In case you are wondering… the overall response to our decision to print same sex announcements in the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES last week has been pretty quiet. We’ve gotten a number of very nice letters, emails, and phone calls from supporters. And, as expected, there are some who strongly disagree and voted with their feet and canceled their subscriptions, but only three of those so far.  Sometimes their words weren’t so nice. A few were down right offensive. Each received a short response from me saying that we understand but disagree and that we look forward to welcoming them back to the JEWISH TIMES family when they’re ready.

I’ve also heard from a few Baltimore Jewish agencies that they’ve been getting calls complaining about the JT’s new editorial policy, even though we are an independent entity. And, I heard that the Haredi community is all aflutter about our stance. That’s the one that I find humorous. I mean these are the same people that have protected one man who was convicted of illegal homosexual acts with minors and others who were accused of such actions. One man in particular was given a job at a local kosher butcher. There also is a local rabbi who was allegedly taken out of the classroom at a boy’s school because his homosexual contact with minors, yet is still allowed to live on that campus and interact with boys.

So who is protecting whom here from the truth? Why is it immoral for the JT to run a homosexual simcha announcement from consenting adults that is both legal and allowed by rabbis, but acceptable for some in the Haredi community to protect men performing homosexual acts on minors?

This much I know: The Jewish Times will continue to reflect the broad nature of modern Jewish identity, and we will continue to print opinions that agree and disagree with ours. Learning how to live together with all that is what makes a community. We don’t seek to exclude others. That’s a Jewish way to be.

Does anyone think this will be a teachable moment?

When some Catholic priests were accused of sexual molestation of minors, we initially had denial, denial, denial from them and the Church. We now know that some of those priests sexually assaulted scores of innocent children and, instead of being criminally prosecuted, they were moved from parish to parish under the watchful eye of the Catholic Church.

Rather then confront the horrible problem, the Church chose to cover it up while thousands of boys and girls had their lives ruined.

Here in Baltimore, over the decades several rabbis molested young boys in their charge while some supervisors apparently knew about it. Just like in the Catholic Church. Even today, an alleged predator lives on campus at a Jewish boys’ school. The popular Rabbi Jacob A. Max, who died this past summer, was said to be inappropriate with dozens of women over the years as so many looked the other way, allowing these women’s lives to be destroyed forever. Of course, that began to change with his conviction a few years ago.

Sadly, it appears that Penn State University hired the same PR firm as those mentioned above: deny, don’t apologize or fix. Finally, after a tsunami of negative PR swept over the school, the president and legendary head coach were fired. I expect more is coming.

If anything good can come out of this awful Penn State experience, I hope that it’s fast and unwavering action to stop sexual predators. Coach Joe Paterno’s final words as Nittney Lions head coach was, “I wish I had done more.” That’s a sad, sad legacy to a great career – but a legacy for which he alone is responsible.

Yes, Joe, we, too, which you had done more. So do the victims and their families.

I pray that this is the spark that ignites change in our world, a change that demands, “I don’t care about the value of this church, synagogue or football program more than I do for our kids! I’m going to stand up and protect our children.”

The USA Today reported on-line today that ESPN has removed fantasy football leagues with anti-Semitic names from its website after a complaint from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Some of those names included “Jews are Immoral,” “Jews are Terrible” and “Jews love pennies.”
“They may have been fantasy leagues but the hate is all too real,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center told USA Today. “This is another example of bigots leveraging Internet portals to demean their ‘enemies’ and recruit for their causes. Unfortunately, the targeted enemy in this case was a Jewish who was about to sign up his son to ESPN Fantasy Football.”

Cooper said ESPN “responded quickly and in good faith to our concerns.”

ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said: “Offensive hate speech like the examples discussed here have no place on our site. While we have systems in place to protect against inappropriate team and league names clearly with millions of users and deceptive ways around the safeguards, we can never completely eliminate it.”

I think this the right – and only decision – that was done swiftly and authoritatively. I applaud and support the removal of offensive speech in this manner.  My only question is that if they’re saying these “examples have no place here” yet they allow names like Redskins and Chiefs which are demeaning to Native Americans.

Do you think they are on the same level?

Governor Rick Perry of Texas has entered the GOP presidential field. Just prior to announcing he lead a massive prayer rally where he appealed to Jesus to save America. Later while campaigning in the early battle-ground state of New Hampshire, Perry approached a young boy who had a question about evolution to which the candidate replied: “That’s a theory that is out there—and it’s got some gaps in it.”

So, my question is: How does the Jewish community feel about a potential president who loves Israel, and embraces concepts in the Torah, but seems to rely more on religion than science?

If you’re like me, you get flustered when you see and hear anti-Israel rhetoric.  I need to keep being reminded of the facts and history behind the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  Granted this piece was produced by the Israeli government, I think it’s very factual correct.

Take 6 minutes to watch this, and tell me: what are your reactions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGYxLWUKwWo&feature=player_embedded#at=107

More recognition for former JT Editor, Phil Jacobs. While he’s gotten a lot more ink from out-of-town media except for the great cover story in the Baltimore City Paper, Phil now received a Best in Baltimore kudos from Baltimore Magazine.

Phil was chosen as best “Crusading Editor” under its local media section for his work to uncover sexual abuse among the rabbinate.  The awards are great recognition for a job well done, and I think we’re both more pleased that Baltimore’s Jewish organizations instituted real change after these allegations came to light. I’m thinking of TA and the rabbinical association changing it policies, or Rabbi Adler speaking from the bema, acknowledging his synagogues errors over many years.

All this brought great comfort to the hundreds of innocent victims. I’m sure Phil appreciates this Best in Baltimore award in 2011, and shares it with the brave people who came forward to tell their stories.

Congrats to former colleague and forever friend, Phil Jacobs, for being recognized nationally (now in the Forward) for his “Crusade to Bring Orthodox Sex Abuse to Light.”  http://t.co/C  We new he was making real changes in this world. Glad others now see it.

Phil, currently the Editor of the Washington Jewish Week, is off today to San Francisco to screen the documentary about him, “Standing Silent” at the nation’s largest Jewish film festival.

The movie will be screening in Baltimore on August 9 at Congregation Netivot Shalom (7602 Labyrinth Road).  Is anyone planning on seeing it?

Surging GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has been making a lot of headlines lately, and not all of them positive.

She’s gotten some negative publicity for the psychotherapy practice that she owns with her husband for accepting federal dollars. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, but as a staunch Tea Partier, she says she’s vociferously opposed to non-essential federal spending. To add to the brewing controversy, it’s now alleged that the practice is using federal tax money to “convert” homosexuals to heterosexuality through Christian prayer. (Read more here: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/marcus-bachmann-says-clinics-not-anti-gay.html)

What irks me is that the Tea Partiers don’t have a problem using government funds to do Christian activities because they don’t believe the first amendment separates church and state activities, only that the government shall make no national religion. Recent rulings have referred to it as a separation.

In a more comical moment, Bachmann spoke on national TV criticizing President Obama’s fiscal policies. While attempting to call him a hypocrite, she inadvertently butchered the Yiddish word “chutzpah,” pronouncing it “choot-spa.”

My FaceBook page lit up with humorous posts, comparing her to a less intellectual president numbered 43. One of my conservative friends remarked in her Yiddish-challenged defense. “Michele Bachmann is Jew-friendly. She spent a summer working on a Kibbutz. I’m not sure if Obama has spent a month working anywhere.” 

Given that President Obama has angered a large swath of the American Jewish community with his tough love on Israel, and Bachmann’s stance on the separation of church and state, and poor Yiddish, which candidate do you think is “better for the Jews?”

What I loved about John Elway, one of the best quarterbacks of all time, is that he knew when it was time to move on to the next phase of his life. He won back to back Super Bowls, and went on to other endeavors. As opposed to other greats like Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali who hung on too long.

My dear colleague Phil Jacobs also knew it was his time to pass along the leadership of the Jewish Times to a new person.

Phil is moving on to the next challenge in his life: becoming the editor of the Washington Jewish Week. He has a lot of work to do there after accomplishing his goals here. In 1997, we needed a strong community minded editor to repair the damage left by our previous editor. Phil did that an more. He completed every goal we set for ourselves.

The JT is undergoing a major change that involves many factors—size, paper, logo, and content. Phil, a reporter from the womb, felt that we needed a magazine editor to guide us through this next phase. I applaud him for knowing when his time to serve was complete.

Personally, I’ll miss the hell out of the finest human being I’ve ever met. I will miss the hell out of the father/brother/uncle figure in my life. Personally, I’ll miss a guy who breathes Jewish journalism 24/6. I’m going to miss the guy who can walk into a Reform synagogue and interview a gay female rabbi in the morning and then pray in a very Orthodox synagogue at night. I’m going to miss the guy who delivers food to the needy every Thursday, teaches Hebrew school, and is a “big brother” to a father-less boy.

And, on top of all that, he’s a world-class father and husband.

We wish him good look in Washington as we move forward with our editorial vision.

As is the Alter way, we will adapt and change. Yet, we will all miss Phil.

Phil will be with us through much of June. He’s still got a cover story to write and steps to take on our redesign. There’s still work to be done.
 

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Co-chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, today issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s speeches on the Middle East peace process and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a Joint Session of Congress:

During the past few days, President Obama addressed the world on the challenges facing the Middle East.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also addressed a joint meeting of Congress and laid out the fundamental issues of security and peace.  As Prime Minister Netanyahu clearly stated this morning, “I will accept a Palestinian state. It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say: ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’”  It is apparent that it is the interest of all parties for there to be two states – the Jewish State of Israel and independent Palestinian state – living side-by-side with secure borders in peace.

President Obama’s speech to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday made clear that any discussions on final borders between Israelis and Palestinians should be – and must be – decided at the peace table between the two parties, which Prime Minister Netanyahu echoed – and I agree. To be real and sustainable, the 1967 borders must be adjusted to ensure Israel’s security needs and to reflect the situation on the ground, including population centers.

Any unilateral attempt by the United Nations to establish a Palestinian state is detrimental to a final peace agreement, and I was pleased to hear the President firmly state his intention to veto such a resolution.  A permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be achieved through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Unless Hamas fully renounces violence and acknowledges Israel’s right to exist, it cannot be a partner in peace and their inclusion in a Palestinian unity government is a major obstacle.

This week, the President highlighted what I have always believed – unyielding U.S. support for Israel’s security, U.S. rejection of Palestinian terrorism, and most importantly, the necessity for the parties to commit to negotiations as the means of resolving the conflict. I also met with Prime Minister Netanyahu today and after that discussion, I am similarly confident that that what bonds our countries is an unbreakable alliance. As he stated before Congress, “Israel has no better friend than America. And America has no better friend than Israel. We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism.”

This past Passover was very special for me. I wrote a column about how this year I was able to bring my children from the hardships of Ethiopia to the land of freedom in Baltimore. We left Africa where the Nile River originates to the tony tree-lined streets of Roland Park. It was like the Exodus happened for my children.

It also taught me a little something about the budget and politics.

There are those who are calling for less government regulation and lower taxes. Well, I experienced deregulation in the back seat of a Ethiopian taxi cab holding our babies. There were no baby seats or even seat belts for our infants. Despite the heat, we smothered our children trying to protect them. We couldn’t open the windows. The cars spouted horrible pollution; it burned our eyes and lungs. We couldn’t expose our babies to this.

If you don’t want to be confined by government restriction for baby seats, seat belts, or pollution controls, move to Ethiopia.

Personally, I prefer the tree-lined medians of Roland Park. Sure, it’s expensive to maintain those median and landscaping. But who wouldn’t rather live in a society that invests in beautifying its communities?

Freedom isn’t free. It takes investment—or income from tax payers to support our parks, schools, and big hairy audacious goals like funding American companies building alternative energy products.

We certainly don’t want to be overtaxed or regulated either. With taxes are relatively low by historical standards. I believe that there are those who can afford to pay more to ensure the quality of life we enjoy in the land of freedom.

This past Passover was very special for me. I wrote a column about how this year I was able to bring my children from the hardships of Ethiopia to the land of freedom in Baltimore. We left Africa where the Nile River originates to the tony tree-lined streets of Roland Park. It was like the Exodus happened for my children.

It also taught me a little something about the budget and politics.

There are those who are calling for less government regulation and lower taxes. Well, I experienced deregulation in the back seat of a Ethiopian taxi cab holding our babies. There were no baby seats or even seat belts for our infants. Despite the heat, we smothered our children trying to protect them. We couldn’t open the windows. The cars spouted horrible pollution; it burned our eyes and lungs. We couldn’t expose our babies to this.

If you don’t want to be confined by government restriction for baby seats, seat belts, or pollution controls, move to Ethiopia.

Personally, I prefer the tree-lined medians of Roland Park. Sure, it’s expensive to maintain those median and landscaping. But who wouldn’t rather live in a society that invests in beautifying its communities?

Freedom isn’t free. It takes investment—or income from tax payers to support our parks, schools, and big hairy audacious goals like funding American companies building alternative energy products.

We certainly don’t want to be overtaxed or regulated either. With taxes are relatively low by historical standards. I believe that there are those who can afford to pay more to ensure the quality of life we enjoy in the land of freedom.

I love the New York Times. (And btw…I hope their paywall is wildly successful so they can actually get paid for their enterprising work, which still sets the standard for American journalism.) Other than the Wall Street Journal, there really are no dailies left that are consistently doing quality, reliable journalism.

But like anything you love, you have differences. So I was upset to see the newspaper of record recently put on its cover a large photo of Israeli soldiers removing Palestinians from a West Bank neighborhood to make room for a Jewish settlement. Personally, I’m against Israel expanding its territorial hold on the West Bank, and the photo or the news of the event was not unwarranted.

But it’s all about context and balance, isn’t it?

What bothers me is that when Judge Richard Goldstone of the now infamous U.N. Goldstone Report recently dropped a bomb (sorry bad choice of words), making a huge about face and saying that Israel purposely did not target Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the huge story was buried inside the paper.

Then one of Hamas’s many rockets launched an Israel hit a school bus; that gained but a tiny reference. I realize that Israel is seen as the aggressor by a media that loves to assign someone the underdog role, which for most is the Palestinians. And certainly part of that is due to the Palestinians’ ability to feed the surface simplicity the media loves.

Still, I feel like a football player getting caught throwing the last punch after repeatedly getting kicked in the groin without the referee seeing it.

How does everyone else see this?

We certainly didn’t need a cover story in Baltimore’s City Paper (http://citypaper.com/news/silent-no-more-1.1116004) this week that lauded the important work of Executive Editor Phil Jacobs. Nor did we need the accolades that came from featured documentary on Phil’s work, which a few weeks ago premiered at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival and attracted about 350 people in two showings. The resulting interest from HBO and other distribution points is not the point either.

What is important is the verification that Phil and the Baltimore Jewish Times did and continues to do the right thing – despite the obvious heat it has generated.

A few years ago, when we began exposing allegations of child molesters among Baltimore’s rabbis – past and present, I expected people would say, “Thank you.” After all, the Boston Globe, which provided marvelous coverage of priests as sexual predators, was lauded for its community service.

We did receive some gratitude, but we received much more in the category of “How dare you!” or “Enough already!” or even “I expect you to publish positive news and not this stuff!” No one – other than some in the Catholic Church—urged the Globe to stop their investigations against the perverts.

Yes, we got a lot of flack from some in the Orthodox community, but some others criticized us as well, expecting only to publish news of simchas and cheerleading articles.

You never read that about the Globe.

I always thought that a core Jewish was expressed in the Talmudic sage Hillel’s dictum of “If you save one life, it’s as if you saved the entire world.” If so, and I still believe it to be the case, Phil’s series on rabbis as molesters saved many, many worlds. Until his bravery, which jeopardized his personal standing in the Orthodox community, scores of victims felt alone, thinking that they were terrible, wrong, dirty and at fault for allowing an esteemed rabbi doing this to them.

We have documented hundreds of incidents. Now the victims of these crimes – and that’s exactly what they are—know they are not alone. And there’s a movie and a City Paper cover story to prove it.

And no, we’re not done with our reporting on this matter.

What do you think? Does this change how you feel?

On a December visit to Ethiopia, I toured a 16th-century Christian monastery. These beautiful buildings overlooked the massive lake leading into the beginning of the Blue Nile. They also brought history alive with artifacts that you can literally touch — don’t try that at the Baltimore Museum of Art!

To reach one monastery, you hike 15 minutes up a mountain. Inside, you witness Ethiopia’s proud history. There, my eyes brightened as among the relics-like communion cups was a seven-branched menorah. After two hours of surveying Christian history, I was holding an ancient Jewish symbol.

(Prior to the chanukiah, the eight-branched Chanukah menorah, the seven-branched version was in Israel during the Second Temple period, symbolizing the days of the week.)

Through an interpreter, the guide said this piece of Jewish history proved that Ethiopia was once the only country outside of Israel that believed in only one God — a time when Jews were prevalent there. Some even believe that Ethiopia was home to a Lost Tribe of Israel, one that throve until 1984-85 and 1991 when airlifts brought most of the country’s Jews to Israel.

Now Ethiopia has but an echo of Jewish life with the Falasha Mura, a group with disputed Jewish roots — despite some having relatives in Israel. Some argue that many Falash Mura claim Jewish heritage to gain a better life in Israel.

What I saw seems to be a metaphor for modern Jewish history. All over the world, Jews are gone from places that once had proud Jewish cultures. That’s come from exodus, hostility and conversion — in the former Soviet Union, Poland, Germany, Ethiopia and elsewhere.

My bigger concern is this decline is happening here. The recent Associated demographic survey revealed that many young Jews are intermarrying and 30 percent of those families are not raising children as Jews.

That’s why I am infuriated that the “Who is a Jew” issue has come back to life. With things relatively quiet for Israel, some Jews there seem eager to return to infighting, saying that only Orthodox conversions should be recognized. They callously declare that Russian-born Israeli solders without a Jewish mother can fight and die for their country, but that they will not be recognized as Jews unless they agree to an Orthodox lifestyle.

