I am a Christian, the father of two Jewish children and I am active in their synagogue. I’m also an artist, theatrician, writer and amateur mathematician. So let’s do some math around the Holocaust.

Have you ever wondered why there are hundreds of churches for every synagogue in this country? In Charleston alone, we have three synagogues in a place we call the holy city, because of our high number of churches per capita. Christians make up 70% of the U.S. population while Jews make up 2%.

Do you think it’s because Christianity is ever so much more popular than Judaism? I’ll grant, at least in my experience, Christians tend to be far more theatrical in their religious services than Jews.

But could it simply be a mathematical equation? Let’s do a simple math problem. If six million Jews hadn’t died in the holocaust, how many more Jews would the world now have? Let’s see, compounding the generations over the 75 years since the holocaust, there would easily now be more Jews than the entire population of the United States.

It honestly breaks my heart when I think about all the friendships and contributions to humanity that never happened or will ever happen because of hatred and fear.

Let’s not let history repeat itself. Let us reverse this insane turn toward hatred and fear we are now experiencing. And let it begin with me, dear Lord.

I am acting in a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” which opens next week with the Flowertown Players in Summerville. It is difficult to be in Anne Frank’s attic, to empathize, as an actor, with what these eight individuals must have been going through. The purpose of the play is to let us know, so we will never again let history repeat itself.

We all need to educate ourselves so that we can know, and know deeply.

Here’s more info from Charleston City Paper

Get your tickets today.