The Guardian reported recently that according to a survey, almost two-thirds of American adults ages 18-39 did not know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and that more than one in ten believe that Jews caused the Holocaust. Arthur D. Ullian has seen that kind of ignorance firsthand, especially while growing up in a WASP enclave in suburban Boston.
After a career as a real estate developer and biomedical research advocate, he decided to confront that ignorance head on, and research the historic roots of discrimination against Jews from the time of the New Testament to today. The result is his new book, MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN…AND ME: Growing Up Jewish in a Christian World
“This book began as an examination of the historical roots of antisemitism: when and where it began and how it manifested itself through 2000 years of western history,” writes Ullian. “The manuscript grew increasingly personal as I realized that, while I had been attempting to discover the effects of antisemitism on the life of the Jewish people as a whole, I had never consciously considered its effects on my own life.”
In the book, Ullian recounts Jewish history in an accessible way by framing it in part as conversations with his therapist. He started to notice the Jewish history that was missing from tour guides when he traveled, leading him to study everything from early Christian writers to the Inquisition to the Holocaust. Ullian came to understand that antisemitism originated with the gospel writers, and specifically the misconception that Jews killed Christ. He argues that the early Christian leaders, including Augustine, felt it important to make this accusation in order to establish Christianity by demonizing Judaism, while at the same time appropriating parts of it. This contributed to centuries of persecution.
As Ullian delved into his research, he realized that he was also working to understand his own history. “Understanding Jewish history allows you to have a conversation about where the stereotypes come from and why they are wrong,” says Ullian.
Ullian is hopeful that more Christians will find the true historical Jesus, who preached love. He writes, “Jesus grew up as a Jew, preaching many variations of the central commandment that all Jews are tasked to live our lives by every day: Tikkun Olam –- Repair the World. Another version of this commandment, found in the Talmud, says to us: ‘If you save one life, you save the world entire.’”
This concept would also come into play in his own life, which changed radically at the age of 51. After a serious bicycle accident, he awoke paralyzed below the chest. He describes learning to be as independent as possible after the accident, getting around using a wheelchair and an adaptive car. He wanted something good to come out of his accident, to repair the world in his own way, so he decided to use his business skills to work to increase funding for medical research.
“Someone said to me at the time, ‘Everything happens for a purpose,’” he writes, “and although I didn’t subscribe to that fatalistic view, it did strike me that I could begin to repair myself by working to ‘repair the world.’ I became convinced that I could turn my accident into something positive in terms of curing diseases and disorders, not just my own spinal cord injury (SCI), but possibly the whole range of illnesses and injuries that millions of Americans were suffering with.”
Ullian says that being in the wheelchair cast him as an outsider of another kind, but that he was able to make this difference work to his advantage through his medical research advocacy work. He began testifying at congressional hearings and working with politicians like Bob Dole and Ted Kennedy. He organized research-related educational roundtables on Capitol Hill and worked with medical schools, health economists, and patient advocacy groups to increase the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget
After Christopher Reeve’s spinal cord injury in 1995, Ullian knew that the actor could be a huge influence. He tracked Reeve down and they became friends, working together on advocacy issues until then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich agreed to double the NIH research budget in eight years. Ultimately, Congress voted to double it within five years. This meant many new therapies for a wide range of diseases and disorders.
In 2020, Ullian sees more and more evidence that we can work together to repair the world. “We cannot fail to learn something from this 21st-century plague as we witness on a daily basis, people of every race, color, and religion coming together to help, risking their lives to save others, stepping up to heal the suffering world,” he writes. “Tikkun Olam, made visible on our computer screens and television sets every day.”
About the author
Arthur D. Ullian is a founding partner of the Boston Land Company, a real estate development firm. In 1991, he became paralyzed following a bicycling accident, and has since used his business and entrepreneurial skills to advocate for increased federal funding of biomedical research. His contributions in this area include testimony at numerous congressional hearings and organizing research-related educational forums and roundtables on Capitol Hill. Ullian served as president of the National Council on Spinal Cord Injury, chairman of the Task Force on Science, Healthcare & the Economy, a member of the Advisory Council to the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Harvard University Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. He has received numerous awards and honors for his service, and has co-authored articles in several national and international peer-reviewed journals. He is married to Dora with one son Ben, his wife Anne-Marie, and two grandchildren, Otis and Seraphina.
Advance Praise for MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN…AND ME
“Arthur D. Ullian has written a powerful, moving and charming book about his life-long struggle as a Jew in a deeply gentile world. He has also written an informed and insightful study of Christianity and its fraught relationship with Jews and Judaism over the past 1700 years. The son of highly assimilated Jews who came of age in the 1950s rather than the 1960s, his experience may seem surprising to the generation raised after Vatican II and the rise of the Black Civil Rights and women’s movements, in a world where ethnic identity was more accepted, and more respected, where the WASP establishment somewhat less dominant. There are many parts to this wonderful work, not the least of which is how he courageously grappled with paralysis, became a leading advocate for increasing federal funding for the National Institutes of Health for every disease group, leaving his business as a real estate developer, to pursue an important cause, and found his path to a Jewish life of pride, value and joy.
“The work offers a deeply personal insight into a very special man in the world that shaped him. Not the least of its virtues is that the book also provides an accessible history of Christian antisemitism, with all of its social and economic repercussions, which sends an important message in an age of rising tribalism and hatred.”
––Michael Berenbaum, Rabbi and American Jewish University professor. He served as Deputy Director of the President's commission on the Holocaust, Executive Editor of Encyclopedia Judaica, Project Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and President & Chief Executive Officer of the USC Shoah Foundation: The Institute for Visual History and Education (founded by Steven Spielberg).
“I found myself mesmerized by this bold memoir, which details both the cultural and physical challenges experienced by Arthur Ullian from boyhood to maturity, and his life-long effort to make sense of two thousand years of Christian animosity toward Jews. In his tender and revealing descriptions of prep school, marriage, fatherhood, mid-life paralysis, and advocacy for medical research, I found a passionate soul inviting us to ‘walk in his shoes’ as he journeys through the painful and often horrific past of antisemitism, and still imagines a future of greater fellowship and justice. Throughout the book, he pays tribute to caring friends, classmates and colleagues who have lived their lives in accordance with the Christian commandment to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ and the traditional Jewish obligation to ‘heal the world.’”
–– Margot Stern Strom, Past President of the Board and Executive Director of Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior. In 2014 she assumed the title of President Emerita and Senior Scholar.
“When I discuss these times in my classes, Jewish students have no memory of this history and find it hard to even imagine. Arthur Ullian brings those times to life with his painfully honest, sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassing, but always engaging memoir.”
––From the foreword by Barry Shrage, Professor of the Practice, Hornstein Jewish Leadership Program, Brandeis University and President, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, 1987-2018
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