Those who are regular readers of this column know I believe there was divine intervention that so many great men with such immense wisdom and bravery were in one place at the time of our country’s formation. I was reminded of that on a recent trip to Washington D.C.
The Beautiful Wife and I had not been to DC for 17 years, since the end of my term as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. It was time for a refresher course due to the long absence even though we had been countless times before. We were invited at the behest of our special friend Keith Sonderling, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor. He runs the day-to-day operations of the department. He and his wonderful staff arranged special tours for us, and we threw in some other requests of our own.
One of the must-see places for us was the Capital Jewish Museum. It opened in 2023 and recently became well known but for all wrong reasons. That is because two wonderful young Jews, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lishinsky, were murdered in front of the building while leaving an event. I posed for a photo wearing my Jewish Lives Matter shirt right next to a make-shift memorial for them. We made sure that whoever thought they could break the Jewish people found out we will never break, we will never bend, and we will always stand strong. The museum itself was is marvelous exhibit featuring the great history of Jews in our capital and our country.
Our first tour was of the Dept. of Labor. The building is named after Francis Perkins, the fourth labor secretary and the first female member of a president’s cabinet. It is massive (1.8 million square feet) as it houses many bureaus and agencies. Mr. Sonderling took us to the rooftop where there is one of the most majestic views of our capital city. What a treat. The building serves to protect the hardworking men and women of this country that make it the model for the world where anybody can rise from a simple laborer to running their own business.
A special experience was touring the Library of Congress. This was a religious experience for me as an avid reader and writer. We had not been there since they built the Thomas Jefferson room. Jefferson sold 6,487 books to form the Library in 1815 after the British burnt the Capital. In 1851, two-thirds of the collection was destroyed in a fire at the library. In 2008, they opened a new library replacing all the lost books except for 250. We got to see the collection’s dedicated area in the Jefferson building of the Library. This is just a small but essential part of the estimated 39 million books held by the library, not including manuscripts, maps, and recordings.
Revisiting the Capitol building was emotional. Standing in the center of this magnificent structure was a chilling reminder of where we were when we were rushed out of the building in the moments after the plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11. This beautiful building, the heart of our government, still stands strong.
The best part of the trip was tours of the White House East and West Wings. We have been fortunate to attend many White House Hanukkah Parties in the East Wing. It was great to see it again updated with more recent presidents. In the main foyer, there is chilling painting of President Trump being moved off the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his bloodied ear and his fist up. It brought me to tears, not because of the person or the hideous act of violence. It is because it symbolizes the strength of our country and what we stand for.
A young teenage girl took a photo standing in front of the painting with her tongue out and her thumb pointing down. That was obviously a different reaction to mine. I walked over to her and said, “The remarkable thing about this country is you can stand here in this place and do that, and no one will stop you or arrest you. That is the greatness of the country in which you are blessed to live.”
That evening we had a private tour of the West Wing. We were first shown the building opposite the White House, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB). There we saw things including a wonderful new display lining the hallways in several directions. It features different photos and stories (via scannable QR codes) about the founding of our country. Thank you to the fabulous people at PragerU for this. It is quite special.
We also saw the Vice-President’s desk. The one Harry Truman used and maintained even after becoming president as he was used to working in the EEOB. Inside the drawer there were signatures of many V-P’s who had worked at the desk that is no longer used.
We then went over to the West Wing. We had to wait for DJT to exit from the Oval Office. He exits out of sight of visitors for obvious reasons. We got to see all the greatness of our country. We even got to see the end table where they found Hunter Biden’s cocaine. The Oval Office is quite magnificent. It was good to see (the bust of) Winston Churchill back in his spot and all the rest of the magnificence of the room. The Press room was special as well. Every news agency’s seat is marked with a name plate in the various aisles, showing a sort of “pecking order.” Then I got to mount the podium and tried out for the position of press secretary. I think I would be particularly good at the job.
Seeing all this made me think about whether those 56 people dared to dream they would create this magnificent country when they gathered 2-1/2 centuries ago. That 250 years later we would be the most important country in the world that has given freedom to more people than any other country ever they would quite appreciate.
It reminds me of what Ronnie (President Reagan) said, “It’s the American vision of creating a new nation of free people, a country that would be a light unto the nations, and a shining city upon a hill.”
Let us keep it that way.