Neo-Nazis, Islamists and other Israel-hating fanatics regularly slander the Jewish community as elitist and arrogant, promoting a racist, xenophobic us-vs.-them mentality. Emerging details of Friday's shooting at the Jewish Federation of Seattle, however, should help clear away some of those lies and distortions while revealing the true nature of Jewish life in the United States. 

  The demented Islamic killer Naveed Afzal Haq (who yelled proudly about his Muslim identity as he fired repeatedly at his unarmed female victims) apparently meant to kill Jews in order to punish Israel, but it turns out that the majority of those he wounded (three out of five) were Christian employees at the offices he attacked. One of them, Cheryl Stumbo, 43, was identified as a board member at Seattle's University Unitarian Church. The single fatality in his rampage, Pam Waechter, 58, also grew up in a non-Jewish home; though raised as a Lutheran in Minnesota, she converted to Judaism after her marriage and became a Tenple president and universally beloved leader of the Seattle Jewish community.

  The fact that four of the six women shot by the Muslim fanatic turned out to be products of non-Jewish backgrounds doesn't make the attack any less (or any more) tragic and heinous. In Judaism as in Christianity, all children of God, regardless of ethnic and religious identity, hold equal claim to life and dignity. But the facts of the Seattle incident should help to educate people who somehow believe that the American Jewish community remains incurably clannish and insular.

  On several occasions, callers to my radio show have criticized Judaism for an alleged obsession with "blood purity" and expressed their belief that gentiles cannot convert to Judaism. This ignorant assumption flies in the face of the fact that for nearlt two thousand years, several of the revered rabbis whose teachings play a central role in our tradition have been clearly identified as converts to the Jewish faith. All traditional congregations-- including the most scrupulously Orthodox -- recite a prayer three times a day asking special blessings for the "garay ha-tzedek," the righteous converts. In the United States, close to 10% of the Jewish population of slightly more than five million count as "Jews By Choice" -- or converts to Judaism. 

  Of course, generations of comedians, moviemakers, novelists and other producers of pop culture have familiarized the public with sometimes impassioned Jewish resistance (by parents and religious leaders) to intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. But these attitudes arise out of concern for religious integrity, not racial purity: even the most rigorously traditional, meticulously Orthodox rabbis will proudly officiate at weddings involving those who have converted to Judaism according to the rules of "HaLakha" (Jewish law).

   I'm always surprised to discover otherwise well-informed people who believe there is some sort of ban on non-Jews attending Jewish worship services. Even our small Orthodox congregation in a Seattle suburb draws a number of non Jews every week who participate in our Sabbath services. Some of these people are in the process of conversion to Judaism -- or at least considering conversion. Others are merely curious, and feel drawn to our syngague (despite services almost entirely in Hebrew) for reasons of their own.

   Far from practicing isolation and exclusivity, the Jewish community in the United States has become comfortably, even intimately integrated with our non-Jewish neighbors --- some might argue too intimately integrated for the sake of the survival of a distinctive Jewish identity.  At a time when Israel faces implacable enemies, however, we recognize the importance of our Christian friends in fighting for the Jewish state's right to exist and defend itself, and supporting our right to our own religious expression. For an organization like Jewish Federation (a charitable umbrella group that functions like United Way for our community) it's not suprising or negative that many of its employees happen to be sympathetic non-Jews. Jewish Federation in Seattle (and in all major cities across the country) is concerned with outreach, and with building coalitions on the issues that matter most to our communities.

  Jew-haters may nurse fantasies of secret rituals and ancient cabals and power-mad banking-media conspiracies that are based solely on shared Jewish ancestry. But when one of these anti-Semites picks up a gun (in the style of Naveed Afzal Haq) and begins firing at visible Jewish targets, he's likely to hit some people of non-Jewish background -- in our Federation offices, our congregations, or even in our homes.