That angers me and it’s a huge, huge mistake. Israel is the land for all Jewish people.

I get even angrier when I hear this in our own backyard. Several weeks ago Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was severely wounded (as were others) and six others were killed. Mrs. Giffords, whose father is Jewish and mother is not, rediscovered her Jewish roots a few years ago during a trip to Israel. Back home, she became a proud Jew and active in her community.

But in the comments section of our jewishtimes.com story, someone posted: “She can ‘decide’ whatever she wants, but she is halachicly not Jewish. I wish her a speedy recovery.”

What? I know people say crazy things online, hiding behind anonymity, but Mrs. Giffords is recognized as Jewish by the Reform movement, participates in Jewish activities and performs mitzvot. That’s good enough for her to wind up in Hitler’s ovens, but not for this person?

Is Judaism thriving so well that we can afford to be so picky about who’s Jewish? As my psychotherapist wife likes to ask her clients, “How’s that working for you?” It’s a like a dying Jewish country club that blackballs perspective members just before shutting its doors.

I fully understand the need to follow criteria so that we do not water down our people’s special qualities. But isn’t being active and performing mitzvot a pretty good place to start? Meanwhile, people who follow the letter of Jewish law but violate its spirit through misdeeds are A-OK? Why aren’t they thrown out of the Jewish people?

Just as the Conservative moment redefined kashrut in light of the massive scandal in Iowa slaughtering houses, it’s time for us all to redefine “Who is a Jew?” to include not just people born Jewish, but also those wanting to be part of the Chosen People. It’s an exclusive club, but should be open to all who meet our appropriate standards.

If not, I’m afraid that some day, someone will visit this country and see a synagogue — a beautiful relic of a past culture.

What do you think is more important: Hallach or being relevant & meaningful in the world today?

Now that the 2010 elections have been over for more than a month, and the nasty commercials have stopped, I feel most people should be over the election fatigue. So, it’s safe to write about politics again.

When Editor Phil Jacobs and I interviewed Gov. Martin O’Malley just before the vote, I offered him an icebreaker question: With large crop of young Jewish politicians now in office, who do you think will be the next Jewish Governor:

·      Attorney General Doug Gansler (reelected without opposition)

·      Howard County Executive Ken Ulman (handily reelected)

·      Baltimore’s newly elected City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein

·      Baltimore County’s newly elected Executive Kevin Kamenitz

·      Or newly appointed Judge Karen “Chaya” Friedman

The Governor politely dodged the question, saying that there were a lot of strong Jewish politicians out there.

(FYI Maryland’s one and only Jewish Governor was Marvin Mandel, who served from 1969-1979. He was sent to jail for mail fraud and racketeering, but had his conviction overturned in 1987.)

Who do you think will be our state’s next Jewish Governor?

By the time I traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia a few weeks ago, the initial sheen on President Barack Obama’s presidency had long ago tarnished. For certain, he has not exactly been the next Robert Kennedy or returned our nation to the storied era of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot years.

Still, when I walked the dirt streets of the African capital city, young men in the markets would approach me and ask my lone white face where I was from. My simple answer: “America.”

“Obama for Hope and Change!” many shouted back with smiles. I hadn’t heard that phrase since about the time the oil started leaking from the BP oil wells. I looked at one teenage vendor in eye and told him, “Maybe your son can be president of United States.” (Obama’s father was from neighboring Kenya, something not lost on so many in Africa.)

That’s when I realized that despite all of our country’s challenges, America still represents the land of hope and dreams around many parts of the world.

The day after I returned home, I met with Rep. John Sarbanes (D-3). (Ironically, his nephews are from Ethiopia.) We discussed the many problems we currently face on these shores: shortening life expectancy, lack of energy policy funding terror against America and Israel, and our weakening educational system.

Mr. Sarbanes told me that we didn’t need to be number one in the world in everything, but we had to offer a strong quality of life.

I don’t disagree with that statement. And, I also think that it’s important that we continue to inspire others and other nations along these lines: you can achieve anything if you dream it.

Despite our woes, the rest of the world still believes that’s possible in America. Why shouldn’t we?

Obviously the Democrats got trounced in the mid-term elections. Republicans claim that the major victory was a rejection of President Barack Obama’s vision for America. Democrats, including the President, counter they just didn’t get out message about all their accomplishments.

It’s hard to tout saving 1.2 million jobs when the unemployment rate is still a whopping 9.6 percent. You can’t talk about education reform when people are still losing their homes. It’s hard to think about the benefits of healthcare in 2014 when the Great Recession essentially, though not technically, continues into its third year.

On the other hand, the Republicans aren’t doing any great service to our country either. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is on record saying that he wants to ensure Obama is a one-term president.

That’s not real helpful.

What frightens me is that partisan politics is going to get someone hurt. It’s bad enough the gridlock will prevent any movement on an energy policy, which will stop sending money to terrorist regimes that want to kill Americans and Jews.

Now, Senate Republicans are playing games with Obama’s START treaty with Russia, which has been ratified by every previous president since Ronald Reagan. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), claims there are “unresolved issues.”

Huh? My well-connected, center-right friend tried to explain it to me. Even he could only throw his hands up and say, “I don’t know about all of them, but Kyl still thinks Reagan is President and Russia is the Evil Empire.”

This is ridiculous. It’s more important to keep Obama from getting any legislative victories that ensure that nukes don’t get into the hands of any rouge regimes like Iran?  How can anyone claim that the Right is friendlier towards Israel, but then again do nothing about an oil policy and holding up ratification on START? This is not a game. Everyone is concerned about a nuclear Iran. So do something about it – not something that will help Tehran.

Obama isn’t perfect. In fact, he’s made a lot of mistakes, including putting healthcare in front of energy and jobs. But, for goodness sakes, is it more important to give him yet another black eye or to protect Americans and Israelis?

Americans are fat and unhappy.

A full two-thirds of our country’s citizens are overweight, including the more than one-third of us who are obese. This has all kinds of negative implications: skyrocketing medical insurance; increased likelihood of disease; shortened life span; and decreased productivity. It even makes it a challenge to field enough soldiers because so many young adults fail the military fitness tests.

America suffers an array of problems: dependence on foreign oil, crumbling infrastructure, and a pro-longed, crippling financial crisis that’s keeping unemployment at a very high 9.5 percent (not counting the “under-employed” and those who have given up looking).

I look at Israel’s model for some solutions to these problems.

Israel currently requires military service for everyone (with the exception of the Haredi Orthodox and Israeli Arab communities). All young women serve for two years and all young men put in three years. That’s created a variety of benefits: one of the best militaries in the world; better college students who at 20 years old are more focused; and a steady stream of army alums with hands-on training as they enter the country’s dynamic high tech fields. That’s the not-so-secret reason Israel has some of the best performing cutting edge technology companies in the world: While in the army, soldiers learned and excelled in technical engineering and computer skills as they operated remarkably sophisticated equipment.

So what if the U.S. reinstituted the draft? 

For starters, it would mean our military and those fighting on the battle fields would be more representative of our nation, not just the disproportionate rates of lower income soldiers that we have today.

It would mean all Americans would be forced to do basic training and inevitably lose weight and learn how to exercise regularly.

It would mean that many of our college students would be more ready to learn than to party because, after all, they would know a thing or two about how serious life can be.

Of course, not everyone would be needed or forced into the military.  After a period of basic training, our young men and woman could join a civilian corps that would help build our infrastructure and transform us from the Information Age to a Green Technology based economy.

This is not a perfect or the only solution to America’s problems, and Israel is a lot smaller than the United States.  Still, given the many issues we face, adopting this Israeli model to the American scene would make a lot of needed improvements.

I heard a lot of good chatter about the new BoltBus from Baltimore to New York City. The Greyhound subsidiary offers very inexpensive rides from Baltimore’s Penn Station to New York’s Penn station, ones clearly less than the cost of paying the tolls along the way. The tiered ticketing system offers the first seats for $4 and climbs to about $20 per seat. You’d be hard pressed to spend that little on gas alone.

Plus there are other niceties: free Wi-Fi, leather seats and friendly employees.

This is not a completely novel idea. Bus service is very old and for a while there’s been inexpensive service to NYC complete with free movies aboard from companies like Superior Tours. What’s new is the frequency of the bus and the many options to travel.

So when I tried it out for myself recently, I was impressed with the simple, and cheap public transportation to the Big Apple.

Then it hit me en route: While it’s nice that we have such low cost options for public transportation, as opposed to the train costing more than $100 one way, it’s pretty sad that we really don’t have any new and fast ways to get from the nation’s capital to the nation’s economic center quickly and efficiently.

The bus arrived early, but BoltBus tells you to allow three and one-half to four hours. That means it takes almost five hours from D.C. How can the most powerful nation on earth still not have efficient public transportation between two of the most important points in the world?

While I enjoyed our free (and slow) Internet), in Asia and much of Europe riders enjoy that same amenity aboard much faster and more comfortable trains.

Meanwhile, Americans, Israelis and so many others continue to die from oil-funded terrorists. Asian countries are investing huge sums in efficient infrastructure – catching up with Europeans. Meanwhile, our politicians still can’t get the will together to get me to New York with late 20th century technology.

With sluggish progress like that, how long do you think America will be the lone Super Power?

It’s just a few hours before the sun dips below the horizon, and I’m doing my best to reflect on the past year and set goals for 5771.  As a people, we pray for peace.

But it feels as if the harder we pray, the more distant the reality of peace becomes. The Israelis and Palestinians are finally back at the table, and expectations are extremely low for any substantial outcome.

Meanwhile, the traditional media and the new social media are all abuzz over the Muslim cultural center to be built in the vicinity to Ground Zero.  It shows that anti-Islamic backlash is becoming a real issue in this country. One innocent Arab American cab driver was stabbed by a drunken idiot in Manhattan. Now Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, is planning a Koran burning on the 9th anniversary of 9/11 to express his outrage at radical Islam (which Gen. David Petraeus warns will endanger American soldiers in Afghanistan due to the violent anti-American sentiment it will stir up).

I still feel this falls under his First Amendment rights just as would be the case for an artist wanting to depict Jesus in an unflattering way.  Others say it doesn’t not and liken it to yelling “fire” in a movie theater.

However, I think it’s another symptom of American’s anger.  We don’t speak, we yell. Now we seem to be yelling the loudest at Muslims.  I, too, am frustrated with the Muslim community and its lack of leadership. I’d hope we’d settle our differences through dialogue, bridge building, and education – exactly what the Cordova Center is New York is designed to do.

Just when I’m about to give up, I get a ray of hope. I recently read an article by my friend Everett Rosenfeld, a sophomore at Yale University. 

Rosenfeld writes in the Yale Daily News, “J Street U, a national organization primarily led by progressive Jewish students to promote Middle East peace, has released a pledge, entitled ‘Stand Strong Against Islamophobia,’ said Ben Alter ’11, co-president and founder of the Yale branch.

“As Jews we know the dangers of hatred and violence directed against religions and ethnic minorities,” he said, “and for us to stand idly by while other groups are denigrated, persecuted and harassed would be criminal.’”

And to that we say “Amen” and may we all have a peaceful New Year.

Several months ago, a new local Jewish website launched: BaltimoreJewishLife.com. As with all local Jewish media—radio, Eruv List, websites and others—we welcome any attempts to help strengthen our community.

Examiner.com writer, Maayan Jaffee (one of our former colleagues), wrote that the new site would be a “Kosher Jewish Times” and that its owner, Jeff Cohn, would ensure the site will meet the highest standards of religiosity.

But it didn’t take long before BaltimoreJewishLife.com started putting up BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES content – protected by U.S. copyright law—without even asking our permission. Despite repeated attempts to contact the anonymous “staff,” it happened a few times.

Here’s but the latest example. This week, JEWISH TIMES editor Phil Jacobs broke the news story on http://www.jewishtimes.com  that Judge Karen “Chaya” Friedman was appointed the Baltimore City Circuit Court. Despite being on vacation, Phil even secured comments late Sunday evening from Gov. Martin O’Malley who had just made the appointment.

The next day, the same story with the sentences re-arranged appeared on the BaltimoreJewishLife.com site under its typical anonymous post “Reporter #6.”

I read and hear the snide comments about the JT and allowing crab ads or non-kosher restaurants being called “Not Jewish Times.” But why is it that a website which promises to be more kosher than we are, and meets the “highest standards of religiosity,” can violate the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Steal”? Their standards are higher than ours? Their mitzvot are superior to ours?

Funny religion, eh?

After all, for more than 91 years, we’ve provide millions of dollars in free advertising for our community. We’ve donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Associated, which benefits Orthodox day schools and indeed the entire community. And we pay decent wages to many employees and freelancers. Yet, we’re not kosher enough for some. 

This “religious” (their words not mine) website doesn’t have to hire people by stealing our content and selling ads around it to make money. There’s more than something a little unkosher about that.

In yesterday’s much anticipated, debated, over -analyzed, and much talked about meeting between the Israeli and U.S. leaders, my favorite moment was when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gently pressed the American President Barak Obama.

Netanyahu didn’t ask for permission for his country to bomb Iran, or for more financial support, or even for the White House to ease up on promoting the peace process.

Said Netanyahu: “You know, I’ve been coming here a lot. It’s about time you and the First Lady came to Israel, sir.”

Obama, who hasn’t been to the Jewish state since he was running for president, quickly replied, “I’m ready. We look forward to it. Thank you.”

“Any time,” Netanyahu said.

That made me think. How many Americans – either those on the right or the left – who often put their two cents in about what America should do about Israel or what Israel should do about Israel – have never set foot in the Jewish state?

I always welcome healthy debate, but I also know that seeing is believing. I respect people who say Israel should treat the Palestinians better, but I hope they all have seen the Dome of the Rock atop the Western Wall. The same goes for those who say Israel should be tougher on the Palestinians, but have never stared into West Bank Arab communities.

American Christians are still visiting, and so are some Jews. But, not nearly enough of the armchair commentators have first hand knowledge of the real situation.

If it’s good for Obama to visit, it’s good for the rest of us as well.

I was having dinner with an old friend the other night. He glanced down at the menu and looked up in disgust. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it anymore. I’m going to have to become a vegan. I can’t eat seafood or meat. We’ve fouled up our environment so much, none of it’s healthy.”

Now, normally, I like to prove my friend wrong, but not in this instance. I was in no mood to argue. Millions of gallons of oil had just spilled in America’s seafood basket; our Chesapeake Bay’s in horrible shape; and we treat our livestock so poorly, injecting them so much, it makes our food supply suspect.  We’ve made such a mess of our land and sea that beluga whales living in the Arctic Ocean are now getting breast cancer.

Everyone, on the left and on the right, seems to be angry at the most current environmental nightmare. There’s a circle of screaming going on, blaming all sorts of people including President Obama, former President Bush and BP.  The anger at BP is understandable.  After all, its brilliantly handled CEO uttered the now infamous words that will spell the end of his tenure (and possibly the end of one of the world’s largest companies), “I just want my life back.”

Well, Mr. Hayward, you can have your life back when we have our seafood-producing, animal-filled, vacation-destination Gulf back.

BP messed up, literally and figuratively, at every turn. They’ve handled this very badly. They should have announced they were bringing in the best people from across the globe; they were going to work with the U.S. government and engineers from every oil company and find a solution — fast. Now, everyone’s mad at BP, as they should be. But it seems no one’s mad at themselves They are taking out their frustrations on others.

Locally, John Phelps owns Carroll Independent Fuel, a third-generation oil and gas company. John and his family are great members of our community. His grandfather was good for the Jews and every other minority long before it was socially acceptable. They donate a lot of money to local charities, and the Phelps family is one of the hardest-working, most honest families I know. I am proud to call John a friend.

I went to get gas the other day and drove past his BP station and filled up at his Carroll Independent Fuel station. I called John on my cell to let him know the CIF had lines and his BP station was practically empty, though only a half-mile away. Drivers are boycotting BP stations.

“I know,” John answered me with concern. “It’s a real problem.”

People think BP owns those stations. It doesn’t; local owners do. The gas coming out of those pumps may or may not come from BP.  The profits go to people like the Phelps family, creating local jobs and paying local taxes.

Besides, which oil company would you prefer supply our local dealer? Exxon, which dumped millions of gallons of oil in Alaska and paid only $500 million in fines, Hugo Chavez’s Citgo, Texaco (now Chevron), which polluted the Amazon so badly children have birth defects and can’t get compensated? Or BP? Oil companies aren’t saints. It’s a dirty business to start with.

We need to stop blaming the oil companies and start blaming ourselves. We’re the ones driving the huge SUVs and living in McMansions.  Americans are 5 percent of the world’s population and account for 25 percent of the oil consumption. We vote for politicians who ensure we have cheap gas for our pickup trucks and our minivans. Oil companies are meeting our demand. Oil’s hard to find and hard to get out of the ground.

The Jewish community is shockingly silent on this issue. Because of supply and demand, we keep oil prices high, helping the Iranians and other terror-sponsoring countries—countries that threaten Israel’s very existence. Yet we think nothing of pumping cheap gas into our huge cars and homes. We scream at Obama, but we don’t let our government raise taxes on fuel to pay for alternative energy subsidies or pass a comprehensive energy bill.

Don’t just blame BP, don’t blame politicians and certainly don’t blame local gas station owners. Let’s blame ourselves and our own Jewish community for its lack of will or desire to do something about environmental disasters and funding terror with petro dollars.

Am I the only one, but does the Mavi Marmara bring back memories of the famed Exodus ship, which launched from the Baltimore harbor in 1947? I’m not talking about good memories either. 

