The Outsider by Howard Fast

take David aside and inquire why Buckingham was there.
    â€œI have my reasons,” David said.
    â€œYou don’t want to share them?”
    â€œI will, later.”
    â€œThat’s a little arrogant, Rabbi. I would think that, in a matter like this, it ought to be kept among our people.”
    â€œAlan’s a member of the congregation. That makes him our people.” And after calling the meeting to order, David said to them, “You’ve all had the opportunity to look at the swastikas, and I asked Jack to get a few of us together this evening so that we could decide what to do about it. You see Alan Buckingham, who’s not a member of the board and who in a literal sense is not Jewish, although his family does belong to the congregation. Coming out of this ghastly war that we’ve all lived through, we named our congregation Shalom. We could hardly have named it anything else, and I’d like us to keep that in mind when we talk tonight. We’re all angry, but we have a problem that we can’t solve with anger. I want to point out something else, which touches on Alan Buckingham’s presence. The swastikas were painted not only on a synagogue, but on a church, and not on any church, but on a New England Congregational church, one of a group of ancient churches that defined so much of what this country would be. And whether or not whoever did this intended it, a church was desecrated as much as a synagogue.”
    â€œI don’t agree with that,” Osner said. “The bastards who did the job were desecrating a synagogue, not a church.”
    â€œStill and all,” Frome said, “the rabbi has a point. The building was a church, and even though we hold services there, it remains a church in a manner of speaking. Certainly, when we sell it to the Unitarians, it will become a church again — if they call it a church?”
    â€œThey do.”
    â€œI don’t know what the devil we’re doing, meeting about this,” Osner said. “This kind of an outrage against Jews is as old as time. To hell with it! We paint over it and forget about it.”
    â€œI don’t think we can forget about it,” Mel Klein said slowly. “We live here. It’s too close to the Holocaust.”
    The old man, Oscar Denton, said, “When we moved in here, twenty years ago, we were the first Jewish family to settle in Leighton Ridge. At first, it never occurred to them. Maybe the thought was impossible up here in the year nineteen twenty-eight. And since I was a builder and worked alongside my men, maybe it didn’t occur to them because it conflicted with their concept of what a Jew should be. So they were pretty nice to us until they found out, and then they made life pretty rotten for my kids and uncomfortable for us. But nothing overt. They don’t burn crosses on the Ridge, and nothing like this business of the swastikas ever happened. I would not paint over them. I would make a point of them. I would call in the newspapers from Danbury and from New Haven and from Hartford too, and the New York Times, yes, absolutely. Let them take pictures so people won’t get smug and say it can’t happen here.”
    â€œFor God’s sake,” Joe Hurtz exclaimed, “why are we making this kind of a fuss over the actions of some stupid kids? Paint it over and forget about it. Kids see things. They imitate. So what?”
    â€œNo,” Mel Klein muttered. “No —no way.”
    â€œI’d like to hear from Alan,” David said.
    â€œI’ve been listening,” Alan said, “and of course I saw the swastikas. I’m not Jewish, but I’m married to a Jewish lady whom I love dearly and I have two Jewish kids. It puts me kind of close to the problem, but not as close as you are. At the same time, I can’t help being astonished by the calm manner in which you discuss this. I was silent but raging inside myself. Damnit,