That’s what Jews in Eastern Europe called America — der goldeneh medineh, the golden land. And they were right, not only about the opportunities afforded them here but about the extraordinary freedom and emotional generosity America would give them and, by extension, their descendants.

I’m thinking a lot about this today because of the extraordinary outpouring that followed my post yesterday in which I recounted my exchange with a self-described “evangelical” that suddenly turned wildly anti-Semitic and personally threatening. I have since received at least 100 e-mails from people across the country — evangelical Christians, Catholics, all manner of non-Jews — expressing their outrage at the sentiments expressed, concern for my safety and that of my family, and a genuine sense of surprise that such things can and are said in this day and age.

Several people even took it upon themselves to apologize on behalf of evangelical Christians, and I just wanted to say to them that I am not only profoundly grateful for their kind thoughts but am profoundly aware that American Jewry as a whole is blessed to have such friends in them. Like evangelical Christians everywhere, they need apologize to no one for their large-heartedness and the sincerity of their deep faith, or for the fact that a single sick person chose to clothe himself in their garb to work mischief.