The former steamer SS President Warfield of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was purchased by the pre-state Jewish military force the Hagannah and renamed the SS Exodus. It set out on a mission to pick up 4,500 Holocaust survivors, temporarily in France, and take them to then-British controlled Palestine.  It was commandeered in international waters by the Royal Navy and the passengers were sent – of all places—to an interment camp in Germany.

The huge international outcry was a lynchpin for the founding of the Jewish State a year later. Back then, the United States had been pressing Britain to allow more Jewish refugees into Palestine through their joint Anglo-American Commission. But when forced to find a better solution to managing the deteriorating situation between Arab and Jewish militias, the UK threw up its hands and said to the new United Nations, “It’s all yours.” The U.N., as the world knows, decided to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Palestinian state.

Two local esteemed local Ph.D.’s in Mideast studies, Robert O. Friedman and Arthur Abramson don’t see the Exodus comparison. They think the Mavi Marmara is different because the Palestinians already have a land they control and they are not refugees seeking a home in a world that does not want them. Yet from an international PR perspective, Israel does come across as the big, mean bully that the British were in the post-World War II years.

A difference for sure is that the impact of this event is being built up on social media (facebook, twitter, etc.) with dueling videos, and many in the world are siding with the Palestinians, whom they view as the underdog.

Some think it may all trigger a third intifada, or violent Palestinian uprising (just like the ones that began in 1987 and 2000).  I believe it may force the U.S. to press Israel even harder to rethink how it’s managing the Gaza and West Bank situations. And there lies a strong comparison indeed.

A new survey released by LifeWay Christian Reources – an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention—shows that 72 percent of Christian Millenials (18 to 29-year olds) are more spiritual than religious. They are becoming more secular.

USA Today reported on the survey and quoted the research group’s president, Thom Rainer, saying “the Millennial generation will see churches closing as quickly as GM dealerships,

Most young adults today don’t pray, don’t worship and don’t read the Bible, a major survey by a Christian research firm shows. Among the startling data:

•65% rarely or never pray with others;

•and 65% rarely or never attend worship services

This is consistent with the premise of Robert Putnam’s 1995 the book, “Bowling Alone,” which showed that the Millenials are not joining organizations as their parents did. And this is eerily similar to what’s been happening in Judaism for a while as well.

May things are driving this behavior and I can’t help but think that religious scandals in the Roman Catholic Church and elsewhere can’t be helping.

What do you think is causing this trend in America?

Thomas Friedman’s been writing about the value on entrepreneurship to buoy our economy.  He wrote today about how a start-up company founded by immigrants from Cuba and India are working on a cutting edge medical devise with the help of Israeli engineers.  They are America’s future.

Then I read on the USA Today website about a group of Neo-Nazis marching in LA against Jews and immigrants.  They say that the immigrents are taking jobs and committing crimes, as if white people don’t commit crimes.
Makes me realize that uneducated, ignorant people fear change. They also hate the fact that there are harder-working smarter people they they are.

What are your thoughts on the immigration debate?

Thomas Friedman’s been writing about the value on entrepreneurship to buoy our economy.  He wrote today about how a start-up company founded by immigrants from Cuba and India are working on a cutting edge medical devise with the help of Israeli engineers. They are America’s future. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18friedman.html?hp

Then I read on the USA Today website about a group of Neo-Nazis marching in LA against Jews and immigrants.  They say that the immigrents are taking jobs and committing crimes, as if white people don’t commit crimes. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-17-nazi-los-angeles-rally_N.htm?csp=hf
Makes me realize that uneducated, ignorant people fear change. They also hate the fact that there are harder-working smarter people they they are.

What are your thoughts on the immigration debate?

Thomas Friedman’s been writing about the value on entrepreneurship to buoy our economy.  He wrote today about how a start-up company founded by immigrants from Cuba and India are working on a cutting edge medical devise with the help of Israeli engineers. They are America’s future. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18friedman.html?hp

Then I read on the USA Today website about a group of Neo-Nazis marching in LA against Jews and immigrants.  They say that the immigrents are taking jobs and committing crimes, as if white people don’t commit crimes. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-17-nazi-los-angeles-rally_N.htm?csp=hf
Makes me realize that uneducated, ignorant people fear change. They also hate the fact that there are harder-working smarter people they they are.

What are your thoughts on the immigration debate?

What can I add to the latest flap over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that hasn’t been digested on TV, in newspapers, blogs and preached about?
I’m talking about how Pope Benedict XVI knew about pervasive child molestation while he was responsible for overseeing that matter in the Vatican. Then, when the memos were brought to the New York Times, the Vatican’s household priest has the audacity to say he now understood how Jews felt about anti-Semitism.
What?!
Which is it: that the Jews deserved the Holocaust because of something they did or was anti-Semitism so benign?
Please. 
More news from the NY Times today has it that a priest who forced sex upon a 14-year-old girl is still counseling kids.
What are you thoughts on this atrocious behavior?

A nice Jewish boy from Howard County recently emailed me his opinion on the new health care legislation.
Well, not just any guy. It was from Doug Ulman, president of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. His brother, Ken, is the Howard County Executive. Doug is a cancer survivor and had some interesting points to make.
Here’s some of what he said in his email:
“It was a long and difficult debate. We didn’t always agree on every detail. But we came together around the principle that discrimination against cancer survivors must end. This week, after many years of failed attempts, the President has finally signed into law a reform bill that will balance the scales and give those of us affected by cancer a fair shake when it comes to health care reform.
“Do we agree with every provision? No. Did we fight for more in some places and less in others? Yes. But at the end of the day, I’m proud to say this bill will have an enormous positive impact on the lives of cancer survivors.
“To drive this point home, our team drafted a list of the five elements of health care reform we can all be excited about that are now the law of the land. Will you take a quick look at the Survivor’s Top Five below and share it with your friends and family? It’s important that we all know what’s in this critical new law:
“Survivor’s Top Five—Health Care Reform
1. “Pre-existing” conditions are history. As soon as this year for kids and for all individuals by 2014, no insurance plan can deny you because you’re fighting cancer or any other illness.
2. You can’t lose your insurance when you need it most. Within six months, no person can be dropped from their insurance plan when they receive a diagnosis of cancer or any other disease.
3. An end to “lifetime caps” on your benefits. You won’t have to worry about your benefits “running out” as you’re fighting to take care of yourself or a family member.
4. More coverage for young adults. Beginning in six months, you can stay on your parents’ coverage up to the age of 26.
5. Support for clinical trials. By 2014, the law will prohibit new health plans from dropping or limiting coverage just because an individual is enrolled in a clinical trial.
“Passage of this bill is historic, but just the beginning. We’re going to continue our work as this law is implemented to push for policies that reduce the prevalence of cancer and support survivors. It’s not always easy or neat, but it’s important work. And with your help—like the more than 100,000 of you who supported our campaigns on health reform—we’ll keep pushing for victories that lead us to a world without cancer.
Thank you and LIVESTRONG,
Doug Ulman
President and CEO Lance Armstrong Foundation”

So, what are your thoughts on the new law?

I lived in Vancouver from 1995-1997.  It’s a great little Jewish community of 20,000. They were so welcoming and warm when I moved there not knowing anyone.

I loved watching the Olympics there.  I was bummed not to be have gone back to visit friends and see the games.

A few friends shared pictures of themselves at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Risa and Ted Offit’s son Max, and Josh Wolberg, had a brush with fame. They posted this on their FaceBook page with Olympic Gold medalist Torah Bright

And, my colleague from my days at the Vancouver Jewish Bulletin, Adam Rabiner, sent me this picture which he called, The Great One.

Did anyone else meet any celebrities while in Vancouver?

Working for a media company, we get a lot of press releases. In the old days, people had to take the time to send or even fax them to you. Now, with a click of a button, thousands of releases are e-mailed with the click of a button.

This morning while pleasantly reading a New York Times story about David Gelbaum, I also checked my e-mail.

The story about Gelbaum, a little know philanthropist, was about how some recent financial constraints forced him to stop his multi-million annual gifts to several non-profits.  Over the past four years, Gelbaum has donated $380 million to the ACLU, Sierra Club and an organization that provides financial assistance to families whose loved ones are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His main condition was adhering to Maimondes’ principals of the highest form of giving – giving anonymously. It wasn’t until after he had to stop giving did his name come out.

I’m reading about how Gelbaum is living such Jewish values like Tikkun Olam, making the world a better place.

Just then I got an e-mail release from the Westboro Baptist Church about their plans to “Picket Filthy Jews in Florida.”  It outlines the places where they’ll be protesting the non-believers in Christ.

This is the same group that pickets funerals of American soldiers who died in Iraq. They believe that we’re a nation of sinners (and non-Christ believers) so people in the military should be protested for fighting for this country.

I wanted to get angry at these people. But, I really just feel sorry for these losers. These are the same misguided people who flew in from Topeka, Kan. to picket the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES. Only four people showed up, and they got lost and picketed a deli down the street.

Some of our staffers boned up on their bible reading to debate these people. But, how to you point out to the that the David Gelbaum or the Weinberg Foundations of this world do more good in one day, then any of this silly people to collectively in a life time?

Every once in a while, it’s nice to get a nod to know you’re doing the right thing. I mean, our mission is to strengthen the community that we serve. But it’s a difficult thing to measure.

Today, we got a little validation.

Right there on the front page of one of the leading dailies in the world—the New York Times—- was a story about how the fervently Orthodox are finally starting to change. They are now for the first time starting to report sexual abuse to the legal authorities, and not just to their rabbis.

The Times credits the work of rabbis, social workers, and the Jewish press. They mentioned the New York Jewish Week by name for its work in outing Baruch Lanner in 2000.

Much credit also has to go to Baltimore Jewish Times Editor Phil Jacobs for his courageous series on sexual molestation among Baltimore rabbis. It literally has changed our community. Most rabbis have supported our efforts and have pushed for changes since our series started. Even Talmudic Academy changes its procedures.

Still, some remained in denial and are hiding sexual predators. We also get all sorts of angry letters and people accusing us – and the victims of wrongdoing.

Today’s New York Times story shows that we, as a leader in the Jewish press, are fulfilling our mission if changes are being made and the perpetrators of violence against children are brought to real justice, not kangaroo courts.

The stories outline that blogs and other sources are forcing sects of Judaism that have been closed for centuries to start to opening up to this very important reality. It’s a huge positive movement and moment for the Jewish people. 

I have this overwhelming urge to blurt out “You lie!”

But, after all, I believe in the saying, “be the change you want to see in the world.” I want greater civility, so I won’t do it.

Still, I’m incensed by the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed by Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi Ambassador to the United States not to mention former Saudi intelligence service head. 

In the piece “Land First, Then Peace,”

al-Faisal repeats the current Muslim party line of not talking with Israel until it stops settlement building. The Muslim world, he wrote, must “refuse to engage Israel until it ends its illegal occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights as well as Shabaa Farms in Lebanon.”

Thus he begins to make several tired and factually incorrect arguments.

Just in that sentence there are two: That Israel is illegally occupying Gaza and Shabaa Farms, which sits in Israel’s northwest corner next adjacent to both Syria and Lebanon. Israel left Gaza unilaterally five years ago. Where’s the peace? And, I’ve lost count how many U.N. Resolutions have declared that Shabaa Farms is not Lebanese and that Israel is in full compliance there.

The Saudi leader next states the U.N. declarations that Israel must give back the territories it won in the 1967 War. But he glossed over what kind of peace the Muslims gave Israel prior to that date. Nor does al-Faisal mention that no nation was ever forced to give up land it won in conflict.

It would take me too long to refute the Op-Ed point for point, but I have to note another glaring oversight from the writer. He tries to give reasons why the king of Saudi Arabia should not “do a Sadat.” Prior to dramatically coming to Israel in 1977, according to al-Faisal, Sadat was assured that “Israel would withdraw from every last inch of Egyptian territory…” What? I always thought Gaza was part of Egypt prior to 1967? I guess Sadat’s negotiators missed a few inches along the way.

Still, the world deeply misses the courage of an Anwar Sadat. Instead of excuses, it would be great seeing Arab and Muslim leaders offering real movements toward peace with Israel.

In the past, I’ve written how I, too, wish Israel would stop building settlements. But I hate the lies, I mean mistruths, about Israel. The Jewish state unilaterally left Lebanon and Gaza and got no where on the road to peace.

Thus, al-Faisal presents us with yet another sad example of Muslim leadership, or lack thereof, one that continues to offer obstacles instead of real action leading towards peace.

This week Baltimore City’s controversial new trash collection schedule came into effect. Instead of getting two weekly pick ups and two bi-monthly recycling days, we now only have one garbage day. Plus, there is also a limit to how much can be picked up each week. Another bad move by Baltimore City?

No, because it also made the change so that we get recycling every single week instead of every other week.

Sure, it may take a few more minutes to sort your waste every day, but it makes total sense to do so. How often do we complain about city taxes? Now, as its tax coffers to pay for services are drying up, the City actually came up with a novel idea to prevent another tax hike.

It only takes a few minutes to toss paper, plastic, and metal waste into another bin. Done. Then the City can sell our trash instead of having to pay a vendor to dump it in a land fill. Not only are we saving money for the City (and essentially all of us tax payers), but we are preventing tons of waste from pilling up in landfills, saving energy and helping the environment. Sounds like a universal application of Jewish values to me.

That’s what makes it so puzzling that some Orthodox Jews in the city were against the new regulations. I understand some of their points: Many have large families, guests over for big Shabbat meals and often host a major dinner on a Jewish holiday. That all leads to more garbage. But there’s also the opportunity to sort through that garbage so that it can be recycled, lessening the need to have more or larger trash pick ups.

We all hate change, we’re all very busy. Still, we make time to study Torah and perform various mitzvot. Taking care of God’s creation also is high up on the lists of commandments. We take time to look at labels to ensure the proper hechsher (kosher certification). It takes the same amount of time to see which bin your trash goes in.

Let’s help our planet, and let’s help Baltimore City taxpayers in one swoop. Recycle. As often as possible.

I recently returned from my annual fundraising expedition.  Each year our group, Jodi’s Climb for Hope travels the globe to raise money for promising breast cancer research. Our mountain climbs often take us to remote, if not less developed countries. The past two years Jodi’s Climb for Hope journeyed to Ecuador and Tanzania.

After fabulous experiences, it’s always nice to return to modern civilization for hot showers and fast internet connections.

This year, we mixed it up a bit and hopped over to Iceland, a fabulously beautiful country where you have amazing diversity from barren lava fields to rich green fields, plentiful sea views and always a mountain in sight.

Instead of going back to the future at the expedition’s end, I actually felt, we were going back in time returning to the United States.

We had good look at a nice chunk of the Kentucky-sized nation, and we loved what we saw regarding their being green, which outpaces America. There were special parking spaces for electric cars that needed to be plugged in, hydrogen filling stations, and plenty of clean diesel cars.

Iceland has the benefit of geo-thermal resources; so much of the country takes advantage of this extremely cheap and energy efficient method to heat most buildings. They also employ simple inexpensive technology in most public spaces that it seems like no-brainers: hallways that have motion sensor lights and toilets with different flushes for #1 and #2.

Once upon a time, the U.S. used to lead the world in technology. We are rapidly falling behind. This hurts us, and slows down our fight again Muslim extremism. Using less oil for driving cars and heating buildings robs terrorists of their funding sources.

The U.S. Senate is taking up a House bill that will help in this area. As with most government sponsored programs, it won’t get us to where we need to be. Yet, it’s a start.  I’m glad our country is finally taking action for the environment and against oil-funded terror. As least some other countries are already showing us the way.

As a board member of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, I had a front-row seat to the board’s dealings on the Owings Mills JCC Shabbat opening issue.

Many things stand out in my head. People on both sides of this difficult issue had a great deal of passion and clear thoughts about it.  While the debate was lively, it was always respectful and never heated. And in the meeting where the final vote took place last Wednesday afternoon, there was an obvious mixing of people on both sides, eliminating an “us-versus-them” attitude.

A few comments also stuck out. Dr. Michael Elman called in from Jerusalem, pleading with the Associated board not to open the JCC.  But what really stuck out was his admission that the community missed the boat 12 years ago when those who voted to keep the JCC closed did relatively nothing to teach the rest of Baltimore’s Jews about the wonders of Shabbat.

After the vote was taken, Associated President Marc B. Terrill stepped up to the microphone and quoted Rabbi Moshe Hauer—“The real work begins after the vote.”

Let’s hope that both sides work hard so that all of the 100,000 Jews living in the Baltimore metropolitan area and the JCC know how truly special Shabbat can be.

The following remarks combine the thoughts of Peter Augustini with mine on the loss of Jodi Alter Buerger, Mr. Augustini’s wife and my sister.

Jodi A. Buerger lost her four and one-half year struggle with cancer ended early this morning May 8, 2009.
 
My sister Jodi was the inspiration to create Climb for Hope. When she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in October 2004, I knew we had to move quickly to find a cure. Jodi was one of the greatest women you’d ever meet. Her courage and strength led me to put together an organization dedicated to speeding up work on a treatment for advanced breast cancer to give her more time with her family.

Our precious and beautiful Jodi died only after exhausting every ounce of energy from her broken body. She never gave up and never wavered, clinging to life with awesome courage and determination. I believe she was driven by a sacred devotion to her children and an abiding promise to protect and nurture them. That’s the spirit we embody on our mountaineering expeditions.
 
In turn we honor her life and take forward the lessons she taught us about being a good and decent person, always acting with integrity and grace, always with words of support and encouragement. She measured her life by what she could do for others and never by what was taken from her.  
 
Throughout her battle she drew tremendous strength from the overwhelming support and love of her family, friends, and climbers. It helped her more than you might know—through all the harrowing medical procedures and crushing relapses and in those dark moments when unspeakable pain and suffering would momentarily weaken her grip.

She leaves behind Peter, a loving husband of 14 years, and 3 children Charles 12, Caroline 9 and Max 5,

We were not able to save my sister Jodi’s life. But, as Jodi remarked to me when our expedition returned successfully from Kilimanjaro last year that we may not find something fast enough for her, but she believed that her daughter Caroline would grow up in a world without breast cancer because of the hard work of CFH volunteer climbers.

