In 1992 I traveled to Zagreb to help displaced persons fleeing Bosnia and Herzegovina. Years later, I visited Sarajevo and pondered the fragility of freedom.

Nearly 150 years ago, the Jewish community in Croatia’s capital city began to worship in a newly constructed temple. It was later demolished.

A night spent in a Croatian art museum—a cultural-exchange project I’d repressed agreeing to—yielded clarifying reminders of the ethnic tensions in both the land I was visiting and the one I call home