I represent a real-estate developer in Florida. Recently an employee of one of the developer’s commercial tenants confided to me that he overheard an administrator at his company tell another employee that she had just read a book called ‘‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’’ and thought it contained excellent points. The person with whom she was speaking, a department manager, responded that it was a great book and that it must be legitimate because it was endorsed by Henry Ford. I’m uncomfortable that this type of conversation might reflect a negative aspect of our tenant’s company culture. I’m tempted to raise this with the general counsel of the company, with whom I negotiated the lease — but for what purpose? I can’t betray the confidence, so what am I trying to accomplish? I can’t get over that employees working in a respected chain could really accept any premise in that anti-Semitic rant. I thought the reach of the book was limited to uneducated neo-Nazis, but these are educated people in positions of authority. Something just feels wrong here, and I would appreciate some guidance on where to go with this. NAME WITHHELD

Amy Bloom: I wish that this never happened, or only in tiny corners of America, but I suspect that is not the case. Did the person say to you that you absolutely could not share this with anybody? That’s one kind of confidence, but often we use the word more loosely, to mean ‘‘somebody passed this information to me in a friendly manner,’’ which does not bind you in any way. Even if the person confided in you and swore you to secrecy, which is not at all clear to me from this letter, I would also want to know at what level these people work, the administrator and the department manager.

The other question is: What is your goal here? I assume it’s to alter a business atmosphere that you think encourages anti-Semitism. But you don’t have any authority over the culture of this tenant corporation. If you wish to tell your client, the real-estate developer, what you heard, I think you can do that. If you wish to tell the general counsel what you heard without naming names, I think that’s O.K. too. I would suggest you not give any names, because you didn’t hear it directly — you are passing on something that you have been told. Also, you might want to encourage your pal, the employee who told you about this, to share the information at work with people who have some responsibility for their company’s culture. I think the personal part of your letter is that you’re just stunned anybody except uneducated neo-Nazis would accept something like ‘‘The Protocols of Zion.’’ Something is wrong there and part of what is wrong is that anti-Semitism, although it is not what it was in this country, is not gone.