I was born and raised Jewish - jumping through the Bar Mitzvah and confirmation hoops and celebrating the High Holy Days with requisite challah and subsequent fasting. But does that give the Jewish people a right to land also claimed sacred by Palestinians? I suggest, perhaps with a bit of earnest strain in my voice, that it might have something to do with millennia of persecution, from the biblical story of Exodus and the pogroms of the Russian Empire to a CNN poll indicating that a third of Europeans believe Jews use the Holocaust to advance their own positions or goals. Playwright Joshua Harmon’s cast of characters debates the question for nearly three hours, as do we over post-show cocktails. My companion leans over and asks earnestly, “Why do the Jews get a country and no other religion?” The theater lights are about to dim at Prayer for the French Republic, a new Broadway play that tracks the journey of a Jewish family in Paris from World War II through the 2017 French presidential election and the country’s rise in antisemitism.
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