In 1988, as a then-17-year-member of a group studying and trying to practice the ideas of the man George Gurdjieff, I had a revelation during a meditation session: I had once seen and been seen by a man who could only have been Jesus. That same day I wrote an account of the encounter.

My parents had barely escaped Europe in 1939 because they were Jews. I had been raised nominally Jewish, thus Jesus was a vague idea to the Jews around me, and he was certainly not regarded as holy.

So nothing prepared me for what I saw then.

17 years after that, in 2005, I remembered meeting Him again—in a concentration camp, where I was a kapo, one of those detested Jews who headed work crews.

And 17 years after that, in 2022, I remembered all the details of what had caused me to become a kapo.

—            Lou Gottlieb               4/8/2022

NOTE—The following memories are available in Spanish on request:  (NOTA—Las siguientes memorias están disponibles en español a pedido):        

=            Merchant of Jerusalem  /  Broken