03.23.2024 - By Temple Emanuel in Newton
After about an hour's drive, heading south from Nairobi on our first day working with the Maasai tribe in Kenya, we arrived at a small one-room church in the middle of the bush. The single light bulb, dangling from the metal roof, was charged by a generator outside and shone on the beautiful faces of about 50 teenagers from the surrounding villages. My wife, Anya, and I were brought in and introduced with the following pronouncement:
“This is Elie and Anya. They are Jewish...They are Jesus’ tribesmen.”
I have to admit I really did not know what to expect in that pregnant pause after they said we were Jewish.
This was mid-April 2013, just days after the Boston Marathon bombing. And the world felt a bit on edge.
When they followed up saying that, as Jews, we were Jesus’ tribesmen, I felt a sigh of relief. Immediately I thought to myself, “This is much better than if they said:
‘This is Elie and Anya. They are Jewish AND THEY KILLED JESUS.”
In today’s world, 11 years later, I think I would have been much, much more scared.