Katz unpinned the star from her blouse.
“Would you like to wear mine?”
Catherine Quaid pinned it to her jacket. “I would be proud to do so. Honored. Thank you so much.”
They sat quietly for another few minutes. Shapiro turned to the First Lady and asked, “Do you know about the king of Denmark?”
The surprise on the First Lady’s face indicated she had no idea what he was talking about. He continued.
“There is some doubt about whether this story is true or not,” Shapiro said. “But Leon Uris put it in his book Exodus, so that’s as good as being true.
“Anyway, the story goes that when the Germans occupied Denmark, the Danish king, King Christian, rode his horse every day through the streets of Copenhagen, to show that he was still around. The Germans ordered all Danish Jews to wear these same stars, like that one you’re wearing. The day after the Germans ordered all the Danish Jews to wear this yellow star, the king himself had one pinned to his arm as he rode through the city. After that, the Germans rescinded their order.
“By the way, did you know that the Danish people managed to smuggle just about every Jew in Denmark out of the country into Sweden?”
“I suppose I am as close as this country has to a queen,” she said softly. “Mr. Shapiro, I will be so proud to wear this star when I speak.”
Sarah Goldberg turned to Catherine Quaid. “We… we all know what your husband has been doing—to Jews, about Jews,” she said hesitantly. “We want you to know how much we appreciate what you are doing right now.”
“Thank you. You know, when I am faced with a decision, I ask myself what is the right thing to do,” she said softly. “And then I do it, always.”
She finally managed a broad smile.
“Then I pay the price.”
Shapiro nodded.
The speaker was just finishing. The next speaker was introduced as the chief rabbi of an Orthodox synagogue in Skokie, Illinois. Shapiro leaned across Goldberg to whisper to the First Lady.
“American Nazis marched in Skokie when I was in law school,” he said. “The ACLU represented their right to do so. I’ve represented Nazis’free speech rights myself. Nazi rights somehow seem different now, though.”
The speaker was a fragile, elderly man, assisted to the microphone by a young woman. She pulled a chair next to the microphone. “Papa, sit while you talk,” she said softly.
“Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik,” the old man barked at her. Rabbi Garfinkle, who was at the microphone to introduce the man, smiled.
“He told his daughter to stop speaking nonsense,” Rabbi Garfinkle said. “And you know what, I have a feeling he’s going to say the same thing to President Quaid.” The crowd cheered. He placed his arm on the old man’s shoulder and drew him close.
“I met Rabbi Yehuda Cohane when I was a rabbinical student. He was my teacher. He still is. I can honestly say that I have never encountered a sharper mind or a person who is less afraid to speak what is on that mind.”
Rabbi Cohane braced both hands on the wooden speaker’s stand. He stood straight as his twisted back allowed. His daughter and Rabbi Garfinkle stepped back, leaving the elderly man alone at the microphone.
“I listened to President Quaid’s talk last night,” he said in a voice filled with more strength than his body appeared to possess. “When he was finished, my daughter turned off the television. She was crying. ‘Poppa,’she said, ‘why do they do this to the Jews?’
“I didn’t know how to answer her last night. But I thought about her question all night. That sharp mind they say I have, you know. Sometimes it’s so sharp I cut myself with my own thoughts.” He laughed at his joke.
“I thought and thought. I thought about Jewish history. I thought about American politics. Most of all, I thought about God. And I came to a conclusion I want to share with you today. They do this to the Jews, time after time throughout our long history, a history longer than most any other people on the plane. They do this to us because we let them do it to us. We let them. Jews let them do this to us. We let them because we don’t fight back.”
He leaned closer to the microphone, his lips inches from it, and whispered in a voice magnified by the giant speakers.
“And they think we won’t fight back this time.”
The old man paused, collecting more strength. He spoke again in a loud, full voice, gaining volume as he spoke.
“They’re wrong. Sometimes we do fight back. Let me read you something.” The old man took a sheet of paper from his pocket. He stared at it for a moment, then pushed it aside and recited slowly from memory.
“It is essential in the present state of world affairs that we prove to the world that our right to a Jewish State is not only an historical and human right but that we are ready and prepared to back it with military force,” he said. “Those are old words, not new ones. They are from the June 1939 Declaration of Principles of the IZL, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Irgun, the Jewish Freedom Fighters; some people called them terrorists. They liberated the Land of Israel from British rule.
“The American president talks about terrorism as if when our people are being murdered, are being herded into concentration camps by their blood enemies, when the land that God himself, blessed be his name, gave to our people is taken from us, when our own country, our America, turns its back on our people, as if terrorism is something to be ashamed of rather than something to be proud of.
“When we celebrate Chanukah, when we tell the story of how Judah Maccabee drove the Roman legions from Israel, we celebrate the victory of terrorism. Jewish terrorism. Were the Jewish heroes who drove the British from Israel, who bombed hotels and police stations, were they terrorists? Of course they were. That didn’t stop us from electing them our prime ministers, did it?”
He paused. His daughter walked up and whispered in his ear, but the old man shook his head violently and gestured for her to sit.
“When I finally dozed off last night, I slept as soundly as I have in years. And when I woke this morning, it was with a realization. I realized that while I slept, my mind kept thinking. Thinking about terrorism. And I was stunned at what I had realized the instant I awoke. In my sleep I realized who the greatest terrorist of all is. I lay in my bed and my body shook with the power of that understanding. Shook because I knew I would be coming here to address the largest gathering of Jewish people in the history of this nation at the time of the greatest threat to American Jews. I shook because of the powerful and wonderful and terrible message I knew God gave me to deliver today, the message I will deliver to you today; in fact, not just to you but also, also to Mr. President Lawrence Quaid.
“Here is the message I come to deliver. My message is about terrorism. My message is about the greatest terrorist of them all—God, the Lord. He is the greatest terrorist of all time. Let me recite some of his acts of terror when his people were in the most danger. I’ll recite them as we do every year at Passover. We dip our finger in the cup of wine and remove one drop for every act of terror.”
The rabbi held up an imaginary wine glass with his left hand. He dipped his right forefinger repeatedly into this glass, shaking off an imaginary drop of wine, repeating the Passover Seder ritual.
“He turned their drinking water to blood.” Dip, shake. “He infested their land with frogs.” Dip, shake. “Then lice, then flies. Their livestock suddenly dropped dead. Then boils broke out on the people’s skin.” Dip, shake. Dip, shake. Dip, shake. Dip, shake.