Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Sunday morning minyan was usually well attended. For one thing, it was held an hour and a half later than on weekdays—nine instead of seven-thirty— for another, it was followed by a meeting of the board of directors at ten, so most of them came early and participated in the twenty-minute service

.Although Malcolm Selzer rarely attended the weekday minyan— he was already in the warehouse at seven-thirty— he never missed the one on Sunday, he was one of the handful with a traditional upbringing who knew the liturgy and often was asked to lead the prayers. But this Sunday he did not show up. His absence did not pass unnoticed.

Although the name was reported variously as Abner Seldar, Adam Sellers, and Aaron Selger, no one in Barnard's Crossing, certainly no one in the Jewish community, had any doubt that the person referred to in the newspaper accounts of the bombing was Malcolm Selzer's boy, Abner, and the somewhat larger attendance at the minyan that Sunday was no doubt due in part to the quite human desire for more information.

The late Saturday night broadcast and the Sunday papers had provided a somewhat fuller account: that the dean. Millicent Hanbury, had met with a student delegation to discuss student grievances; that she had left the meeting— reason not given; that shortly afterward the committee of five had left her office and the building; that less than five minutes later the bomb had gone off, the district attorney's office had issued a statement saying it was planning to question each of the students

As the men were folding up their prayer shawls. Dr. Malitz, one of the older men, remarked, "He was too embarrassed to come. I suppose."Dr. Greenwood, a dentist like Malitz, shook his head. "Why does it have to be a Jewish boy?"

"What do you mean a Jewish boy?" said Norman Phillips indignantly. "There were five of them and the Selzer kid was the only one who was Jewish, and what's being Jewish got to do with it? He's an American, isn't he? He got the same rights as anybody else, hasn't he?"

Dr. Malitz came to the defense of his fellow dentist, he was a periodontist and Greenwood sent him patients. "You see in the papers that someone with a Jewish name has made some scientific discovery — you know, has done something good— you feel kind of proud it was one of ours, don't you? We all do. So naturally when one of us sees something not so nice, we feel—"

"You feel guilty. Right? Well, I don't; said Phillips stoutly. "I feel that as an American citizen I got just as much rights as any other citizen, and that means I'm no more responsible for what someone named Cohen or Levy does than I am for someone named Cabot or Lodge. Naturally, I'm sorry for Mai Selzer, but you know, in a way he was asking for it."

Greenwood stared. "What kind of crack is that? What father deserves to see his son in trouble?"

"Well look, my kid goes to college. Rensselaer Polytech. Doc Malitz here has a boy in college. I don't know about your boy, Doc, but I know my kid acts up a little now and then, he's kid, see. Last year, for example, they had a riot at his school, the cops turn up, reporters, the works. My kid says he was just looking on, you know, watching the fun, maybe he was; maybe he wasn't. I'm not one of those fathers that thinks their kid can't do no wrong, anyway, he gets pinched and he spends the night in jail and he has to pay a fine, he? Me. I had to pay it."

"So?"

"So my point is, did I go around bragging how my kid was a big student leader?"

"So you brag about something else that your boy did, maybe that he got into Rensselaer."

"I just mentioned that because—"

"Makes no difference." said Greenwood. "Fathers brag about their children. I'm sure Malcolm Selzer would rather brag that his boy was getting high marks and scholarships."

Dr. Malitz had a sudden thought. "How do we even know the Selzer boy had anything to do with the bombing? All the paper said was he was one of those at the meeting and the D.A, was planning to question him."

"When the D.A, questions somebody, like as not he ends up in jail." said Phillips. "What I'd like to know,” he went on. "is what the rabbi knows about it, he teaches there. I notice he didn't come today, either."

"He's the guest speaker at the men's bible study class at the Lynn Methodist church this morning." said Dr. Malitz. "There was a notice in the Lynn paper."

"Just our luck." said Phillips disgustedly. "So that means they'll get the inside dope, not us."