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Faculty and administrators at Oakland's Holy Names College were surprised to find themselves in the midst of a controversy over a drama workshop production of Arthur Giron's play "Edith Stein."

The play, performed late last month, tells the story of a prominent Jewish intellectual who became a Carmelite nun in 1933 and was killed in Auschwitz nine years later.

Deemed a Catholic martyr, Stein was beatified in 1987 and is scheduled to become a saint on Oct. 11, 1998.

First published in 1988, the play has raised questions in various circles about Stein's identity as a Christian who was murdered because she was born Jewish.

Among the issues that distressed Martin Lampert, an associate professor of psychology at Holy Names, were publicity photos showing Stein appearing "grim and serious" while being crowned Queen Esther in a Purim play and looking fulfilled while taking her vows as a nun.

"The play is disturbing to me as a Jew," said Lampert, who co-led a group discussion about the play at the Catholic college, where he estimates that 10 percent of the faculty is Jewish. "Every time this play is produced, it's produced with a dialogue."

In response to the concerns of Lampert and others, the college promptly scheduled the discussion on the Monday after the play closed. About 20 students and faculty members attended.

The play is a biography of Stein, who was born in Breslau in 1891 to a religious Jewish family. She earned a doctorate in philosophy, a rarity for women at that time, and was hand-picked by noted philosophy professor Edmund Husserl to be his teaching assistant. In 1922 she converted to Catholicism and 11 years later became a Carmelite nun.

Opposing Nazism, she unsuccessfully petitioned the pope to take a public stand against Hitler. In 1938 she was sent to a convent in the Netherlands for her own safety.

When the Catholic bishops of Holland publicly protested the treatment of Jews in 1942, the Nazis retaliated by arresting Jews who had converted to Christianity. Stein was among them.

As portrayed in the play, Stein never disavowed her Judaism and insisted that she was a Jew to the end. Today the debate continues as to whether Stein died as a Christian martyr or a victim of anti-Semitism.

At Holy Names, the play took on an added emotional charge. Aldo Bozzini, who is retiring after 25 years of directing the Holy Names drama workshop, selected this play as his last production. It is his tribute to Stein.

After each performance, Bozzini told the audience that in early June he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given three to six months to live. Following his diagnosis, he felt a connection to Stein and began praying to her.

"And I'm still here," he said, as the audience applauded.

Among the production's controversial aspects is its dramatization of a 1984 attempt by Carmelite nuns to establish a convent named for Stein in a building on the grounds of Auschwitz. Five years earlier, the United Nations had designated Auschwitz an international historic site not to be altered. In the building the nuns occupied, the Nazis had once warehoused Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used to kill Jews.

The international Jewish community objected to a convent on the grounds. The convent was eventually moved to a location outside of Auschwitz.

Sister Margaret Campbell, associate professor of religious studies at Holy Names, who co-chaired the discussion with Lampert, agreed that trying to "establish a convent at Auschwitz to pray for all the evil that was done there is inappropriate."

Lampert also took issue with the play's portrayal of Jewish home life, particularly a scene depicting a Purim festival. A Christian boy is chosen to play Haman and the other children are admonished not to spank him too hard because he's not a Jew and doesn't understand. Later this child becomes a Nazi.

"It's playing off the blood libel," said Lampert, referring to the historical anti-Semitic myth that Jews used the blood of Christian children in religious rituals. "Purim is very festive." In the play, "it didn't feel quite right. None of the spirituality of Judaism was portrayed. For Edith Stein to find it, she had to convert."

He also questioned the play's portrayal of Jewish women as pushy and overbearing.

Beth Hoenninger, Holy Names' development director, agreed.

"If this is your only experience with Judaism, you will be very, very confused," she said.

Lampert, who did not know who Stein was when he first saw the publicity photos, felt disturbed by the juxtaposition of the grim Esther and the beatific nun.

"The pictures sent a certain feeling through me," he said. They "could be viewed as: Judaism isn't the way to go but Christianity is."

Tak Sukekane, the college's public relations director, who took the publicity photos, said there is no hidden message behind them. Apologizing for offending anybody unintentionally, he took the photos down as soon as Lampert raised his objection.

Campbell acknowledged that there is a tradition of religious anti-Semitism in Christianity. She traced it back to the Christian interpretation of the Jewish Bible as predicting the coming of Jesus.

Campbell also asked the obvious question.

"Why is [Edith Stein] being canonized? To repair some damage?" she said. "It's a peculiar way."