I want to thank each of you for all you’ve done to support and sustain us. Thank you for every hug, every tear, every dollar, and every ounce of support to create a sustainable organization that will keep Jodi’s name alive.

Our board recently voted to change the name of the organization to Jodi’s Climb for Hope to fulfill her wish that despite leaving us at an early age, she never be forgotten.

Now, in Jodi’s name we will continue on the many advances we’ve made in three short years, giving Johns Hopkins researcher Dr. Leisha Emens $350,000. That money sped up research by six months and lead to the ground-breaking discovery that lower doses of chemotherapy increase immune responses, an last legacy that will be left for future generations.

Jodi will be missed by so many people, including the more than 75 CFH climbers that she inspired to push themselves way beyond their perceived physical limits to summit a mountain they never thought possible.

I would have traded anything that Jodi would have never gotten this disease. Since she did, she was able affect real change in this world. Due to Jodi’s humble personality, she never fathomed how many lives she touched – donors, climbers, guides, volunteers, breast cancer survivors, and grieving families – through Climb for Hope.

If furthering cancer research and inspiring scores of people is how’s she’s remembered, than she’ll have lived a fulfilled life.
 
May her memory continue to be a blessing.

Donations in Jodi Alter Buerger’s memory can be sent to the charity of your choice or on-line to Climb For Hope, a Baltimore-based foundation that raises funds for breast cancer research. http://www.climbforhope.com/

The Prophet Elijah came early this year. Well, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was actually late to his own gala dinner of the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel (ECYP), having spent the day dealing on Capitol Hill with the economic crisis. But he did make the appearance here two weeks before Passover.

His event made me think: It would be great if Jews and African-Americans could simply rely on their shared history of oppression and civil rights to again bring them together. But the two ethnic groups have moved further apart since the ’60s.

It doesn’t help matters in Baltimore that the Jewish community keeps moving to the exurbs and into gated communities, our children tucked safely into private schools — parochial and religious. Improving relations is even harder with little interaction.

I’d love it if we could inoculate our youth to prevent racism and anti-Semitism, but that vaccine hasn’t yet been invented. Enter Mr. Cummings’ Baltimore-based ECYP. It is enjoying success on a very, very limited basis. Sadly, at about $12,000 per participant, it would take a lot of resources to make it larger.

The ECYP’s mission is to improve relations between the black and Jewish communities by immersing high school students in a four-week trip to Israel and a two-year leadership enhancement program. ECYP is a non-profit started by Mr. Cummings, Baltimore’s 7th Congressional District Representative.

Participants learn and develop skills that will help them become a future leaders, ones who organizers hope will promote interethnic understanding, and racial and religious tolerance. Hundreds of African-Americans from Mr. Cummings’ district compete to win a coveted spot in the program. Sadly, only 12 are chosen annually, due to funding constraints.

Last week, the organization’s annual gala honored outstanding Jewish and African-American leaders — the Hoffberger family and Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famed Hopkins neurosurgeon. I had a chance to meet with and be impressed by some of this year’s students and prospective applicants.

One mother told me about her son’s fears. He was so scared that he lay in bed each morning in tears. The distraught parent didn’t know what to do.

Ironically, her child was not afraid to go to Israel; he hated being home in the United States after a month in the Holy Land. The high school junior never knew what it was like to be safe, albeit in a country known for terrorism, and he feared his safety on the streets of Baltimore. The African-American woman didn’t know where to turn; her son begged her to allow him to move to Israel. Wisely, ECYP has a landing point with leader training and mentoring, so the distraught young man received counseling upon return.

We’ve heard stories from Jewish families who send their children to Israel about how they, too, don’t want to come home, or are changed for life. For the ECYP participants, the Israeli experience touches impressionable kids searching for meaning. Being Baptized in the Jordan River and visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is tremendously moving in this foreign and sacred land. Many were struck by witnessing how committed Jews are to Israel; others enjoyed meeting Jews from Ethiopia and South Africa.

For some, just being with 11 other kids on whom they could rely, who in some cases became the only people they could depend on in their lives, was overwhelming. They called themselves family.

ECYP started 11 years ago at the urging of philanthropist Stuart Greenebaum and the implementation of the Baltimore Jewish Council. It’s now a separate non-profit. Over the next few weeks, the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES will be meeting alumni, some of whom are now 28 years old, to explore how the decade-old experience has changed their views of the Middle East and the Jewish people in the long run.

Judging from current participants, the program creates confident students with tools for success. They gain something many inner city kids never get: a chance. Let’s be thankful it’s coming courtesy of the Jewish community, even though itìs only 12 per year.

The Jewish sage Hillel said it best: “To save one life is as if you’ve saved the entire world.” Let’s hope that these 12 participants become the Dr. Ben Carson’s of their desired fields.

Almost two weeks ago, the Baltimore Sun published an editorial applauding Israel for its investigation of alleged solider misconduct in its recent offensive into Gaza.  I can’t say I disagree with that statement. CLICK HERE

What troubles me in calling out Israel and writing “The military code of the Israel Defense Forces, the best army in the region, obligates its soldiers to protect human dignity,” is that there was no comment about Hamas’ conduct. 

Yes, we all hold Israel and its democracy to a higher standard. Still, where is the Sun or any human rights organization chastising the Islamic organizations that control power in Gaza?

I recently attended an event for the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. The speaker, an IDF officer, told us how Israeli strategy has changed since the war in Lebanon in 2006. Strong navies and air forces don’t help when one’s enemy is hiding in urban areas. This was the case in Gaza where Hamas military was set up in schools and hospitals. 

I agree and applaud that Israel is making the effort to question is conduct. The world would be a better place if the human rights organizations and Muslim leadership also worked to conduct themselves according acceptable rules of engagement.

There’s nothing more awful than hearing about a young woman who is beaten, raped and murdered.

When the perpetrator is apprehended, you want revenge — an “eye for an eye,” as the Torah declares.

I tend to be against the death penalty, but find myself hoping that the guy who tortured and ended a beautiful life suffers horribly. When you see the grief on the face of parents of the dead, pain that you realize will never go away, you don’t want that murderer’s life spared.

Another sickening tragedy occurs when a person is finally freed after losing decades behind bars for a wrongful verdict. There have been instances of someone rotting for 10, 20, or even 30 years in jail, only to be released when the relatively new technology of DNA is applied to an old case. With such cases being overturned, including in Maryland, one has to think that at least one person has been wrongfully put to death.

A cold-blooded killer taking an innocent life is horrendous. For me, the government killing an innocent person on death row is equally harrowing.

Maryland is in a heated debate over trying to repeal the death penalty. The views from the Jewish community tend to fall along the bell curve. More liberal Jews and rabbis are working vehemently to overturn it; most right-wing and many Orthodox Jews are pro-death penalty.

The Baltimore Jewish Council took no stance on the matter because of such a very diverse Jewish outlook.

As we’ve reported, many Maryland Jewish lawmakers are working with Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Catholic, on the repeal. Rabbi Mark G. Loeb, a Conservative rabbi, was appointed by Mr. O’Malley to serve on the commission charged with recommending if the state should end the death penalty. Capital punishment, the group concluded, ought to be abolished here. However, state lawmakers are not so quick to make the change.

This is a tough issue for me; I’m persuaded by arguments on both sides.

I was telling a friend the other day that I often disagree with certain Jewish laws and regulations, which I feel need to be updated thanks to modern science and technology. For example, there are more humane ways to kill animals than with the prescribed use of a knife for slaughtering kosher meat. Yet, we don’t update the laws of kashrut.

However, with the death penalty, I think society would benefit from applying centuries-old Jewish law. I realize that both liberals and conservatives are doing just that while reaching different conclusions. The Torah, for example, approves the death penalty for murder. The Talmud, however, puts many conditions on its application.

Take that phrase “eye for an eye” from Deuteronomy. Later commentators said this referred only to monetary compensation. Also, Jewish law declares that for a Jewish court to apply the death penalty, two witnesses, unrelated to the murderer, need to have seen the crime. In the 21st century, I take this to mean that we need positive, indisputable identification for the act of murder.

I think this could be any combination of: two eyewitnesses, DNA evidence, or video of the actual murder. (Aren’t cameras everywhere these days?) If those do not exist, it should not be a capital case.

As much as we would like revenge, the risk of condemning an innocent man for murder must be minimized. We Jews need to help persuade the overall community of the need to end the practice of executing people without proper witnesses.

Just as with Jewish law, the secular law is getting more and more complicated. We need to simplify the process so that we can punish horrible people, prevent even one human from wrongful execution, and maintain a civil society.

Even with the incredibly painful emotional cost of such cases, to allow for capital punishment in our state, we must have strict, proper evidence.

During this whole recent Rush Limbaugh flap when he made all those powerful GOPers back down and apologize, I didn’t get worked up. Nor was I concerned when he publicly said he wanted President Barack Obama to fail at a time where we’re losing 500,000 jobs per month.

He’s an entertainer. He gets paid more money according to how many people listen to his rants. Last summer, because he says so many outrageous things, he was able to sign an eight-year, $400 million contract for attracting a lot of ears at a time when people are filling those ears with sounds from iPods, satellite radios and cellphones.

I felt the same way about Ron Smith, the conservative talk show host on WBAL radio. Now, though, he has a gig on Friday’s in the Baltimore Sun. The difference between radio and print is that you can’t count the number of eye balls being brought in because of a column. Certainly some newspapers pay columnists to write controversial things, but they tend to employ productive voices – from the left and the right. Radio and TV tend to hire personalities (Exhibit 1: CNBC’s Jim Cramer).

This is all to say that I wouldn’t normally comment on the wildly off base things Ron Smith often says on air. But when he writes for 250,000 readers a column that is blatantly and unfairly anti-Israel, I get upset and have to say something.

In his Friday the 13th column, Smith blamed the “Israel lobby” for forcing Charles W. Freeman Jr. to withdraw his name for being submitted as the head of the National Intelligence Council. Smith backed Freeman’s assertion that it was due to pro-Israel lobbying groups.

He went on to bash Israel writing in the Sun “The importance of this fight is that in the end, pro-Israel lawmakers and lobbyists got their way, which means there is little likelihood of any significant shift in our one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” 

Smith also cited in his OpEd piece other examples he thought where Jewish groups controlled Congress: “No congressional debate is ever allowed about the immense amount of aid we send to Israel.”

But when it came to Freeman, he forgot to mention that many in Congress, such as Virginia Republican Frank Wolf, were concerned about his running a Saudi-funded think tank, advising a Chinese company and describing the quashed Tibet uprising as “race riots.”

It’s hard to see what Smith’s motivation is in this piece. Was he trying to take a slap the Democratic president who promised change and Smith thinks it’s more of Bush’s Israel policies?  Or is it that Smith is simply anti-Israel? After all, the facts overwhelming point to Israel simply wanting to live in peace with neighbors who forced into major wars in 1948, ’56, ’67, and ’73. Or is it because in the last few years, Israel and literally walked out of Lebanon and Gaza, but was thanked by a barrage of missiles and suicide bombers?

Smith may not be an entertainer, but his assertions of a more even-handed approach to those who hide military headquarters in elementary schools is entertaining. 

I realize coming from a person who followed a legend, people shouldn’t compare people to their predecessors. Heck, I had to follow Chuck Buerger as Publisher of the Baltimore Jewish Times. He was seen as the finest in his field. I know how Doug DeCinces – who replaced Brooks Robinson at third base for the Orioles—felt.

But, I can’t help but see the let down with Pope Benedict XVI following Pope John Paul II, who made enormous strides in some many areas. Obviously I care mostly about the healing of the Catholic-Jewish relations.  Pope Benedict XVI made a mistake concerning Bishop Richard Williamson’s Holocaust denial.

Now, Benedict XVI goes to Africa to tell Africans that condoms aren’t enough to prevent AIDS. Perhaps, he didn’t ask Bristol Palin’s views on the issue, but she’s proof that “abstinence only” education is not working. The result can be unwanted children for kids. But in Africa it results in death from AIDS, an epidemic that is destroying the continent.

I realize that John Paul II also was against birth control, which violates Church doctrines. However, I could overlook some of his issues, given how much he accomplished. (Besides, he wasn’t my spiritual leader.) It doesn’t help that Benedict seems so out of touch with our world.

According to the USA TODAY, the Pope told reporters, “’You can’t resolve [pregnancy] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

What would work? According to the article, “The pope said that a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease.”

In the meantime, millions more will die if they follow the dictates of this life-long papal appointment.

UPDATE: New developments call for an update to my last blog entry about Dubai denying an entrance visa to Israel’s Shahar Peer to play in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, which run Feb. 25 to March 9. CLICK HERE

Since I wrote, several major sponsors announced they would pull out in protest, including the European Wall Street Journal. But lead sponsor Barclays PLC, an international bank, maintained is sponsorship claiming its agreement, “does not allow us to interfere with any actions or decisions that have to do with the tournament itself, or the players, or the regulations of the host country.”

It’s more likely that, according to Reuter’s news service, Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family, made a significant investment in Barclays. The Sheikh, part of Dubai’s ruling family, now has 16.3 percent stake in the bank, which according to my contacts in Dubai, amounted to a bailout for Britain’s second-biggest bank. So there is no way Barclays would pull its sponsorship of the tennis event.

Fortunately, it was announced that Israeli doubles specialist Andy Ram would be allowed to play. I guess the Dubai organizers believe that the protests that they said would endanger Shahar wouldn’t bother him. Or was it the $300,000 tournament fine on the country and the potential change of venue for next year that woke up the Sheikh?

The best news is that American tennis star Andy Roddick decided to skip the tournament all together in protest. “I really didn’t agree with what went on over there,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the best thing to mix politics and sports, and that was probably a big part of it.”

Right on Roddick.

In President Barack Obama’s inaugural address, he so eloquently remarked about “why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

America now has a new sense of hope for equality. If an African American can live in the world’s most exclusive address, surely he can live in places such as Roland Park and elsewhere, which not long ago hung signs stating “No Blacks or Jews allowed.”

Jews, too, have reached America’s highest offices — from a Vice Presidential candidate nominee to Obama’s current Chief of Staff.

Sadly, this is not the case internationally, despite how Jews have given far more to the world in proportion to what our demographics would suggest. It’s well known that most Baltimore civic organizations would be seriously hurt without Jewish philanthropy. The same goes across the U.S. and much of the world. We’ve contributed to the sciences, medicine, education and the arts.

Yet, we still cannot tread in some places, like Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Over the weekend, the UAE pulled a poor 11th-hour move, declining to issue an entrance visa to Israeli professional tennis player Shahar Peer. She was scheduled to compete in Dubai’s Sony Ericsson WTA Tour event.

The tour promoters were galled enough to considered canceling the entire event. They decided against it so as to not punish the other athletes. Yet, the Tennis Channel announced it would not air the event, depriving both the tour and the UAE of valuable publicity.

Subsequently, the World Tennis Tour responded that it could eliminate that tour stop next year. WTA chairman and chief executive officer Larry Scott said in a statement, “The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour believes very strongly, and has a clear rule and policy, that no host country should deny a player the right to compete at a tournament for which she has qualified by ranking.”

African-American tennis star Venus Williams verbally supported Peer, telling The New York Times: “All the players support Shahar. We are all athletes, and we stand for tennis.”

The Dubai organizers claimed they were merely trying to protect the Israeli from protesters that have sprung up after the Israeli incursion into Gaza. Peer brought out such protesters when playing in New Zealand a few weeks ago.

“We do not wish to politicize sports, but we have to be sensitive to recent events in the region and not alienate or put at risk the players and the many tennis fans of different nationalities that we have here,” organizers of the Dubai event said.

However, it should have been Peer’s decision — not Dubai’s –– as to whether she wanted to deal with that. Further, Dubai pulled the same move last year, long before Israel struck back at Gaza, when they denied entrance to an Israeli men’s tennis doubles team.

Muslims kill Muslims all over the world –– in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. No one protests. Yet, Israel defends itself and Arab countries punish a tennis player.

I think the Tour should go back to Dubai next year. But force them to allow Peer to play. Not only that, but the powerful Tour should insist that the Israeli national anthem be sung prior to play. Then air a two-minute American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee video highlighting the great rescue and relief work around the world by Jews and Israelis. It would be broadcast on international TV and replayed on the Tennis Channel.

This would offer real support for Israeli athletes, show the positive side of world Jewry and deliver the signal that you can’t single out Jews any longer.

Discrimination is not acceptable in America and it shouldn’t be so elsewhere. After all, Israel treats its Arab citizens better than most Muslim countries treat their own population.

This is a new day in America; it should be one around the world, too. The old signs of “No Jews, Blacks or Dogs allowed” have been taken down from every public place and every neighborhood in this country. Now it’s time to do the same across the globe.

There are some Jewish leaders who compare “Madoff-gate” to the Holocaust. Personally, I hate drawing any type of parallel about the worst event in the history of man to anything. To do so denigrates the memory of the 12 million who perished.

I do agree, however, when I hear people describe this current economic crisis as “the worst since the Great Depression.” I believe that Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, which made billions disappear, is the most despicable incident to happen to the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Sure, there have been tragic events in Israel’s 60-year statehood, but the feisty little nation always seems to come out victorious.

If the Holocaust was the nadir of the Jewish timeline, then the founding of Israel three years later was the zenith in 2,000 years, providing the tiniest bit of salvation for the horrific genocide. What good, if any, will come out of Madoff squandering billions of dollars from Jewish organizations and reinforcing the age-old stereotype of Jewish greed? What will bloom after Madoff forced several Jewish organizations to shut down, others to cut scholarships, and gave the world the wrong impression that Jews control international financial markets and are doing so illegally?

