely happy, with a three-year-old son who has his father's quick brown eyes and my yellow hair. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘it is the great paradox.’”. It was this that finally propelled me to our typewriter—to tell the world how it really is between a Jew and a Christian, since the world is evidently so intensely interested. I can never quite put my finger on the reason for this. Consequently our marriage was not the hasty, impassioned leap of two people soaring on the Icarian wings of a first love. In the eyes of Ben, as in the eyes of all his people, Hitler stands for the Jewish equivalent of the Antichrist—a little, strutting monster whose sole purpose and pleasure in life is to flog, imprison, impoverish, humiliate, and plague Israel. Above everything I want you to be happy.'. ', 'You are right,' I reply, 'and I don't blame you. Jews in the theatre—well, you have seen what they have done to Hollywood.