The question was a simple one. It was asked casually by a friend of mine at a Sunday lunch in my apartment. Someone may have mentioned Jesus or perhaps Germany or Hitler, and he asked, almost rhetorically, "But why are Jews hated so much?"

Like the best questions, this one was so basic that no one had thought of it. I certainly hadn't, though like most baby boomers, I had the factoids at my fingertips — Over six million Jews had been brutally exterminated in Hitler's concentration camps. I had seen Schindler's List and knew about the Star of David and the Warsaw Ghetto.