On Splitting

Being human is not a zero-sum game

Some of my ancestors, c. 1940.

Two Orthodox Jewish friends of mine once argued whether I could be considered Jewish, and if so, how Jewish I could reasonably be held to be (to clarify, my mother was ethnically, though not religiously, Jewish, my father is Italian-American, and I was raised and remain Catholic). One of my two friends asserted that I was J…