I was with Tammie Schnitzer the night her home was vandalized. We were having an emergency meeting of the Billings Coalition for Human Rights, and when she got home from the meeting, she discovered what had happened. Two mornings later, when I read about it in the newspaper, there was a little something about how the law enforcement people had counseled the Schnitzers to remove all Hanukkah decorations from their window and put up bullet-proof glass. Tammie had responded, “You know, that’s just a terrible thing to have to do.” And the statement just really hit me.

So I was sitting there, trying to think of some way, some really dramatic way, for the community to take action. It was a Saturday morning, and the idea occurred to me that if other people put menorahs in their windows, then the Jewish people would not have to take the menorahs out of their own windows. That would be a wonderful way for the community to help surround the families with support. Because, of course, what had happened affected every Jewish family. They had to be just as terrified, even if it wasn’t their child.

Then I called up the pastor of my church, Rev. Keith Torney, and said, “Keith, what would you think about giving out menorahs?” Initially, I envisioned doing this with the children, in the children’s sermons around the city: I thought there could be discussions with the children about how a family had been the object of hate and bigotry. I also thought that we could tell them the story of what happened in Denmark during World War II, about how when the Jews had been singled out for persecution and ordered to wear Jewish stars, Danes throughout the country wore Jewish stars to show solidarity. Keith immediately said that that was a wonderful idea and proceeded to carry it forward.

Actually, I couldn’t remember at first where the story of Christians wearing Jewish stars during the war had occurred, but I thought it could have been in Switzerland or Norway or Finland. Then Keith did a little research and called me back and said, “By the way, it was the King of Denmark who had ridden out on his horse, wearing the Star of David, and asked all Danes to do the same.” (Though Keith and I later learned that the story of King Christian was a myth and the Danish Jews had never had to wear stars, at the time we both agreed the image was very powerful.) So then he said, “We’re going to go for it.”

The funny thing is that we were having rehearsals for the Christmas pageant at the church that day. When Keith went in, he saw that the handout sheets that had been photocopied for the kids in Saturday school had pictures of menorahs. It was to teach the children about the festival of lights. It was just so perfect. Keith spent the day calling churches and running the copies over to them. We both thought that it was almost a cosmic affirmation of the whole idea: that the pictures of menorahs were there for us, all copied and ready to hand out.