One local Jewish leader I spoke with was in despair over the devastation to Jewish groups such as Yeshiva University ($100 million gone) and Haddasah ($95 million evaporated).

He professed hope that this will be a turning point for the Jewish people to commit to teshuvah, to return to Jewish values. Those values include giving anonymously where the funds are most needed, not just for the sake of putting a family name on an edifice or a lobby. Those values include performing acts of great philanthropic kindness and difference, and not just accumulating vast sums of money to be the first to own the latest Gulfstream personal aircraft.

I had the same dream after 9/11. I thought that we finally valued firemen more than Britney Spears. I hoped our priorities would return to real heroes and away from the material ones based in Hollywood.

That lasted a full three months. I doubt that the Madoff affair will bring us back to reality for longer than it takes to get this economy back cranking again.

I’ve often used this column to challenge and cajole the Muslim world to take some responsibility and leadership in bringing Islam back to a peaceful, loving religion, and not let it continue to be hijacked by radical terrorists. Most of the Islamic world remains eerily silent as their fellow Muslims murder in the name of Allah in Gaza, Iraq and India.

It’s time to look at ourselves now and our values. It’s time our leadership stepped up and provided guidance for the Jewish people. There is no shortage of Jewish leadership. The question is, how we can learn from this? The question is, how do we stop, in the words of Shoshana S. Cardin, “worshipping the new god of green and gold?”

Over the weekend, I saw the movie “Seven Pounds,” which critics claim to be too depressing for this festive time of year. The film is about redemption and performing a huge self-sacrifice to make up for a terrible mistake. It’s the story of attempting teshuvah to make tikkun olam, repairing the world.

The Jews have this ability. We have done this, and many of us continue to do so. However, too many of us got caught up in the selfish greed sweeping the nation. Too many of us got complacent and forgot to question whether something was too good to be true. We suspended following the basic rules that all things material eventually must go down in value, because we were lulled into believing our houses would be worth more, our portfolios would increase in value every year, and that we could afford things that we really couldn’t.

For the vast majority, Jews continue to be law-abiding and stunning examples of how to make the world a better place. We can’t, however, allow the Jewish brand to be tarnished by the few who aren’t, just as the radical Muslims do for Islam.

Now is the time for the Jewish leadership to stand and speak up about the right way for Jews of the world. As one Jewish leader, Rahm Emanuel, recently said, “Don’t miss an opportunity to take advantage of a good crisis.”

Perhaps this will be the time we return to our core values and really do make something positive happen, as we did after our last low moment.

When I moved to Vancouver, B.C. in 1995 to take over management of the Jewish weekly there, the first decision I had to make was whether or not to eliminate the Jonathan Pollard counter.

The previous publishers, a husband and wife team and ardent Zionists, felt Jonathan Pollard was wronged by the U.S. government. Every single week from 1984 through 1995 they kept a running tally on their front page of the number of days Pollard was in prison, or just over 4,000 days at the time.

Whether or not I agreed about how Pollard was treated, I felt it was time to take the box off of the front page. It ran its course, and there was more pressing news to write about back in 1995, like innocent Israelis being killed at the hands of Palestinians.

For a moment though, I thought it might be an interesting idea of having a running tally on the Baltimore Jewish Times cover for the number of rockets Hamas has launched into Israel since it left Gaza to rule itself.

I’m sure everyone’s seen the total of Gaza residents killed in the past three days: over 300. Does the world know that Hamas launched more than 3,000 rockets toward Israeli citizens in 2008 alone? That’s almost 10 per day. Yet, most of us have no idea about the horror this creates. Nor, does the world take notice.

The only time people noticed was when Hamas forgot to launch rockets the day that U.S. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama visited the region with legions of cameras.

Sadly, the only time it makes news is when Israel defends itself. I take comfort though in reading the comments posted on news websites which heavily favor Israel’s over due response.

My wife and I have a Sunday routine of making sure we’re awake, downstairs, have the coffee brewed, and the New York Times brought inside, all by 9:59 a.m. We don’t like to miss a second of “Meet the Press,” especially with so much unsettling economic news.

We are glued to the discussions about the federal government’s role in bailing out distressed companies to buoy our economy.

I must admit, though, I’m a little afraid to fire up my computer most mornings. I’m not sure how much longer I can read bad news: consumer spending, U.S. automakers, home foreclosures, Blagojevich in Illinois.

What’s next?

Now we know. News broke this past week that Bernie Madoff bilked up to $50 billion from affluent people — including noteworthy Jews such as Elie Wiesel and Steven Spielberg. In fact, Mr. Madoff allegedly used the exclusively Jewish Palm Beach Country Club as a clients’ recruiting ground.

Others, such as the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, may have sustained a $6.4 million loss –– 11 percent of that Federation’s endowment funds — from monies given by Mr. Madoff. The Greater Washington Jewish Federation’s endowment may have lost $10 million — or eight percent — in the scandal. That hurts.

This economic crisis is not just an issue for Sunday TV shows or a question of the federal government bailing out GM. It’s very real here in Maryland. We at the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES feel it, too, during this worst advertising climate since the Great Depression.

Who will bail out our local institutions? Baltimore’s Jewish Federation, the Associated –– akin to the United Way for the Jewish community — is struggling to meet the increased demands for job training, food and mental health counseling. They can’t bail out every institution, such as our Jewish day schools, some of which could fail in the coming year. Donors cannot pay their pledges this month; even more services will be cut, affecting the poor and elderly.

That’s why I was surprised to learn that The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation is taking a breather until April 1, 2009. They reasoned that they are reassessing their grant making process and the state of the economy.

I can appreciate that. The Foundation has shown great leadership and vision over the years while doubling its corpus –– which supports causes for Jews, the elderly and the poor — to $2 billion. It’s made a huge difference in the lives of people all over the world. In the last two years alone the Foundation made more than $200 million in grants.

Our local community, though, needs the Weinberg Foundation more than ever. The foundation can act like the federal government and prime the pump to stimulate our economy. They, unlike any other regional institution, can affect real change. They can help put food on someone’s table. They may help prevent the collapse of a Jewish day school.

Who else can step in and do that when endowments fell 35 percent on average, donations are down and need is up?

I wish that next week they would hand out $10 million each to a few philanthropy czars, who would then give out the money as they see fit. Why not provide $10 million in emergency funds to the Associated, Catholic Charities, the United Way of Central Maryland and Associated Black Charities. They in turn would be responsible for providing services for Jews, impoverished and elderly in the next 90 days.

The Weinberg executives and board must be mindful of the long term to ensure their institutions’ viability; their investment portfolio must have suffered like everyone else’s. Still, it’s raining like we’ve never seen, and it’s time to tap the rainy day funds before we lose more jobs, more Jewish institutions and more services.

Giving it out quickly to local experts will provide a boost of confidence and local liquidity to shore up our uncertain economy. They left the door open for more grants in the strenuous time for basic human needs. I hope they quickly choose to change course.

If they could, the Weinberg Foundation would leave a mark unlike it has ever done, which is saying a lot for an organization that’s already given so much.

Last Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008, Matthew Caplan and Evan Chernoff were called to the Torah at Beth El Congregation to become bar mitzvot. The two chanted wonderfully, making their families and everyone in the crowded sanctuary very proud. The 13-year-olds must have practiced for over 100 hours each in preparation for their simchahs, including their portion, Chayei Sarah.

During the service, Rabbi Steve Schwartz called Matt and Evan together for a moment in what were otherwise equally joyous but separate simchahs. The rabbi introduced the two boys to someone else who had also practiced countless hours for parshat Chayei Sarah, “Life of Sarah,” for his bar mitzvah, but never had a chance to chant it in front of a congregation or make his parents proud. The bar mitzvah was supposed to take place on Nov. 9, 1938.

Arnold Fleischmann, now 83, woke up the day of his bar mitzvah not to the normal excitement most young men feel. Instead, he heard the sounds of Nazi stormtroopers, who destroyed his Judaica-filled home. They arrested his father, uncles, maternal grandfather, and badly beat his paternal grandfather and grandmother––many of whom were taken to the town slaughterhouse before the 13-year-old was able to find them.

The Bayreuth Synagogue where Mr. Fleischmann worshipped was spared from total destruction. The Nazis, considering themselves civilized, did not want to risk any damage to the adjacent 18th-century opera house. So, rather than burn its exterior and risk an uncontrolled fire, the Nazis chose to protect the opera house. Instead they only gutted and burned all the prayer books, furnishings and the Torahs within the synagogue.

That day was the infamous Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when throughout Germany the Nazis destroyed 101 synagogues, 7,500 Jewish-owned retail shops, and Jewish homes. Glass from the stores littered the streets across Germany. Over two days, 91 Jews were beaten to death and 26,000 were taken to concentration camps.

Mr. Fleischmann never had a chance to have his bar mitzvah. There was no joyous occasion to mark his entrance into Jewish manhood. Instead, Mr. Fleischmann witnessed two years of hell before escaping to the United States. Kristallnacht began what was an increasingly violent environment for European Jews, leading up to the Holocaust.

Mr. Fleischmann left for safety in the United States on one of the last boats out of Germany in 1940. Some family members were supposed to follow him on the next ship, but it never sailed. His grandfather and aunt perished in death camps.

Seventy years later, as the sun streamed through the stained glass windows at a synagogue his family helped found, Mr. Fleischmann was called to the Torah during parshat Chayei Sarah. He had an aliyah to mark the anniversary of what would have been what Matt and Evan can now attest to — the most special day of a young Jewish man’s life. He gave the blessing before the Torah reading.

The retired lawyer walked up to the bimah holding his granddaughter Laura Julia’s hand. During his moments at the Torah, he smiled and beamed like a 13-year-old boy. His voice cracked not too differently from that of a pubescent child.

When the three bar mitzvah boys were standing together on the bimah, Rabbi Schwartz remarked how, 70 years later, Mr. Fleischmann still lives a very full Jewish life with the same passion and enthusiasm for Judaism as a recent bar mitzvah. Rabbi Schwartz talked of the great example he always set for his granddaughters.

When Mr. Fleischmann entered Jewish adulthood, we worried about the survival of the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis. Today, we worry about the survival of the Jewish people at the hands of assimilation. Mr. Fleischmann’s parents never saw him called to the Torah, but at 83 he held his granddaughter’s hand, helping in his own way with the survival of the Jewish people for another generation.

It didn’t take long for President-Elect Barack Obama and his team to make their first mistakes. During his much anticipated introductory news conference, Mr. Obama joked that he spoke with most of the living president—but didn’t pull a Nancy Reagan. He tried and failed to be funny in recalling how Mrs. Reagan reportedly held séances in the White House in the early 1980s. He later called and, appropriately, apologized to the former First Lady.

The next gaff came from the father Mr. Obama’s newly minted Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, Rahm’s Israeli-born father, last week told the Ma’ariv daily, “Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called the remarks “an unacceptable smear.”

The son then the father apologized to the group for the disparaging comments.

“From the fullness of my heart, I personally apologize on behalf of my family and me,” Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), said in a telephone call Thursday to Mary Rose Oakar, the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family.”

According the JTA Wire Service, a spokeswoman for Rahm Emanuel said the Illinois congressman offered to meet with representatives of the Arab-American community “at an appropriate time in the future.”

I’m sure many more mistakes are to come. As Jews, we are quick to point out when others blow it. It’s critical that we are equally diligent about righting our own wrongs as well.

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, remarked about the importance of a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian issue earlier this week, “The single most important thing is that the new administration in the United States grips this issue from Day One.”

As an American Jew, I can emphasis how important that is, and I’m sure the 47 million Americans without health insurance, the 6.5 percent of out-of-work Americans and the million employees who depend on the Big Three all think their problems should be addressed on Day One.

Some people believe that energy independence trumps everything else. I think they have a real point. What if President Barack Obama made that his big, hairy, audacious goal of becoming energy independent by 2016 starting with the Big Three?

Already he’s talking about providing loans to the car makers to help them retool for more energy efficient cars. That would help propel America to the leading producer of green technology, harnessing a rusting workforce to once again export American ingenuity.

What might happen were the United States to find alternatives to the combustion engine?

The rest of the developing world would buy green technology from American companies; naturally the price of oil would drop. That would have cascading effects — as we’ve seen in the last few weeks.

Iran is so reliant on oil revenue that it might beg for a meeting with President Obama on our terms; Tehran cannot survive with oil below $75 per barrel. They would be forced to halt their nuclear weapon program, which threatens Israeli’s existence. If Iran cannot take care of its people, it surely cannot fund Hezbollah and Hamas.

Without that funding, Hezbollah and Hamas would have no missiles to launch at Israel, or money to train and pay suicide bombers. They, too, would want to be on President Obama’s agenda, just as Yasser Arafat ran to the United States when his old Soviet/Russian friends’ money dried up as the Cold War ended. A safe, solid two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be achievable, quickly.

Speaking of Russia, when oil drops back to $40, when we have an alternative to the combustion engine, Vladimir Putin won’t be rearing his head in Alaska or in Georgia. (That’s the country, not the state.) He’d be too busy trying to feed his own people to threaten someone else’s.

Oil below $40 per barrel in eight years. Hugo Chavez who?

I’m oversimplifying the solutions. It’s a monumental task to move from a petroleum-based society to other alternatives, such as plug-in hybrids, natural gas, or electric cars. We don’t have the infrastructure… Yet.

But what better time is there to create an FDR-like public works project that can retrofit our nation to take advantage of our wind and solar capabilities?

Last week I met with David Houle, a futurist and author of “The Shift Age.” He believes we are leaving the Information Age into a time defined by three factors: accelerating electronic connectedness; the flow to global; and lastly, the flow to the individual. An example of this is how the power has gone from Media TV titans who told you what to watch and when, to the person controlling the Tivo remote.

He says that our lifestyle based around commuting from the exurbs in our combustion engine cars is not sustainable. However, if we can turn the automobile factory workers in Detroit into people who assemble green technology, we can again be the dominant global force.

David predicted the current crisis, and sees this as a great opportunity for the United States, the world, and this new U.S. administration. “We should be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past,” he told me. “It is this state of mind that ushers in new opportunities and prepares one for fundamental change.”

If we can leverage our power to shift from the past of a petroleum-based society to creating a new one from alternative energy sources, we can fix our economic problems, solve the Middle East crisis, and save GM, Ford, and Chrystler.

That will make Tony Blair happy and give President Obama plenty of time to tackle our battered healthcare system.

The 2008 presidential election wasn’t even a week ago, and it’s way too early to judge President-elect Barack Obama—although pundits on the left and right were impressed with his poise and demeanor in his first news conference.  He has a large task in front of him and the nation is counting on him to deliver.

From a Jewish perspective, Mr. Obama’s first steps were certainly newsworthy.  During the campaign, his opponents tagged him as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic because of his association with the fiery Rev Jeremiah Wright for 20 years (and Wright’s praise of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan).  That was a cause for concern, and Mr. Obama had to confront it head on. Still, I don’t think that the relationship made Mr. Obama anti-Semitic. 
It’s actions that count. So look at are Obama’s first two major decisions.

1. His choice for Vice President – Sen. Joe Biden.  Israelis and Jewish Americans can rest assured knowing Mr. Biden is a long-time friend of Israel.
2. The first White House staff member picked is Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff.  The very active Jewish Chicagoan is a product of Jewish day school and spent his summers growing up in Israel where he visited his father’s family.  His entire extended family has strong Jewish affiliation; it’s rumored that his wife and two children may remain in Chicago so the kids can remain with their friends in their Jewish day school.

I can understand that Mr. Emanuel concerns some in that he’s very partisan and – as a Clinton White House veteran and a U.S. Congressman – he’s not exactly the change Mr. Obama was speaking about during the campaign. However, I would think his choice would allay Jewish fears that the new president will be either anti-Semitic or would not stand with Israel in her time of need because Rahm Emanuel literally did 1991 when he was a civilian volunteer in the IDF during the Persian Gulf War.

Back in 2004 when George Bush was fresh off a victory over John Kerry, my friend Andy Colyer predicted that Bush’s incompetence would heavily damaged the Republican party, damaging our country which relies on a two party system. 

Part one of his prediction came true. Tuesday night was a huge referendum on Bush’s Republican Party. This is only two years after the GOP suffered terribly in the mid-term elections. Time will shortly tell if a Pelosi-Reid- Obama trio will damage the United States – as happened at other times when there was one party control such as from 1992-1994 and 2000-2006 (despite the Senate tipping to the Democrats for a while in 2002 thanks to an Independent Senator from Vermont).

The post-mortem on the 2008 election reminded me of former Maryland Lt. Governor’s recent book “Failing America’s Faithful: How today’s churches are mixing god with politics and losing their way.” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s premise is that the Catholic Church once stood for issues such as helping the less fortunate, but has now become an organization that is “anti” everything – anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage….

The same thing can now be said about the GOP. The party, which once stood for fiscal responsibility and less government has created the largest government in our nation’s history and racked up debt with too many zeros to run in this blog.

They got stomped in 2008 because they had no defensible platform. They aren’t trusted to make government or our budget smaller. More importantly, they have no workable solutions to our country’s biggest problems: health care, the environment, the economy, and energy independence. Instead they remain the “anti” party. Anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-healthcare solutions, as well as against solutions for global warming and energy conservation. 

People don’t necessarily want more government, but they expect the government to enact solutions to our nation’s problems. Market based solutions haven’t worked on energy, the environment or healthcare. We’re falling behind the rest of the world in education and life expectancy while we consume 25 percent of the planet’s energy.

The Democrats have an opportunity and a responsibility now to deliver on those issues without negative consequences. It’s a huge challenge, and as a country they need to be successful. In the meantime, the GOP will be in Diaspora, hopefully gathering their own ideas on how to fix these problems. 

It all started innocently enough. Joe Wurzelbacher, now affectionately known internationally as Joe the Plumber, approached a campaigning Barack Obama to question him about his tax policy.

