Who am I? That’s a deeper question than it may seem on the surface. There is a moment in the Broadway musical production, Les Miserables, when the main character, Jean Valjean, realizes that he can no longer continue running from his past. Years earlier, after realizing it was impossible to survive in 18^th-century France with the label of Convict #24601, he jumped his parole and created a new identity.

Fast-forward many years to a reinvented Jean Valjean, now a respectable, affluent citizen facing a moral crisis. The police have mistaken an innocent man for Valjean. This poor soul has been arrested and is now facing the penalty for all of Valjean’s earlier crimes. In this dramatic moment, the protagonist’s internal struggle booms in a reverberating tenor as he surrenders to the realization that he cannot continue the charade of his two lives. “Who am I?” the remade Valjean admits: “2-4-6-0-1!”

That was his moment of self-integration, when the two seemingly contradictory parts of his being merged into one. The respectable citizen—the mayor and factory owner—was also the escaped convict.

Who am I? As we begin this newsletter, that’s a good starting question. There are many directions I could go in answering. I am a native New Yorker, born in Syracuse and reared in Fairport. I am a graduate of Syracuse University, earning a BFA in film drama. I am the grateful husband of Lynn and the proud father of Caleb, Jacob, Jonah, and Noah. I am the author of five nonfiction books and thirteen novels (with one more, The Persian Gamble, on its way). As a Jew, I am a resident of Jerusalem, having made Aliyah (moved to Israel) in 2014. I am the founder and chairman of The Joshua Fund. All those particulars will inform you about me, but they won’t tell you who I am.

My 24601 integration moment came during the winter of my junior year of high school. At that point in my life, I was called by God to merge two seemingly contradictory identities. My first identity is a Jew, the grandson and great-grandson of Orthodox Jewish immigrants to America who had fled the bloody Russian pogroms at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though my father had become disillusioned with Judaism and had even married a Gentile woman (my mother), there was no doubt as to my heritage. It would be hard to have a last name like Rosenberg and not have a connection to my Jewish ancestors.

But on that chilly day in upstate New York, everything changed. I had watched Jesus Christ get hold of my mother and then my father, and I saw the fear and anxiety and bitterness in their lives disappear to be replaced by gentleness, kindness, and joy. In the instant that I gave my life to Christ and accepted His free gift of salvation, I was given a new identity. Instead of pairing respectable citizen and convict, I was uniting Jewish and Christian—two identities that many would say cannot exist in one space. Yet here I am today, fiercely proud of both identities with which God has blessed me—Jewish by birth, Christian by rebirth.

Who am I? I’m Joel C. Rosenberg, a Jewish follower of Jesus, who has been blessed by God with the opportunity to serve Him through writing and speaking and serving others. Thank you for reading these stories that God has given to me and for trusting me to communicate important information about events around the world—particularly in the Middle East. I am confident that God will use this newsletter to speak His truth in both powerful and entertaining ways.