Tolleranza giudaica...

When I was a child of about six, a black-coated man tried to push me out of the Manchester synagogue where my family had davened for more than three decades, built on land my great-grandfather had purchased. My father rushed to my defense, only to be harangued himself, in angry Yiddish, by my persecutor.

Outside, he tried to explain what had got the gentleman all worked up. I was wearing a T-shirt with a small logo of Alfa-Romeo Motors on it. By now some readers will be nodding their heads, implicitly understanding the root of the trouble. For those still baffled, the Alfa Romeo symbol contains a dragon and a red cross. Still haven't gotten it? Exhibiting a cross, no matter how oblique, in some Orthodox synagogues is like entering a mosque swigging a bottle of Red Label.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation …