Ben nodded.
“My parents didn’t get to watch me grow up, become a man, start a family, build a law firm. Do you know why?” Ginsburg pointed at a photo on the wall of a formally dressed young couple with two kids—a toddler girl and a baby boy. “They couldn’t get out of Germany. The US State Department didn’t want Jewish immigrants, so my parents were stuck in Hitler’s hell. But my mother’s older sister was living in Baltimore and managed to obtain visas through an adoption agency. My parents put us on a train to Holland, where we boarded a ship to England, another one to Newfoundland, and then to Baltimore. My sister was two, I was less than a year old. Can you comprehend what it took for my parents, who had already lost everything under the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, to give up their last precious possessions? To let go of my sister and me? To send their cute and helpless babies across the Atlantic with total strangers?”
Ben shook his head.
“The bravest people in that whole terrible war were parents like mine, giving up their children to save them. To save us.” He blew his nose. “They died in Auschwitz and we grew up with my aunt and uncle in a tiny apartment above their shoe store on Charles Street. I always felt my parents’ presence, though. They were watching me from above, still do, expecting me to work hard and bring honor to their memory, to the memory of my aunt and uncle, may they rest in peace. They expect me to be good to my sister, to my wife and children, to my colleagues and my clients.”
The secretary returned, carrying an easel. She set it up with a large poster, which had a list of dates down the left side with corresponding entries for each one.
“For me, this case started in ninety-three.” Ginsburg pointed to the top entry. “I had served voluntarily for many years as counsel for an organization called the Gathering of Holocaust Survivors. During one board meeting, someone mentioned rumors about Mormon baptisms of dead Jews. I thought it was a joke, but asked a former classmate, who had moved to Salt Lake City, to search the archives. He found my parents on the list of converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“Your parents?”
“Yes! My father and mother, whom the Germans murdered for being Jews, were baptized by Mormon strangers! Can you think of a worse injustice?”
“No.”
He pointed to the next item on the list. “We sent investigators to Utah and discovered it was a widespread operation, directed from the top, of baptizing Holocaust victims. Lists of names, which Mormons obtained from Nazi records of death camps, were processed at the LDS headquarters in Salt Lake City and assigned in batches of names to Mormon wards, where saints were put to work as proxies in baptismal baths and temple rituals for the dead. It was hard to believe that thousands of otherwise upstanding Americans would engage in such a secret, ghoulish enterprise!”
“It’s odd.”
“I thought our investigators were exaggerating. But when we approached the Mormon leadership with this information, they didn’t deny it. On the contrary, they claimed it was the most charitable act imaginable—saving souls! We held a series of meetings to explain to them that forced baptisms represent pure evil for Jewish people, that our whole history is filled with horrible suffering inflicted on us for our faith, that for seventeen centuries, Christian popes, bishops, kings, and crusaders had tortured, burned, and killed an incalculable number of Jewish victims for our refusal to convert, for our denial of Christ as a true messiah.”
“That must have upset them,” Ben said.
“Not really. They were sympathetic and expressed a genuine desire to prevent any harm to the relationship between Mormons and Jews. They accepted our conditions, and we entered into a detailed settlement agreement in ninety-five. They promised to stop all posthumous baptisms of Jews, other than the deceased family members of current members of the LDS Church. They also agreed to remove all the names of Holocaust victims who had already been baptized posthumously and delete all records of those baptisms.”
“Sounds like a good solution.”
“We were satisfied, but our relief was premature.” Ginsberg pointed to the remaining list of dates. “Researchers kept finding Jewish names—many thousands of names, and not only pre-ninety-five, but new baptisms. The Mormons even baptized Yitzhak Rabin a year after his assassination! Can you imagine? I called the lawyer representing the LDS Church and asked him which of Rabin’s relatives was the Mormon who was eligible to submit the late prime minister’s name for baptism. After repeated inquiries, he called me back with an apology. But then we found out that all other Israeli prime ministers from Ben Gurion onward, including Golda Meir, had been baptized, together with Israel’s presidents, starting with Weitzman. The Mormons baptized the founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, and many other famous Jews, on top of thousands of Jews from lists they continued to collect from all over the world.”
“What did they say to that?”
“Again, the Mormons were apologetic and conciliatory. We entered another settlement agreement in two thousand and one. But they continue to do it, and we continue to protest.”
“Why do you keep going?”
Ginsburg pointed at the photo. “For my parents, I shall not rest. I owe it to them to protect Jewish victims from such abuse.”
“Where is the abuse if you don’t believe in the validity of the ritual?”
“You miss the point. This is not some esoteric religious ceremony the Mormons engage in for their own spiritual fulfillment. Rather, the massive effort to baptize millions of dead people is a calculated marketing tool for the living—long term!”
Ben laughed. “Baptizing the dead as a marketing device? It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s brilliant, that’s what it is. Imagine this scenario: A hundred years from now, a young Mormon missionary meets my great-granddaughter and tells her about Joseph Smith and his golden tablets and the Celestial Kingdom. She rolls her eyes. He pulls out his iPad, version fifty-seven, which will probably have built-in holograms, and shows her that her ancestors—my parents!—were Mormons, together with other famous converts such as Rabbi Herzog, Chagall, and Irving Berlin. How’s that for a marketing pitch to Jewish prospects?”
“Pretty strong,” Ben said, “but my understanding is that Mormons believe that the posthumous baptism is only an offer, an invitation to souls in the afterlife world to join the Mormon faith, accept Joseph Smith’s gospel, and win eternal salvation.”
“True,” Ginsburg said. “That’s what the nice guys in Salt Lake City told us—it’s only an invitation, an act of charity for the dead who couldn’t embrace Smith’s message during their lives, but the souls can refuse, and then nothing happens, right?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“Then why are the dead listed the same way as regular saints?”
“They are?”
“Listen, what the Mormons do is bigger than anyone realizes. They’re collecting records of dead people’s names from every country in the world—Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Russian Orthodox, Armenians, Muslims, Hindus, as wells as war victims, natural disaster lists, and royal tombs, not to forget Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, Joseph Stalin, Mother Teresa, and every pope, rabbi, imam, and ayatollah—all of whom they’ve baptized by proxy into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But the rituals aren’t merely invitations to join. That’s just not true, because LDS Church membership rolls include all the names, over a million Jewish Holocaust victims and tens of millions of others, who are listed as Latter-day Saints. There’s no notation that they never actually accepted the Mormon faith, no distinction between real baptisms of living, willing converts and posthumous baptisms done by proxy for dead people. A hundred years from now, who will remember that my parents, or Albert Einstein, never in their lifetime accepted the Mormon faith? Who will be able to step in and defend my parents—Jewish martyrs!—from being used as marketing props for Mormon missionaries?”
“I can see why you’re dedicated,” Ben said, “but what’s the value of reaching more agreements with the Mormons? They’re obviously shameless liars.”
“Not at all. Mormons do not lie. It’s a sin!”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“Welcome to the club.” Ginsburg sighed. “Let me tell you something that has taken me many years to understand. Mormons are ethical, wholesome, upstanding people. They never lie. They always tell the truth. However, their definition of the truth is different than that of the rest of us.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“What is truth to you?”
“Facts. Reality.”
“Same for me. But for the followers of Joseph Smith, the truth is limited to faith-promoting facts.” Ginsburg pointed at the easel. “Mormons would never lie to grieving Holocaust survivors. Rather, they share with us their faith-promoting version of the truth.”
“How can there be more than one version of the truth?”
“Because under LDS Church doctrine, only faith-promoting facts are classified as true. That’s the only truth to them. Conversely, facts that put the LDS Church in a negative light, facts that deviate from the official version of history, and facts that create doubts about the Mormon faith in any way, are not faith-promoting facts and are therefore untrue. And the blanks left by such facts are filled by Mormons with invented faith-promoting information, which become the truth no matter what actually happened.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“It goes to the root of their young religion. I won’t bore you with details, but the fundamental story of the Book of Mormon—that Native Americans are the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, who came to North America in biblical times and built two competing civilizations that engaged in extensive warfare—this story was proven to be fiction through archeology, genetic testing, and the Native Americans’ own oral history and ancient customs, all of which bear no trace of Israelite roots. It’s complete fiction. That’s why the basic requirement of being a Mormon is the ability to deny historic facts and ignore current science.”
“It’s not very different than other faiths,” Ben said. “There’s not a shred of archeological evidence for the hundreds of thousands of Hebrews who supposedly built the Egyptian pyramids, crossed the Red Sea, and spent forty years in the Sinai Desert.”
“True, but the Mormon story is less than two centuries old, harder to excuse contradictions by the passage of time. Consequently they engage in heavy-handed suppression from the top.” Ginsburg pulled a volume from a shelf. No Man Knows My History – The Life of Joseph Smith, by Fawn Brodie. “This author,” he said, “who also wrote an excellent biography of Thomas Jefferson, was a devout Mormon. She taught at Brigham Young University and spent years researching original documents, including Smith’s own writings and journals, his wife’s papers, and family members’ letters, court records, early LDS Church records, saints’ personal letters and journals, and newspapers of the era. The resulting biography was probably the most meticulously researched work ever produced about the founder of Mormonism. Every fact was grounded in original, authenticated documents, every description and statement checked and rechecked to make sure it was factually correct.”
“And?”
“Fawn Brodie was put on trial by her Mormon Church. Her book, her facts, were not faith-promoting and therefore, by definition, untrue. Her descriptions of Joseph Smith’s treasure-digging trickery, his con artist enterprises, his criminal conviction for fraud, the evolution of his stories about encounters with angels, Jesus, and God, the multiple versions he told about how he had found—and then lost—the golden tablets and how he translated them into the Book of Mormon, his militarism and plans to decimate the US Army and set up a theocracy in America, his obsessive sexual exploits, masqueraded as divinely ordained polygamy to seduce young servant girls as well as the mature wives of his own friends, all these facts were not faith-promoting and therefore false. But when Brodie refused to denounce her own work, her trial ended in conviction, and she was excommunicated.”
“How can they do it?” Ben flipped through the pages of footnotes at the end of the book. “How can they deny reality?”
“Tell that to Fawn Brodie and all the other Mormon historians who were excommunicated or intimidated into submission. In fact, in September of ninety-three, the LDS church excommunicated six scholars, who were also fired from their academic positions. The church followed up with a massive roundup of documents. Bishops were told to collect from their wards’ members all the old family letters, personal journals, and anything else that could contradict the official version of Mormon history or reflect poorly on the early days and thus fail the Mormon test of truth. The LDS authorities locked up all these documents in an underground bunker near Salt Lake City, outside the reach of any scholar—Mormon or Gentile—where they remain today.”
Ben pointed at the easel. “Do you think they’re still baptizing Holocaust victims?”
“No question about it. You can look it up on the International Genealogical Index website. Now it’s all on the Internet. Search for Jewish names and you’ll find plenty. I’ve found relatives there, also Holocaust victims, who were baptized recently. I complain to my Mormon colleagues in Salt Lake City, and they are always friendly, earnest, and forthcoming as they deny the facts or claim some imaginative error.” Ginsburg chuckled. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
“It’s incredible that you continue asking.”
“Eventually we will prevail,” Ginsburg said. “Maybe not in my lifetime, but some day, when Christians and Muslims realize that the Mormons are stealing their parents’ souls. There will be a huge storm, and the LDS leaders will realize that baptisms of the dead aren’t worth it. Their president-prophet will have a divine revelation, and they’ll stop doing it. Same thing happened with the ban on admitting blacks into the Mormon priesthood. It became too costly for the Church, and in seventy-eight, God told the LDS leaders that He had changed his mind about it.”
“What about Joe Morgan?”
“What about him?”
“Is his Mormon faith relevant to his candidacy?”
“It depends. Which party are you affiliated with?”
“I’m an Independent.”
“That’s a copout, if you don’t mind me saying. A person should take a stand and stick to it.”
“What about you?”
“I joined the Republican Party while studying constitutional law in my first year at Georgetown more than fifty years ago. It’s the party of Abraham Lincoln, which was—and still is—good enough for me. And I’ve never failed to vote in presidential elections since JFK stole the elections from Richard Nixon, which was probably before you were born, yes?”
Ben nodded.
“As a first-generation American, I consider voting to be both an honor and a duty. But in a few weeks, for the first time in my life, I will not be voting.” Ginsburg’s voice shook with emotions. “Have I answered your question?”
Chapter 42
Still reeling from what he had learned, Ben returned to the GS in the visitors parking of Shulger Roberts & Ginsburg. The attendant held back pedestrians as Ben rode across the sidewalk and joined the slow traffic on K Street. Sitting high, his line of vision open over the roofs of the cars, he glimpsed a white motorcycle about four or five blocks ahead. Watching more intently, he saw it again. It was white, but he couldn’t tell whether it was a Ducati or a different kind of motorcycle.
Twisting the throttle, he sent the GS roaring forward, cutting between lanes of traffic. The light turned red as he approached the Spy Museum. He turned right, then left at the next intersection, now going parallel to K Street. He passed a queue of cars and buses, flew through three intersections, and reached the front of the line at a red light. Glancing left, down the cross street, he saw it go fast up K Street. Now he w
as certain—a white Ducati, its rider in a matching suit and helmet!
The Ghost!
Ben took off, scaring off pedestrians and a cyclist, who shouted a curse. Back on K Street, he cut again between lines of stationary traffic. He followed it through several turns, but suddenly, it was gone. Slowing down, he scanned the road ahead. Had he lost it?
Way ahead, on the right, the Ducati emerged from between cars, cut through the opposite lane, and entered a parking garage next to Ford’s Theater.
Ben raced ahead, avoided an oncoming bus, cut off a car attempting a left turn, and swung into the garage entrance.
Delayed by the barrier at the automated cashier, he pressed the oversized button and took a ticket. The barrier ascended, and he rode into the dark interior.
He let go of the throttle, and the GS quieted.
The Ducati’s exhaust note was faint, somewhere ahead.
Moving again, Ben followed around the street-level floor, made a right turn, then another, and another onto the downward ramp. He followed around three more right turns and down another ramp, deeper underground. Each level was designated by P-1, P-2, P-3, etc. The lower levels were sparsely occupied with parked cars.
P-6.
This level was almost empty.
He stopped the GS and listened. The Ducati emitted a sharp rumble somewhere ahead, then silence. Ben sped ahead, turned right around the corner, and another.
A solid wall faced him. He hit the brakes, barely managing to stop.
No Ducati!
On the right was a glass door, propped open. Above the stainless steel doors of an elevator he could see the numbers on a red display as they changed in reverse order: P-4, P-3, P-2…
There was only one elevator, and he was not going to wait for it to come down. Unlike the little Ducati, the GS might be too big to fit into the elevator, which was a slow one anyhow.
He turned the GS around and raced back, making the left turns around the empty parking spaces of level P-6 and up the ramp to P-5, where about a quarter of the spaces were taken by cars. Left turn, then another, and another.
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