A few months ago, on an early Friday afternoon, someone broke into my home office in Federal Hill. The intruder scaled a fence, climbed five flights of stairs outside, shimmied along the roof and walked the gutter, like a trapeze artist. Then he pushed open my office window and punched out my screen. I was shaken, but OK.

But it scared me. So when I was planning my trip to Israel, friends of all religions asked, “Aren?t you afraid to go to Israel? Is it safe? Will you be OK?”