Learning to Speak

By Beth Kaplan

I sit on the bed in the hotel room, staring out the window at the rusty fire escape, sipping water to wet my dry throat and trying to calm my thudding heart. Notes beside me, I whisper my talk to myself for the hundredth time, taking peeks at the paper to be sure I haven’t left anything out.

I’m about to deliver the Wexler Lecture in Jewish History at the Jewish Community Centre in Washington, D.C., and I am terrified.

What awaits me tonight is the nightmare audience I...