Arts Editor

Ditch the phrase Judeo-Christian and adopt Abrahamic.

That's the way to move toward peace in the Middle East, says Daniel Spiro, whose novel Moses the Heretic (Aegis Press) was published last month.

Although there is a cancer in Islam called Islamic terrorism, the religion also contains elements that are "uniquely beautiful," and we Jews need to seek them out.

"Most of us viscerally appreciate Christian ethics as a useful add-on to the foundation of Jewish ethics," says the Bethesda resident. "But when we think about Islam, most of us don't appreciate what is profoundly beautiful. We basically see Islam as a violent outgrowth of monotheism. ...

"I want that changed."

For example, Jewish philosophy excelled during the first half of the last millennium, explains Spiro, a member of the nondenominational Shirat HaNefesh synagogue in Chevy Chase, due to the proximity of Jewish thinkers to their Muslim counterparts.

In addition, while the author believes the Jewish vision of God is a "purer form" than that of Christianity, the Muslim approach is the purest of the three because it stresses the Almighty's greatness rather than his similarity to us.

"To borrow from another religion, if we want peace in Israel we need to generate good karma," the author says. "If we embrace what is beautiful in Islam and Muslims begin to embrace what is beautiful in Judaism, we can begin to produce a situation that might lead to peace.

But, he stresses, we can't "lower our shields" against Islam-inspired terrorism.

Rabbi Moses Levine, the protagonist in Moses the Heretic, shares those beliefs.

Levine "personifies a certain approach to Jewish ideals while being willing to buck conventional wisdom about God, Zionism and Jewish survival," says Spiro.

Levine, who sees himself as a modern-day prophet, is passionate about peace, truth and justice. But, the author continues, "when I think about Judaism, I think about an earth-based religion. We [Jews] don't sit around thinking about the next life, we are worried about perfecting this world."

In that vein, Spiro says he wanted to write a book about a down-to-earth prophet who had foibles, but represented the highest ideals of the Jewish people.

Then, he thought about his Christian friends who wear bracelets proclaiming WWJD (what would Jesus do?). Why not write a book, he thought, based on WWMD (what would Moses do?).

"My Moses Levine is a cross between Moses and the other prophets," he says. "He is a muckraker."

Given Spiro's origins, the topic seems an unlikely one. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1960, he grew up in Bethesda in a home in which he says he received an unconventional Jewish upbringing.

After attending a nontraditional Jewish Sunday school that met at Stone Ridge Catholic School in Bethesda and having a bar mitzvah ceremony at home, he became "a staunch atheist but identified as a Jew." His mother taught him that if you believe in God, "you're an idiot," he recalls.

He since has found a concept of God to which he can relate through the writings of 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who was excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish community for his heretical ideas. (Spiro is coordinator of the Washington Spinoza Society.) Spinoza's philosophy was that God did not create the world from the outside in accordance with his will; rather, the entire universe is in God and an expression of God's nature.

The author, who graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, received a bachelor's from Stanford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1984. (He also received a master's in teaching from American University in 1990.)

Spiro has spent the bulk of his career as a government attorney, for the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department where he currently works.

Although he is proud of "having an impact" as a federal attorney -- especially his work on hospital fraud in the Medicare program and in going after fraudulent telemarketers -- he says he would chuck law in favor of writing "in a heartbeat" were it financially feasible.

His first novel was The Creed Room (2006).

Spiro was not surprised when a reporter slammed his rabbi protagonist for proclaiming himself to be a Zionist in the book and then adopting the arguments of those who deny the Jewish state's legitimacy by stating that Israel was built as a result of the Holocaust, without mentioning the Jewish people's biblical connection to the land -- the essence of Zionism.

He wrote the book to provoke discussion, the author says, and he is sure that parts of the book will appall many people.

"I wrote it to provoke ideas, not to brainwash," he says.