Maybe he’d been away too long. Perhaps it was time to leave the memories behind and go back to Coney Island

Prologue

Friday, January 21, 1961

Yeruchum Freed had lost this battle.

He’d tried. Tried so hard. Spoke about bitul zeman, the waste of time, the nonsense and the silliness and the lack of modesty. But somehow, some way, the boarders of the Freed Hotel had, for once, prevailed, and an RCA Victor wooden console television set was given pride of place in the parlor.

Today, on this day of days, the boarders huddled around the television set, listening to the newscaster speaking about the historic events that had led to this moment, eagerly waiting to hear the clipped, odd-sounding Bostonian tones of their new president.

Snow had fallen the night before in the nation’s capital and a chill wind was blowing. Though many of the women seated on the portico in front of the Capitol building were wrapped in their minks, the president-elect and those standing next to him were bareheaded and dressed only in suits and ties.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans watching the inauguration in person on Washington’s snow-covered streets had shivered their way through an interminable speech by a cardinal. Famed poet Robert Frost then recited a poem. And, finally, it was time for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, to take his oath of office.

“I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States... So help me G-d.”

The years had been kind to Yeruchum Freed, owner of Coney Island’s Freed Hotel. Now in his mid-sixties, his beard and hair were white, but his back was straight and his ebony eyes still sharp. Not so the hotel itself: age had faded the curtains, and while the parlor was immaculate, the chairs were scratched and the springs of the sofa creaked and sagged.

Though he would never step into the parlor when the boarders were watching the shtissim on that terrible, terrible screen, he decided to make a rare exception that Friday afternoon. After all, there was a special brachah one made when seeing a king, and though a president did not fall into the category of malchus, still, he was arguably the most powerful leader in the world....

And so, standing quietly and unobtrusively in the doorway, he saw the new president lift up his right hand and repeat the words of the chief justice — and on the wooden podium between them, a book.

Yeruchum had seen a picture of that book in yesterday’s Daily News. It was the President’s family Bible, with its brown cover and the sign of his religion proudly displayed, embossed on the leather cover.

The sign that had brought torture and murder and forced conversion to generations of Yeruchum’s people.

Abruptly, Yeruchum turned away and left the room.