John McCain quickly picked up on his remarks and used him as an example of how Obama’s tax plan would stifle small business. Joe said he didn’t want to be in the spot light after his 15 minutes faded.

Well…he wasn’t in rush to fade away. He seems to have a fascination with microphones. He then accused Obama of being a socialist. The problem is that he got the facts wrong about Obama’s economic plan, which lowers taxes on individuals making less than $250,000 a year. Even Joe admitted that he makes less than that.

Nonetheless, Obama The Socialist seems to be making its rounds. Forget the fact that George The Fiscal Conservative has implemented the largest socialist program in American history – the nationalization of our banking systems, insurance industry, and now possibly the auto industry. If that’s not socialism, than I’m Joe the Plumber.

Now, Joe The Plumber seems to be a Middle East expert. He doesn’t seem to mind the spotlight anymore because he’s stumping for McCain and answering questions on Israel.

In Ohio, a self-identified Jewish person said to Joe that he was “concerned” with Barack Obama’s associations and “It’s my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel.”

Wurzelbacher answered: “I do know that.” He went to say, “Well, you know what, I’ll actually go ahead and agree with you on that one,” Wurzelbacher said. “You know ... no, I agree with ya.”

(Is it me is the McCain/Palin ticket trying to legally change the word “you” to simply “ya?”)

I confess that I can barely fix a clogged drain, so I’m no plumber. But, I have visited Israel several times and have done a great deal of reading on the subject. It seems to me that Democratic administrations have done a better job of protecting Israel. Even the inept Carter team managed a very successful peace with Egypt. I hated that Arafat slept in the Clinton White House, but Israel is better off with its peace treaty with Jordan. Obama will employ the same people Clinton used to bring the prosperous Jordanian treaty. Bush never talked with terrorist, but we got nowhere with Israeli/Palestinian peace.

From where I sit, I think an Obama administration would benefit Israel and the Middle East. The Bush name, synonymous in the Arab world with three wars, is the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda has. That’s why they’re pulling for McCain. Obama literally means “He is with us” and will make it hard to find people to enlist against him.

Obama’s energy policy is far superior to McCain which is what the U.S./Israel needs to get Iran in line. Look what happened since oil prices fell 50 percent—suddenly Ahmadinejad goes from wanting to wipe Israel off the map to wanting a nap.

I’m sure Joe’s a great plumber, but not so good on Middle East issues. Even if McCain wins, I hope Joe sticks with his day job.

Within several days of each other, Tesla Motors, makers of the hottest car to hit Hollywood, announced it was scaling back on production and oil prices dipped 50 percent below their recent high.

While the latter sounds like good news, it’s not. Just as is the news that Tesla is floundering.

You see, Tesla makes a great little car that goes from zero to 60 in four seconds and runs 100 percent on electricity, just the product we need to wean ourselves off of Middle Eastern oil. But the tight credit markets are making it tough to grow.

OPEC, which is mostly comprised of Arab nations unfriendly to Israel, saw global movement to conserve energy… permanently. That’s bad for their illegal cartel. So they increased production, causing oil prices to fall. Fall they did to $75 a barrel, down from $150 per barrel a few months ago. That reduces the financial benefits for people using public transportation or buying more expensive hybrid cars.

Now we’ll see consumption go back up, lining the pockets of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Now we’ll see the fattening of the pocket books of terrorist organization who want to annihilate Israel.

Without any comprehensive energy policy that would have benefited Tesla, alternative energy investments won’t pay off. That’s exactly what OPEC wants – just when the U.S. begins to look at replacing oil, they lure us away with cheap gas, making wind, solar and hybrid too expensive. Even U.S.-based oil supplies won’t be viable at lower prices.

Once again OPEC and the Arab world outsmart America.

Upon entering the hall at Chizik Amuno Synagogue last Monday for the debate involving surrogates Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Sen. Ben Cardin as stand-ins for presidential candidates John McCain and Barak Obama, I asked if there was separate seating.  Not for men and women but for Democrats and Republicans.  After scouting things out, the answer was no.  Myrna Cardin sat next to a gentleman proudly wearing a McCain sticker.

I sat next to Rob Frier and his son Ethan. Unfortunately for the Beth Tfiloh student, he won’t be 18 until shortly after the election, so he can’t vote yet. It says a lot about the young man who took the time to hear about the candidates.

When I tell people that I attended the Jewish community event, the first question they ask is who won?

After pondering that question for a quick second, I started to reply that the Jewish community won.

It was a great opportunity for two guys who know and respect each other to debate the issues that are crucial to Israel and to Jewish values in America.  There were no low blows. Gone were the lies and untruths about the candidates. 

Early on it appeared that Cardin’s position was winning over the 800-plus person audience. Than Ehrlich changed the discussion to focus on each specific issue and explained that it’s up to the Jewish community to decide which candidate’s platform would deliver results on Israel/Arab relations, healthcare, and church/state issues. 

I’m not sure any minds were changed during the process. But, as Baltimore Jewish Council president Jon Laria said in his opening remarks to the standing room only crowd of Jews, “It’s great to live in a democracy. I cant’ tell you how proud I am of the Baltimore Jewish community for the level of interest and involvement in this election.”

Democracy and Jewish Baltimore won the debate.

I caught up with my friend Alan H. Fleischmann from Denver where he was attending the Democratic National Convention. He was Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s chief of staff from 1996 to 2002. 

He reported to me: “I am with Tony Lake and Tony Blinken. Lake is Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor. Tony Blinken is an old friend and Biden’s closest foreign policy advisor. I am stunned to learn that Tony Lake converted to Judaism two years ago. He took to Judaism on a very spiritual journey.”

As I save been saying all along, judge Obama’s Middle East policy, not from his middle name, but from the advisors he’s listening to.

In April 2006, I attended a Thomas Friedman keynote speech at Hillel’s annual D.C. conference. As usual, he didn’t disappoint. Friedman is the three-time Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for the New York Times and author of timeless books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem” and “The World is Flat.”

His theme was that when countries can drill for oil, they never drill their people to do better – via education, invention and production.  And it corrupts. He repeated the mantra over and over of how much oil producing nations changed when the price of oil went from $40 to $70.

He cited a few examples such as Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.  He reminded the young audience that when oil was at $40 a barrel, President George W. Bush looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and, in Bush’s words, saw a good soul. When the price of oil doubled, Friedman said, “You have Gazprom,” referring to the country’s take over of the oil producing company. 

Well two years later, with the price of oil now exceeding $110 per barrel, you have an invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia with Russian troops refusing to stop advancing—after they promised to do so—and the continued reported burning of cities, just like during World War II.

The high price of oil also forces China to protect “the evil doers” in Sudan who are committing genocide.

Now you can’t read a bi-weekly column without Friedman (rightfully) screaming for our federal government to support alternative energy investments. So, on Wednesday he railed on John McCain for running pretty TV ads during the Olympics featuring spinning windmills promoting alternative energy. 

Yet, Friedman points out, McCain failed to vote on any (not one) of eight votes to extend the important tax credit for alternative energy. This is an essential bill to help level the playing field for wind and solar power against anti-democracy, environmental unfriendly, and possibly global heating fossil fuels. But McCain refused to vote to extend the credits for companies to install solar panels—even though he was in his office that day.

When we’re fighting a two front war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, one would think we wouldn’t have the ability to stop the advancing Russian army, stop the genocide in Darfur, and stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But we do: You can vote for the candidate who will do honestly do a better job of lowering the price of oil.

In the good old days when the Former Soviet Union existed, it gave Americans someone to root against. (Who can forget that amazing 1980 hockey game?) Now that East Germany and Soviet sports machines are gone, the Olympics can seem slightly less fun.

But for Jewish Americans, the 2008 Beijing Olympics have given us a little extra to cheer about. 

In last week’s BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES  , we previewed several Jewish athletes competing for the U.S. And, unlike the being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, it didn’t jinx them. On the contrary, they did quite well. We featured:

• Dara Torres: She led the women’s 4x100-meter freestyle relay to a silver medal finish.

• Sada Jacobson: Lost out to a fellow American, giving her the silver in fencing as part of an American sweep.

• Ben Wildman-Tobriner : made Olympic history. He was one of two Jews on the preliminary heat of the 4x100 freestyle relay which eventually won gold using Baltimore phenom Michael Phelps Swimming.  Wildman-Tobriner swam the third leg. The other Jew was Jason Lezak.

• Jason Lezak: He will forever be linked to Michael Phelps, his mega-star swimming colleague, but he is a star in his own right. Mr. Lezak’s Herculean effort to make up a half a body length in only 200 meters in the 4x100 freestyle relay may be the key to Phelps breaking the record of Mark Spitz – the all-time great Jewish Olympian to date—record seven gold medals from the 1972 Munich Games.

As I write, here were other American Jewish stars we reported on who yet to enter competition:

• Rami Zur, Canoe/kayaking
• Kara Goucher, 10,000 meters

There were, of course, a number of Israelis doing well, too. Let’s hope they’re all part of Olympic history, too. And don’t forget to check http://www.jewishtimes.com for more Olympics and other stories.

I’m not normally a huge fan of New York Times columnist Bob Hebert. Yet his piece on Saturday caught my eye when its call out in large type had the words “anti-Semitic campaign.” 

When I saw the African-American OpEd writer tackling the nasty congressional primary in Memphis, Tenn., I assumed he would side with candidate Nikki Tinker, the challenger to freshman Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).

Tinker, an African-American, ran TV ads that compared Cohen, who is Jewish, to the Klu Klux Klan. That’s because in 2005, as a member of a development board in Memphis, Cohen didn’t vote to remove a Confederate General’s name, statue and body from a local park. That long-dead general is one of the men who formed the Klan.

In Hebert’s great column, he takes Tinker to task for this ugly campaign for distorting a vote that a number of African-Americans sided with, citing their lack of desire to deal with “the protracted community turmoil” that could have come from the fight. Hebert points out that Tinker then launched another attack ad, one strongly hinting that Cohen wasn’t one of us – that’s to say Christian, and that led an out-of-state minister to distribute leaflets asking “Why Steven Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus.”

Hebert refers to Tinker’s tactics as “cesspool.” He goes to finally point out some good news: “The primary vote was Tuesday. And in that Ninth Congressional District of Memphis, a district that is predominately black in a city that has had it share of racial trouble – the city in which Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed – Mr. Cohen won an astonishing 80 percent of the vote… and destroying the disgusting campaign of … Nikki Taylor.”

It’s great to read Hebert, a voice of conscience in the African-American community, rallying against black anti-Semitism. Better yet, it’s refreshing to see a large black community standing up to anti-Semitism at the ballot box.

Shortly after Barack Obama returned from Paris, France, the ads started running about Paris, Britney.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, acted like he was already elected on his recent tour of Europe and the Middle East. That didn’t sit well with John McCain and his newly recruited band of ex-Karl Rove employees. Out with the nice guy campaign team, replaced with the veteran Swift Boat Veterans for Truth team and a powerful wave of negative ads.

They ran over 4,000 TV commercials comparing Obama’s celebrity treatment in Europe and Israel to the empty, sinful ways of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

The Straight Talk Express ran out of gas.

This should be no surprise to Americans. It’s difficult for the person behind the media attention category to remain positive. What surprises me has been the ugliness I’ve heard in the Jewish community.

One local rabbi told me a congregant said, “I can’t vote for that schvartza,” using the Jewish equivalent of the “N” word. An educated 34-year-old Jewish female friend said she heard Michelle Obama talking about “whitey” on YouTube. The problem is the video doesn’t exist. A Jewish woman in her 80s called me and said she couldn’t vote for Obama because people at her synagogue told her Obama gets money from Muslim terrorists and will be beholden to them. I got an email from a Jewish man with the subject line “Never Again” which went on to make innuendos about Obama.

These are sad, yet typical statements from the Chosen People. It was in 2000 that we cheered on Joe Lieberman for the second most powerful position in the world. At the same time we held our breath waiting for someone to say, “I wouldn’t vote for that kike.” But it never happened; his team garnered more votes than his opponents. Eight years later, Jews are essentially saying that about a black candidate with a traditionally Muslim middle name.

Obama doesn’t exactly have the most extensive resume in presidential history. (Ironically, long resumes make it difficult to get elected because it leads to distorted votes and Swift Boating.) Obama isn’t perfect, and he should be scrutinized. He doesn’t deserve the treatment from Team McCain/Karl Rove either. Worse, he doesn’t deserve this treatment from the American Jewish community.

Jewish issues are not the same as they were a generation ago, or even four years ago. Being pro-Israel no longer means will you stand by the Jewish State in her time of need? Every American president has and will continue to do that. Now, being pro-Israel means having a plan to bring peace to the Middle East like Clinton did with Jordan. It means outlining a real vision that allows America to quickly wean itself off of oil which, in turn, would limit terrorist funding from Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Being pro-Jewish may also entail talking to Iran. Maybe that’s why McCain is so angry. Just when he was making an issue about Obama’s lack of international experience, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, agreed with Obama’s troop pullout plan. Then, Secretary of State Condi Rice unconditionally met with Iranian leaders, an act once tabbed by Republicans and McCain as appeasement. Perhaps Obama’s policies — or in reality those of his advisors ??— aren’t so naive about what’s needed in this new world.

Neither candidate has any substantive anti-terror energy policy which would force Iran into nuclear compliance and dissuade it funding of Hezbollah and Hamas. The debate then becomes which candidate can bring us closer to peace in the Middle East and lessen Iran’s nuclear threat.

Let’s talk about those issues and not about skin color, just as we expected the nation to focus on what Lieberman could do and not his religion. Jews should be the light unto our nation and not be highlighting racist stereotypes like other Americans.

You can learn a lot from reading books. I find you can learn even more by doing and seeing.

I’ve been fortunate that my travels have taken me to some very special places like the Galapagos Island, where Charles Darwin initiated his theory on evolution. And, I just returned from Tanzania in Africa where I enjoyed a three day safari.

In the case of the Galapagos and Tanzania, I experienced something that was contrary to what one reads in books, and one book in particular, the Bible.

When you see examples of evolution with your own eyes in the Galapagos, it’s hard to ignore the reality that evolution happens, challenging the creation story in Genesis. And, when I saw hundreds of different species of animals in one small area – I realized how impossible it was for Noah to gather two of every kind of animal to put on his ark.

So, this past weekend when I went to Beth El for naming of my niece, Millie, it was helpful to hear Rabbi Steve Schwartz’s take on the Bible.  Rabbi Schwartz told his congregation that the Conservative movement teaches every word was not given to us by God, but we are still to follow every concept brought forth by Jewish texts.

Between seeing for myself items that contradict stories in the Bible and hearing Rabbi Schwartz, I still held true to my religious beliefs that strengthened my resolve to not let American laws be based on religious texts.

It’s funny.

In Baltimore, many people who keep kosher scrutinize the hechsher (rabbinic approval) of their products by which rabbi supplied the OK. There are some perfectly “kosher” caterers and products unallowed because some rabbis veto it for political reasons.

Yet, some want to look the other way when the largest supplier of kosher meat, Agriprocessors, provides perfectly acceptable food created in what increasingly appears to be a less then kosher environment.

Sunday’s New York Times again highlighted the many alleged violations allowed under the Jewish family’s ownership of the huge operation. They include: child labor, sexual harassment, unsafe conditions and cruel treatment, among others.

There were many reasons why Jews long ago were first commanded to observe kashrut – cleanliness, proper treatment of animals and health being some. (Eating pork used to make one prone to the disease trichinosis).

Today, just as Judaism has evolved over time, it’s time to evolve our kosher laws.  I’m not saying we should now eat pork. But we should consider our current world situation and make sure our laws are appropriate. People, including non-Jews once thought kosher meant higher quality because we reported to a higher authority. Now, with the media attention, more people are thinking twice.

Kosher approval should consider factors like the work environment and how animals and people are treated. (The Conservative movement is discussing this with their hechsher tzedek movement, in which Baltimore Rabbi Avrum Reisner is playing a major role.) What about including the need for organic meat since the current standard processing creates unhealthy beef products pumped full of steroids and anti-biotics? Modern meat processing also makes the end result devoid of nutrients such as Omega-3 fatty acids.

What I love about Judaism is that we have always evolved to fit the needs of the day while maintaining our core values. It’s time to apply that to our kosher laws.

