71 - Washington, D.C.
It was inevitable that the rally would receive the title of the Million Jew March in the press, despite a futile initial attempt by the organizers to at least call it the Million Mensch March. The march was not so much organized or planned as it was simply developed, starting with the concept - not much different from the great civil rights marches of an earlier era - of assembling the masses to demonstrate to the leaders their concern. It began with an announcement from Rabbi Simon Garfinkle of Congregation Beth Shalom, one of the rare Jewish mega-synagogues, with a congregation of more than 10,000, from northern New Jersey, that he would bring his entire congregation to the capital to pray for intervention in the Middle East.
It grew organically from that seed. Other rabbis pledged to join Rabbi Garfinkle. Word about the march spread across the Internet with the instantaneous speed of a new joke or cartoon, emailed from brother to sister to mother to uncle to business partner to college professor to office mates until the question, “are you going?” reached nearly every person in the country who considered themselves to be Jewish.
There was so little else Jews could do by then, no fund raising drives to contribute to, no way of getting relief supplies to the dreaded camps the Arab armies created, no place to send blankets or food or even checks. Going to Washington was a thing that could be done by Jews, perhaps one of the only ways to demonstrate their indignation, their outright disgust at the United States for abandoning its commitment to Israel and tolerating what was being done in the Middle East.
As the momentum for the march built in the week leading up to what was planned as a two-day event, nobody knew how many people to expect. A million marchers was thought to be a conservative prediction.
Even before the first marcher arrived in the District of Columbia, the event had achieved one of its goals. Politicians, from the President himself, to Congressmen, Senators, cabinet members, even Supreme Court justices were forced to search their consciences and choose sides; were they with the marchers, prepared to be photographed in the crowd, or even on the podium, or were they going to be conspicuously absent. Invitations to join the marchers were widely distributed.
The response was as disappointing as it was predictable. Siding with the marchers meant siding with the people who sank the two Coast Guard boats, the people who killed ten Coast Guard men and women, the people who murdered two FBI agents, the people, many thought, who caused the massacres in the two shopping malls. Even worse, siding with the marchers meant siding with those responsible for the hundred thousand deaths in Damascus.
Siding with the marchers meant sending young American men and women into another Iraq to be shot at and blown up by both sides in a struggle in which they had no role to play except as targets.
Worst of all, siding with the marchers meant asking for five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, or no gasoline at all, perhaps the greatest political sacrilege of all.
The twenty-two Jewish members of Congress, to a man and woman, agreed to appear. Two Senators, one from New York, one from California, said they would be there, but they preferred not to speak. One former Secretary of Defense said yes, but the gossip was that his Jewish wife left him no choice since she would be attending regardless of whether he did or not.
The rest of Washington’s elite found reasons to be out of the city or otherwise committed that weekend.
The ad hoc organizing committee struggled to find enough prominent speakers to fill two days, especially speakers who could demonstrate that support for intervention in Israel went beyond Jewish voters. The organizers were disappointed that year after year of Jewish political contributions, millions upon millions of dollars, seemed to have been forgotten. They were equally disappointed that African-American leaders seemed to have forgotten the thousands of Jews who supported the civil rights struggles, with their money, their time and, as demonstrated by the murders of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi, their lives.
The march was scheduled for Friday and Saturday specifically so it could include what was predicted to be the largest Sabbath service in history.
A large Washington law firm, whose senior partners were virtually all Jewish, donated office space for the March organizers. On Wednesday of March week, volunteers struggled to deal with the constantly ringing office telephones. A Wesleyan University junior who volunteered to arrive early and work the phones did not recognize a caller’s name.
“This is Catherine Quaid,” the caller said. “I would like to speak to whoever is in charge of the speakers who will address the march.”
“Please hold,” the young woman said. She answered three other calls and was about to run to the coffee machine when she noticed the light still blinking on her phone. She pressed the button for that line.
“I think that Rabbi Garfinkle is handling all the speakers himself,” the volunteer said. “He is so very busy right now I am sure he could not speak with you. Could you leave a phone number, or, even better, an email address and we will get in touch with you. I know they are sending out thank you’s already.”
The woman caller laughed. “So much for international fame,” she said. “Maybe if Rabbi Garfinkle can’t speak with me, somebody else, somebody in authority, can spare a minute.”
“I’m so sorry,” the volunteer answered, looking around at what seemed to be complete pandemonium, with no evidence of direction, control or supervision. “I don’t think there is anybody who could speak with you. I’m so busy myself. I really have to go now.”
“Wait, don’t hang up,” the caller said. She took a deep breath, audible over the telephone. “What’s your name, dear?”
“Nicole.”
“OK, Nicole. Let’s try it this way. Would you interrupt whoever is sitting right next to you. Who is it, who is sitting next to you, Nicole?”
“On which side?”
“On either side,” the woman was becoming exasperated. “I don’t care which side.”
“Uh, I think his name is Dawson, he’s at the same table directly across from me. Is that all right?” the young woman asked.
“Yes, across from you is just fine,” the caller said, speaking slowly. “Get Dawson’s attention, hang up his phone or something, anything. Now, ask Dawson if he thinks Rabbi Garfinkle would want to speak to President Quaid’s wife, that’s President Lawrence Quaid, you know who he is, don’t you Nicole?”
“Please don’t get snippy with me,” Nicole said. “I am so over my head with this job.” She paused. “Wait a minute. Are you like the President’s wife, the, the, what do they call you, I’m drawing a blank.”
“The First Lady,” Catherine Quaid said.
“Yeah, wow, you’re the First Lady, and you want to speak at the March. The First Lady. I’ll find Rabbi Garfinkle myself, right now. Man, is he going to like this,” the girl’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Hold on, don’t hang up. I’ll get somebody to talk to you. The First Lady.”
“I’ll hold on, Nicole. Thank you. And, Nicole, I appreciate what you are doing there, what you are all doing. You are doing a good thing Nicole, a mitzvah. You know what a mitzvah is, don’t you Nicole?”
“Mrs. Quaid,” the girl said, “I might not have recognized your name, but, look, its not like I wasn’t bat mitzvahed myself, you know.”
“That’s right, dear,” Catherine Quaid said, “Now find somebody I can speak with.”
“I’m on my way,” Nicole said. She paused for a moment, thinking. “Uh, one last thing, Mrs. Quaid. Does your husband know what you plan on doing, I mean, speaking at the March and all?”
“Nicole, dear,” the First Lady answered, “I think we’ll just let that be a little surprise for the President. We don’t want any unanticipated mechanical problems to pop up at the last minute, do we?”