It’s official.
Ehud “Udi” Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are dead. Their bodies were handed over by Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas to Israeli officials on Wednesday.
This ends the hope that their families, all Israelis, American Jews and many others had that the Israelis would be reunited, alive, with their loved ones. Worse yet, in exchange for the soldiers’ remains, Israel is turning over Samir Kuntar to Hezbollah. Kuntar is alive and well despite having killed three Israeli civilians in 1979, including smashing the skull of a four-year-old girl with his rifle butt.
Israel captured and tried Kuntar. He was found guilty and has spent the last 29 years alive and healthy in an Israeli prison. Since Israel doesn’t have a death penalty, he’ll return to Lebanon with a hero’s welcome.
Udi and Eldad didn’t have the same fate. The two were captured and killed after Hezbollah guerillas crossed into Israel almost two years ago to the day. Hezbollah said then that the attack was intended to win the release for the “resistance” fighter, Kuntar.
Two years later, the terrorist organization has its way.
I can’t stand that Israel had to make the Solomon-like decision: Do we trade the bodies of two illegally kidnapped soldiers for a baby killer who’s been cared for by Israel?
Why does a democratic society that grants due process to terrorists have to give in to these demands? Won’t this perpetuate the vicious cycle of terror on innocent civilians and allow the killer to go free in exchange for corpses?
Still, the majority of Israelis favored the swap; the Goldwasser family heavily lobbied Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to make the exchange. They needed closure. They had to know their son’s fate.
This is sad ending to the events that lead to the Israel-Hezbollah War, precipitated by the kidnapping of Udi and Eldad on July 12, 2006. After the conflict broke out, I went to Israel with the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore. Because I had slept through a breakfast meeting, I stumbled into a small gathering with Karnit Goldwasser, Udi’s wife of 10 months at the time. Her father in-law Sholmo was there, as was my friend Mark Wright.
Listening to her story, you couldn’t help but want to do something – anything—to move the needle slightly in her favor. We found ourselves promising to help build international support to push Hezbollah to release her husband. By the time we returned home, she had become a fixture on U.S. television with her optimism and engaging looks.
We did our best to follow through on our pledge. We crated and gave out blue rubber bracelets with the captured soldiers’ names on them (including that of Gilad Shalit, who is still held by Hamas). We worked the local media; we spoke out for action.
Karnit quickly became an international cause de celebrite. The love she exuded for her newlywed husband made her even more beautiful as her face lit up when speaking about her joy when they would be reunited.
Now I find myself opposed to Karnit’s wishes—to trade Udi’s body for the murderer Kuntar. I’m sure if my spouse were taken from me, I would trade anything I have for her. But I’m concerned that the soldier/Kuntar swap will only encourage heartless, lawless societies to continue their barbaric behavior. More Israelis and young brides like Karnit could lose 31-year-old husbands to terrorists.
I haven’t e-mailed or spoken with Karnit in more than a year, and I can’t imagine her mixed emotions – bringing closure to this horrible ordeal but never realizing the many dreams for her marriage with Udi, some of which she shared with me.
Her last e-mail thanked me for what little work I could do for her and signed it by saying “and I hope the next time I see you it will be with Udi.”
Now I can only see Udi in pictures on the Internet. He was probably killed when he was attacked and I would have never have had the opportunity.
This is a sad day. My heart aches for Karnit, for all the Goldwassers and the Regevs. Worse though, my heart aches for Israeli society, which had to do a deal with the devil to end this chapter.

I’ve been making my rounds meeting with Jewish elected officials from Attorney General Doug Gansler to Dels. Jon Cardin (D-11) and Dana Stein (D-11).  Each time I do, I pitch my idea of how to make Maryland safer, cleaner, and more prosperous. They all listened and were amenable, but they’re savvy enough to know that my idea would never make it through the Maryland Legislature. Still, now is the time to strike.

See, with sky rocketing gas prices, people are actually changimg their habits; they’re driving significantly less, shunning SUVs, and dare I say it in Maryland, taking mass transportation.

Meanwhile, lower and middle-income earners are pushing their elected officials to give them some relief from gas pains. I can appreciate that. However, now is the time for the state to raise its gas tax by 10 cents. It’s not crazy. I’d be glad to give it right back to the taxpayers with sales tax reductions on all products that help our environment – CLFs (those funny looking light bulbs), hot water tank insulation, attic insulation, or any green home improvements. 

This is not the tree hugger in me talking. It’s the businessperson and the Jew.

The businessperson understands that the Chesapeake Bay is a main engine driving our state’s economy. Not improving it would be the same as if the French Quarter were destroyed in New Orleans. (Not even Hurricane Katrina did that, miraculously sparing the historic tourist magnet.) If the Bay sustains even more damage, it would hurt all of our pocketbooks. As the Bay’s health goes, so does the region’s economic health. Driving less and being greener will help our waterways.

The Jew in me wants to reduce oil consumption to stop pumping money into Iran’s coffers. While Marylanders represent less than 5 percent of the total U.S. population, our state’s leadership in this matter would spur other states to follow. After all, Missouri was the first government to prohibit state pension funds from being invested with companies doing business in Iran. Many other states, including our own, quickly followed. Now we’re slowly starting to hear a different tune from Tehran.

We have the opportunity to further influence Tehran’s rogue government, and thus other terrorist groups that it funds and aids – say Hezbollah and Hamas – if we consume less oil.

Since the price of gasoline has doubled, people are changing their habits. In other words, they’ve learned they can drive less and survive. Now is the time to ensure that gas prices stay high so that this new behavior is not a passing fancy, but a permanent response to terrorist-controlled oil.

I realize this isn’t popular, but it is necessary.

Anyone who gives to charity asks himself or herself, “How much is enough?” 

Unlike taxes there is not set amount. Several religions say 10 percent of one’s net income is the mark. (Following Talmudic guidelines, many traditional Jews do just that.) That’s a very generous number. Still, if you’re Bill Gates you can obviously still dig a little deeper.

My friend Drew Staffenberg, who was the Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, used to say, “Don’t give until it hurts; give until it feels good.” Then, of course, he’d ask me for a painful amount of money.

I just returned from a climbing trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Our expedition company, EarthTreks, told us before we left to bring one extra clothing item to give to our porters. They are extremely poor people and are ill-equipped to go high up on a very cold mountain.  I volunteered to ask the group to bring an extra duffle bag so that we could each bring much more than one shirt or jacket.

Our group was a fundraising effort for breast cancer research. Still, I thought we could go perform another mitzvah by gathering a huge duffel bag of warm climbing clothes for the people who would be lugging our heavy loads.

Before I knew it, I had three extra duffle bags stuffed with gear.  I grew worried about how I was going to get that there with airlines getting strict on extra baggage. So, I e-mailed the group that I couldn’t’ carry anymore and to just bring one item themselves.

At the end of the glorious trip, it was time to donate our old, tired clothing to the guys who made the climb possible. They lined up and gobbled up our old fleece as if they were brand new, top-of-the-line clothing. Everyone – donor and recipient—had a huge smile – except for me. I anguished over the thought that I could have fit one more out-dated shirt in my carry-on or in yet another duffle bag. I could have created one more smile for a person who made less in one year then many Americans make in month.

How much tzedaka is enough? As always, I could have given just a bit more.

During this beautiful spring season, there’s no shortage of family activities from youth sport championships to graduations. The only shortage is finding enough time to spend relaxing outside.

That’s why it was so heartening to see two sell-out indoor events on the past two consecutive Sunday nights.

Last week, more than 1,000 people – and virtually our state’s entire political leadership—flooded Beth Tfiloh to pay tribute to Howard “Tzvi” Friedman’s two-year tenure as President of AIPAC, the nation’s most important pro-Israel lobby. It was a terrific event for an amazing guy. Howard has worked for years for various Jewish causes, each with great success. This time he took the national stage in support of Israel, during a critical time in the nation’s 60-year history.

There were so many things to celebrate and to be proud of for our native son on May 28. One of mine was Howard’s ability to bring Jews of all backgrounds under one roof, something that nearly impossible to do for any other reason. It’s yet another success that can be pinned on the still young Howard.

Then last night the international Jewish community paid tribute at Beth El to the retirement of it’s now Rabbi Emeritus, Mark G. Loeb. It’s hard to thank someone enough for 32 years of outstanding service, but Beth El did it this past weekend in grand style. With a packed three days of moving events, Sunday night culminated in a sold out affair which made the shul look like it does during the High Holy Days. 

Most speakers honored Rabbi Loeb for speaking his mind for what he always believed was for the good of the Jewish people. I was a bar mitzvah when he was Beth El’s relatively new assistant rabbi. I remember during the rehearsal how he marveled my father with his encyclopedic recitations of various operas.

After my bar mitzvah, Rabbi Loeb left another lasting impression on me when he was arrested for protesting against the Soviet Union for not allowing Jewish refusniks to emigrate. That taught me as a teenager a valuable lesson as to how far one should go to stand up for what’s right—if even a rabbi was willing to go to jail for a just cause.

As we head into summer and the end of event season, Baltimore’s Jewish community can be proud of the way it just paid tribute to two of its own who made tremendous accomplishments for the world and right here at home.

We obviously touched a nerve in the Boys’ Latin School community, judging from many comments posted on our website. (http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/local_news/painful_episode/)
Once so many missives are launched to and fro, it’s hard to ascertain the reality of the situation.

I think I can provide some insight based on my experience.

I attended Gilman School which the JEWISH TIMES had written stories about in the 1980s concerning anti-Semitism with the predominately Blue Blood institution. Personally, in my seven years as a student there, I never once experience anti-Semitism, nor did my friends. But, I knew it existed. Even though it never affected me, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It did.

Reddy Finney, one the finest men you’d ever meet would have no part of it. One time an incident occurred, which I had not been aware of, and Mr. Finney shut down the school for a day and conducted sensitively training – decades before it existed. The whole school learned about the dangers of hate from various experts. It showed that while typical all-boy school activity involving kids would occur, racist and anti-Semitic behavior would not be tolerated at Gilman. And we learned why it shouldn’t.

There were some blacks kids at Gilman who exhibited bad behavior and started fights (and some white kids, too). Still, we knew that it would be absolutely unacceptable to tag the boy with the “N” word.

Now, we have two Jewish boys from the same family who were singled out with undeniable anti-Semitic incidents. The word “kike” was used. A noose was produced. Inappropriate names were uttered. We’ve been told about another case as well, but the parents don’t want to come forward on the record.

Everyone seems to want to blame the victims. (I’m used to people blaming the media, so I won’t go there.) Based on what people are writing in the comments, the younger boy may have had some behavioral issues at the school. The older boy, everyone seems to agree, is a gem. Yet he was called a kike and Jew boy.

Even if Aaron misbehaved, you don’t treat a boy – a fellow student—like that.

Tonight at sundown marks the start of Israel’s 60th birthday.

Last week, the JEWISH TIMES Jewish cover story celebrated the relatively young Jewish state with 60 great things about Israel.

The 100,000 Jewish Baltimoreans – and anyone reading this around the world – can each add one thing they love about Israel. It may be its natural beauty or how it is the birth place of the world’s three great religions. It could be the Zionist spirit or the wonder of what the Jewish people have done in what was once an arid, desolate dessert.

Each time I go to Israel or learn about it, I find another thing to love. 

Unfortunately, I found another by accident.

One of my loved ones was just diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  It’s a horrible disease with no treatment or cure. Thankfully, there is a drug that helps prevent the disease from progressing and becoming terribly debilitating. The daily injection is called Copaxone.  It’s the only non-interferon for MS. That means it’s much more easily tolerated by a larger population.

Yes, you guessed it. It was discovered by Prof. Sela, Prof. Arnon and Dr. Teitelbaum at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The drug is marketed internationally by Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, which trades on the U.S. stock exchange. This medicine, which is produced in a country of six million people, helps many millions all over the world lead better lives.

It’s wonderful knowing that my loved one is receiving treatment; it’s inspiring to know that it’s happening because of the world’s only Jewish state. Today, we should all celebrate that the hard work, investment in education and the emphasis on science in Israel that is helping do a little tikkun olam. There’s so much written out of context about how oppressive Israel is. In reality, it gives the world so much more than it takes. 

I think that’s just one of many things that makes Israel great. 

People rag on Sen. Barack Obama, asking, “What has he done?” My question isn’t what has he done, but, “what will he do.”

If the election campaign is any example, I like his thinking. He says what’s on his mind and mostly avoids pandering, or I should say, less so than the other politicians.

Take, for example, the most recent notion of some to help the American consumer. Both Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton are not backing off their stupid idea of providing a “gas tax holiday” this summer. They want to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax to help working Americans. Obama is opposed.

Obama says it like it is: The relief is only $28 per driver!

Now the conversation is working its way into our state. Some elected officials want to also suspend the 23 cent state tax on gasoline. According to the Baltimore Examiner, “State Sen. Andy Harris called for a special session to pass such a measure, but said Gov. Martin O’Malley and other state leaders did not advance the proposal.”

Harris went on to say, “There’s very few things we can do at the state level to help, and this is one of them. The state leaders don’t like tax cuts and they don’t like this one, but the people are clamoring for [lawmakers] to do something about gas prices.’”

Of course Harris is running for Congress and he’s out to show how conservative he can be. He wants to be Mr. Anti-Tax, putting a whopping $35 into your pocket.

More important to me is that we’re once again sending the wrong signals to our citizens. We’re saying, “When gas prices go too high, we’ll help you.” What we should be saying is, “Gas prices are high, they’re going higher. So get used to it, and if you don’t want to pay them, drive a more fuel efficient car, carpool, bike, or take the Light Rail.”

People will be mad; it’s anti-American to call for conservation. But you don’t have to wear a flag pin on your lapel to be patriotic. You have to want to drastically drop the demand for Middle East oil from whose profits in turn fund the killing of Americans in Iraq and innocent Israelis thanks to some Arab countries funding Hamas and Hezbollah.

If we really want to help working class Americans and hard working Marylanders, let’s eliminate the state sales tax on things like energy efficient light bulbs and phosphorus-free dish detergent. That will help Marylanders and help our Bay at the same time.

Federally, we can lower the payroll tax on lower income Americans. Let’s be smart with our tax holidays. We don’t want to encourage more use of oil that supports terror. Gas prices are finally getting high enough where it’s affecting people buying habits.

On this Yom Hazikaron/Israel Memorial Day, let’s remember the Israelis who died at the hands of terrorists and pledge to say no to politicians who won’t do anything to stop it from continuing.

It’s 2008. That’s almost seven years since 9/11, when President Bush declared a war on “terrah.” Our enemies are funded by oil. Yet it is miraculous that we are consuming more and more oil every year.

Of course, our auto industry is in the tubes, bleeding billions of dollars in losses over the past few years.
What’s so laughable is that two college-age brothers transformed their parents’ hybrid car into a “plug-in hybrid” that gets 100 miles per gallon because it can go 40 miles on a charge. Then the hybrid gas engine kicks in.

Why is it that a pair of 20-something guys can build a hybrid for $3,000 and “The Big Three” can’t get one to market?
Why do we spend $100 billion a year fighting a war in Iraq that is about oil and terror, but yet our government can’t seem get an American company to build a plug-in hybrid? The technology obviously isn’t that difficult.

Sadly, we’re fighting radical Islam the old-fashioned way—with weapons. If we had any kind of political leadership, our roads would be filled with plug-in hybrids.
The Jewish community should be demanding that these vehicles become as common as Hummers on American roads so we can protect the State of Israel against oil-funded terrorists.

The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were supposed to be the showcase for the Nazi concept of Aryan supremacy. That was dashed in about 10 seconds when black sprinter Jesse Owens took the gold medal.

We need that kind of moment for the upcoming Summer Games in Beijing. Just as Americans debated whether to attend the games 72 years ago, we are confronted with the same problem: are the Olympics purely an athletics event or is it an opportunity for the host country to show its wares?

This year, China’s support of Sudan and its human rights violations against the Tibetans give us pause as to how we approach the games. Hindsight has shown us that boycotts – such as the Moscow games in 1980 because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—aren’t helpful and often create a backlash.

As Jews, this situation is crucial. There’s a genocide happening in Sudan that we swore would never happen again, but the Chinese are part of the problem, not the solution. And the Chinese are not allowing religious freedoms in Tibet. We can’t allow the Olympics to highlight what a wonderful society the Chinese have.

Some have floated the idea of just boycotting the opening ceremonies. Others insist that we force China to allow the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet.

I have a better idea: combine those solutions. Have the Dalai Lama carry the American flag during the opening ceremonies for the United States. Or even better yet, the Israeli flag.

I don’t think it’s just me, but during the five minutes or so I that I’m filling my gas tank, I watch the pump’s numbers move so fast now that they’re a blur. Since I’ve heard it’s not safe to use your cellphone near a gas pump, my mind wanders to thinking about cash registers ringing in Iran – thanks to me and some 300 million other Americans. I feel as if I’m just transferring my hard earned money straight to the mullahs, who then transfer it to al-Qeda in Iraq, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

In case you’ve missed it, as Hamas’s biggest backer, Iran is basically handing over to the radical Islamists our oil money to launch missile after missile into Israel towns. (That is, except for when Sen. John McCain is touring those towns. Even for Hamas it would be bad P.R. to shell a leading presidential candidate.)

Like you, I feel helpless reading the daily papers as Sderot and Ashkelon get shelled. And I feel helpless when hearing about how Iran continually is making the situation in Iraq worse. Military action won’t work. A fence won’t work. Nor will peace talks.

But money? Money will work. Cut of the supply of dollars from Iran to Hamas and others and we’ll get everyone’s attention. That’s why it’s so important for the Maryland Legislature to pass the Iran Divestment law, which is now languishing before committee.

It’s stuck in front of the legislators because they are fearful that State Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp might not support it. She’s afraid that it does not meet constitutional muster because Maryland’s citizens might not think such limitations are the most fiscally responsible way to manage state funds.

Other states, such as Missouri, have already passed the bill, and others are considering it. The performance of their portfolios has not been affected by this.

This War on Terror has already cost our state plenty. Our National Guard troops have been killed, as have so many other Americans and others. This is a case of an ounce of prevention. If we can hurt Iran economically, it could save Maryland millions in dollars and more importantly in priceless lives. We can avoid an invasion of Iran and suppress the heavy costs of terror.

Don’t let our state’s money go to supporting corporations who do business with Iran. Act now to encourage your state legislatures to make sure this becomes Maryland law. Specifically talk to them about Senate Bill 214 and House Bill 371.

Only two months ago, 250 Baltimoreans joined with their Israeli counterparts in our sister city, Ashkelon to build a playground in a wonderful mission by the Associated. 

What a beautiful and peaceful act. Nearby, just south of where Baltimore’s lasting ties to Israel are now enjoyed every day by children, peaceful acts don’t seem to exist. In Gaza, the preference is to build weapons to murder innocent children rather than building infrastructure that will make lives better.

Yesterday, an Israeli man died when a rocket – one of dozens fired that day—struck his minivan just in Sederot, which is just south of Ashkelon. In Ashkelon itself, eight Hamas rockets fell on Thursday, destroying homes and injuring people. (Read more about this.)  These events are now daily occurrences.

Less than three years ago, Israel walked out of Gaza, leaving the Palestinians to govern their own land. We all expected celebration to erupt for their newfound freedom. But it’s so clear that the Palestinians don’t know how to govern, only how to fight. It takes no leadership to be rebels and terrorists; you can’t be a PR darling if you are shown on TV as prosperous and happy. It’s far easier to fire rockets on Israel, inviting necessary retaliation, than to build a civil society.

So now that Hamas has full control of Gaza, of course they chose to terrorize rather then act responsibly. No surprise there, just sadness – sadness that there is no end or solution for the Israelis trying to live in peace.

I’m just proud that the citizens of our sister city, in partnership with friends here in Baltimore, continue to invest in the future by building playgrounds for their children.

During the past December holiday season, I ran into Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) a few times. I asked how it was going with his new gig as the state’s newest U.S. Senator. I figured that going from being a Congressman in a minority party to this new job in the now majority party must have been heaven. He said it was. As someone who’s served in Congress since 1987, he said he’s never seen the U.S. Capitol so ugly and partisan as it is right now.

The animosity across the aisles, he said, is mean-spirited and makes it near impossible to get anything significant done.

I’d go farther. It’s getting down right gross and dangerous. Like “Extreme Makeover,” the reality shows on TV, the most extreme one wins. Did you see those commercials that State Sen. Andy Harris (R-7th) ran in his race for the House against incumbent Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-1)? They lit into Gilchrest for voting with the Democrats—as if it were a crime to get things done for our country such as finally having an energy plan. Every candidate is pitted as “too liberal” or “too conservative” as if moderation is bad for our country.

Yes, our political system is set up for gridlock so that changes happen slowly, but we’re now in an ugly mode where doing anything to move our country forward is seen as extremism.

It’s gotten so bad that even the Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who died this week and was the Congress’s only Holocaust survivor, is a target. Conservative talk show host Michael Savage, speaking on “Talk Radio Network,” the third most listened to program in the country, said this about the congressman’s February 11 death: “You’re not supposed to talk badly about the dead. I generally wouldn’t do it. But in the case of Tom Lantos, I’ll make an exception. I think he was one of the most—he was a scoundrel. And I’ll tell you why I detested Tom Lantos. The man survived the Holocaust of World War II and used it as a weapon the rest of his life.”

That’s sick. Savage is Jewish and should know better. Lantos was a man of conviction who spoke honestly and with moral authority. He chastised Bill Clinton for his behavior as well as led the fight against ANY genocide from Darfur to Armenia. He didn’t believe genocide could only be committed against Jews.

If he “used” the Holocaust, it was as a voice of reason to bring about positive change, which is exactly what he should have done. To say that made him a “scoundrel” is as wrong as it is offensive.

Enough of this ugliness. It has to stop.

It’s terrible to see the way the people in Gaza are treated.  It’s inhumane.  Shame on the way those perpetrators are keeping the Palestinians in those conditions. Call the UN. Alert Amnesty International.

Why would I condemn Israel?

I’m not. I’m pointing my finger at Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.

Hamas’s recent forced opening at the Egypt/Gaza border – the literally blew open the wall—highlighted how much the Palestinians need help. When the wall came down, literally hundreds of thousands of Gazans went surging into nearby Egyptian towns, seeking basic provisions such as food and gasoline.

So we see how easily the Palestinians could have been helped – if they had a responsible government in control and true friends. That is, if the Arab world was not too busy trying to score PR points against Israel.

How did this happen? Well, after Gaza’s Palestinians lobbed literally hundreds of rockets and mortars into Israel, randomly aiming them at civilians, the Israelis limited those supplies. If Hamas had worked on getting its citizens out from camps and into homes, or if it had created jobs and not suicide bombers, their citizens wouldn’t have been in peril.

It’s easy to blame Israel for closing the borders. Why hasn’t Egypt worked with Israel to open the border with Gaza? After all, Gaza was part of Egypt from 1949 until 1967. Then, when Israel and Egypt negotiated a peace treaty in the late 1970s, Egypt didn’t even want Gaza back. They wanted no part of a barren land with not natural resources—and filled with Palestinians. They didn’t even want Gaza back to help nurture it into an independent Palestinian state. Had they done that, they would have lost world opinion PR points against Israel. So they kept using the suffering Palestinians.

It’s no way for the Arab world to treat the Palestinians. Shame on them.

On January 9, I blogged about an awful post on the Washington Post’s website by Arun Gandhi, grandson of the famous Indian preacher of non-violence. Bizarrely, he declared that Israel harps too much on the Holocaust and should simply lay down its arms to get along better with its neighbors. The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

Arun was the president of M.K. Gandhi Institute. Some called his remarks anti-Semitic; I called them plain ignorant. Well guess what? Arun Gandhi offered his resignation and it was accepted on January 24.

I welcome that news because there is no room for such uneducated discourse, especially from the leader of a “non-violent” institute.

My only concern is that the announcement came from Joel Seligman, President of the University of Rochester, home of the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence. Seligman is Jewish and naturally people will blame it on the Jews. In reality Gandhi himself caused his own demise.

George W. Bush went begging to Saudi Arabia in hopes that his friends would help him with a problem.

The high cost of oil was affecting the one thing he hoped he could leave as his legacy: a strong economy. Bush and the conservatives believed his tax cuts that helped only the wealthiest Americans would benefit the entire nation.

Six years later, we’re heading for a recession with the challenge of threats of inflation due to higher commodity prices like oil. So Bush tries to butter up his friends to increase oil production to meet growing global demand. An increase supply would lower the cost of oil.

Just after Bush left, Saudi Arabia made news. It would now be legal for women stay in a hotel by themselves! Huge. Gee, what rights women are now garnering in the Islamic nation.

How sad are we that our president has to go begging for lower oil prices? What really bothers me is that the Saudis are not the idealistic democracy that Bush has been pushing in the Middle East. Woman have little rights. They can’t drive or vote. There is no freedom of religion. Oh, and they sponsor terror against Israel.

All that qualifies them for a great friend to the U.S and Israel.

But in the end, OPEC and the Saudis said no. Is anyone surprised that this nation that teaches hatred against America and Israel would say no to increased production?

What is surprising is that Bush would even think they would.

Finally, President George W. Bush has an energy plan.

Almost seven years to the day that he took office, six years and four months after 3,000 Americans died on 9/11, and after hundreds of innocent Jews have been killed in Israel in a bloody intifadah, the man has a plan.

Here it is in simple terms: The most powerful man on Earth goes to a leader of a country that can’t feed its people and begs him to produce more oil so gas prices drop.

There it is! Like it? 

President Bush was in Saudi Arabia after a photo-op trip to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. He dined with the King and told him that it would help Americans if oil prices were lower. (Remember: Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis. Remember: Every gallon of gas/oil we purchase inflates prices on the global markets, enriching U.S. and Israeli enemies.)

President Bush unveiled his grand plan the same day a Palestinian rocket landed in Baltimore’s sister city, Ashkelon, not far from a playground hundreds of Baltimoreans built two weeks ago during an Associated mission. Five other rockets landed in Sderot, seriously injuring a five year-old girl.

Unfortunately, this is not a joke. This is what our energy policy has come to. We beg terrorist sponsoring countries to be kind to us so we can feed our oil addiction.

I just hope more Americans and Israelis don’t die waiting for a strong leader willing to lead our country into using alternative energy sources.

Some times, we have customs in Judaism that are the result of wanting to be different than Christians. Take flower giving: before embalming, Christians would use flowers to cover up the smell of a decaying body. Now, it’s just a kind gesture. Jews had no real need to use flowers because we traditionally bury our dead within about 24 hours. Still today, Jews don’t give flowers to honor a person’s death. It’s just too Christian.

Now take presidential legacies. When Bush 43 moved into the White House, he set himself up to differentiate himself from his predecessor. What ever Bill would do, Bush would do the opposite. Clinton worked well into the night and was a 24/7/365 kinda guy; Bush was more of a 9 to 5 man. In fact he took the summer of 2001 off while al-Qaida put the final touches on the 9/11 terror attacks.

Bill Clinton worked tirelessly in his last year in office to make his legacy be peace in the Middle East. Yasser Arafat made more guest appearances in the White House than Clinton’s big donors. Clinton departed empty handed, save for a successful Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

Bush 43 didn’t want to stain his hands like Bill. But he quickly had his hands full with war in Afghanistan and Iraq. No time to get mired in a 2,000-year-old conflict.

Fast forward to 2008, less than a year for George to create some kind of legacy. With that clock ticking, Bush decides he has to do something after failures in nearly everything else he’s touched—from the economy, to education and, of course, Afghanistan and Iraq.

So he hops over to Israel for his first trip to the Jewish State as president, and buddies up with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Bush tells his equally unpopular new friend that he needs him to do something to create peace between the Israelis and Palestinians so he can leave some sort of legacy.

Sounds like Bush, who tried so hard to distance himself from Bill, moved so far away on the circle that he’s come back again. Rather than being miles away from Clinton, he’s sitting right next to him and hoping that with 365 days to go, the Palestinians and Israelis will bail him out, giving him something to show for eight years of work.

Better send flowers; Bush’s peace plan is all but dead.

I have writer’s block.

It’s not that I don’t know what to write about; it’s just that I’m speechless. I just finished reading a blog on the Washington Post/Newsweek website written by Arun Gandhi, grand son of the famous Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi. He is president and co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, at the University of Rochester in New York.

His blog is on the On Faith section with international religious leaders commenting on the PBS series The Jewish Americans.
Rather than focus on the great contributions Jews have made to American society – in the arts, civic, and medical arenas, Mr. Gandhi preferred to make up commentary about Jewish aggression in the Middle East. Apparently, he won’t let the facts get in the way of a good argument. Nor does he explain why he focuses on Israel and not America.

His vitriolic diatribe maintains two points. Israel’s existence plays too much on the Holocaust and that Israel should lay down its weapons, take down its wall so it will get along well with its neighbors.

I can’t even call this anti-Semitic. It’s just horribly, horribly ignorant and misguided.

Just today the New York Times ran a front page story detailing how “Sderot…has been hit over the past four years with some 2,000 rockets of improving range and explosive power — 22 in the last eight days.”

Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t a real big fan of the Jews. He felt that we should not resist the Germans nor use force to protect Israel. That may have worked with the English. Not so good with Nazis or Muslims.

His grandson stakes out some horrible opinions:
“Apparently, in the modern world, so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept. You don’t befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity.”
But, reading the comments posted by readers are even more frightening. While I don’t feel threatened physically as a Jew in this world, I am saddened by people’s uneducated perceptions like “while Israel has WMD that we helped them get…and they use them against their enemies who have become our enemies (remember the axis of evil?).”

Not to mention the mere fact that Israel and India are close economic and military allies.

I have writers block on how to comment to these people. You?

In case you’ve been living in a cave or spent the holiday season on a deserted island, I have big news for you: Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. Yes, it’s true; the younger sister of celebrity train-wreck Britney Spears is going to be an unwed mother.

Jamie Lynn, 16, the wholesome star of the Nickelodeon television series “Zoey 101,” somehow is having a baby herself.

It’s hard to generalize about one case of teen pregnancy, and it’s a reminder of the hard work we still need to do to reduce teen pregnancies in this country. What really bugs me is President Bush’s policy that 100 percent of federal money must go to abstinence-only programming.

I understand that abstinence programming is important, and that some parents want it, but 100 percent of federal dollars? There is a time, place and need for traditional sex education. Our kids need it in a world where you can get endless information on the Internet. They need to know the facts and the truth.
My beef with Bush is that his religious beliefs cloud his political thinking and judgment.

I keep hearing that our country is based on Judeo-Christian values. But that should mean we use our religious beliefs to affect policy. After all, some say that capital punishment is allowed in the Bible. Yet, with the advent of DNA testing and more sound criminal policies, capital punishment has been shown to have major issues, including executing innocent people.

Instead, let sound values, not religion, govern our land. Goodness knows the Spears family could use a little help there.

It’s an easy solution to all our ills. Bad politicians—it’s because of the media. Homicide rates are increasing—it’s those pesky journalists.

Sure, some news programs and publications focus way too much on negative news or reveal more than we need to know about celebrities’ personal lives. Overall, in America we’re blessed with First Amendment freedoms and some of the world’s best publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

The BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES, the leading independent Jewish publication in North America, has been accused of lowering its standards in the past year during its historic enterprising journalism on the allegations of sexual molestation by prominent local rabbis.

Executive Editor Phil Jacobs has had the courage to use his name publicly, and protect the victims of these crimes providing anonymity. Interestingly, our website allows people to comment anonymously on our blogs and all news stories. Scores of people have blasted Phil and the victims anonymously. They don’t have the courage to put their names in print, but those same people chastise the victims of horrible events for not wanting to go through the embarrassment of putting their names in public.

Most reputable news organizations from the New York Times to ABC News won’t divulge the names of sexual crime victims. Should the JEWISH TIMES be held to a different standard than the nation’s leading media?

These anonymous writers asked why we would print the address and work place of the most recent alleged perpetrator, Yisroel Shapiro. Well, if there were someone accused of molesting little boys living on your street or working in a place where you shop, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Of course you would. That’s why there are public registers for these people.

There are other complaints about the timing of our stories. But the fact is, the man was served with papers and it became news. That’s what we do. We write news stories. Any day now, Yisroel Shapiro is expected to enter a plea bargain. As they said about Sen. Larry Craig, innocent men don’t plead guilty. We didn’t cause this misery to Mr. Shapiro, but we will do our best to ensure that he can never again hurt a little boy.

Now other news sources are picking up our stories. So far, there have been pieces in the Baltimore Sun and on WJZ-TV, providing further evidence that we keep publishing valid and valuable news stories.

Some people will say that we created an embarrassing situation in front of the non-Jewish community. Well, until we broke the stories the entire community was pathetically ignoring this serious situation. Since we brought the stories to light, the community has really started to change – for the better. Blame the media; that’s fine. Because the reality is that thanks to the very hard work of Phil Jacobs, more young Jewish children are safer from predators.

The story isn’t over yet. The authorities are investigating other rabbis that we have written about, so there may be even more charges filed.

We also are investigating evidence about another prominent rabbi. Sadly, we haven’t published that yet because 20 years later, his victims are still fearful of the stigma of sexual molestation and the power that rabbis hold.

But, this rabbi, along with any other, should take note that that as long as there is a free, independent Jewish press in Baltimore, we will be the watchdog for this great community. And their sick crimes may still become public.

One of the most influential men in the United States came to Baltimore last week to speak at an Associated Jewish Community Federation event Tuesday.

Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, is known for asking the tough questions to wanna be presidents. But, on Tuesday, he did something he doesn’t do on his Sunday morning TV program: he gave his opinion on world affairs.

Speaking to a mostly Jewish audience, he advocated for a lot of different things and spoke of the important of instilling values and character in our children. He asked us to do that by leading by example.

He also spoke about the importance of acting now to ensure Iran doesn’t develop nuclear weapons. Russert said that the U.S. faced a “big decision” about how to handle the Islamic nation that supports terror. The moderator who’s interviewed almost every U.S. leader and learned a little along the way thinks sanctions and diplomacy are crucial. Why shouldn’t, he asked, talk with our enemies.

Russert echoed his “good friend Tom Friedman” columnist for the New York Times, suggestion that we needed a Manhattan project for energy independence. Again, he challenge the audience as to why Democrats and Republicans; Liberals and Conservatives can’t agree how energy independence is key to our national security. “We have to be nice to bad people because they have oil,” Russert told us, and that creates a threat to the United States and Israel.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the U.s. Senate passed the most significant energy bill in 30 years. It’s missing a few key components. But, it’s progress after years of neglect of strategic importance, not to mention helpful to our environment. More importantly, Congress agreed to fund measures that will provide loans guarantees for energy projects. This is important, as Tim Russert suggests, to help protect the U.S. and Israel.

S.M.A.R.T.

Anyone who has ever attended an off-sight planning retreat basically knows what that acronym means:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

You may not be able to recite those words by heart, but you know what they mean. Basically, when setting goals, you must be able to understand them, measure them and attain them.  That’s why most off-sight retreats fail, wasting billions of dollars a year and immeasurable hours.

And, that’s what just happened in Annapolis this week with President George W Bush’s last push for lasting Middle East peace.

The big takeaway: We’ll commit to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of 2008?  Huh? 

You mean we tied up traffic and overburdened Annapolis police and residents for this? If this were the result of any retreat I was associated with, heads would roll. This is not a strategic plan; this is a wish list for Santa Claus.

This is what we waited seven years for? I know, this was doomed from the start. Heck, 49 countries attended, including from Senegal, but Iraq declined!? What chance do we have for Middle East peace if we can’t get the country we just liberated and are funding and are protecting to join in on a peace conference?

And, the leaders of the U.S, Israel, and P.A. Authority combined couldn’t win one election combined. So what power do they have?

People criticize President Bill Clinton for literally looking at each street in Jerusalem in the 1990s to try and create a peace plan. At least he was engaged and had a team in place to put together a smart S.M.A.R.T. agreement. It worked with Jordan; had the dramatic tragedy of the Rabin assassination not occurred, who knows?

Instead, today we have a dumb plan that wasted everyone’s time and has zero chance for success.

OK, you know it’s bad when third-rate despots are taunting us. Sure it hurts when a guy like Osama bin Ladin hides in a cave and makes videos criticizing the U.S. Even with the most sophisticated technology and most advanced army in the history of the world, we can’t find this guy hiding in a cave for six years. What’s up with that?

Now, the dynamic duo of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are taking potshots at us during an OPEC meeting, at what is usually a staid conference about supply-and-demand of oil.

This year, a year when Canada’s dollar became on par with the U.S., it created fodder against the perennial sole superpower.

Chavez said about America, “The dollar is in free fall, everyone should be worried about it. The fall of the dollar is not the fall of the dollar—it’s the fall of the American empire.”

Ouch. This coming from a guy who runs a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map.

To add further insult, Chávez claimed that oil prices would rise to $200 a barrel if the U.S. were “crazy enough” to strike at Iran. Later, Ahmadinejad said, “The U.S. dollar has no economic value.”

These two powerless men can say these things about the U.S., and we’re powerless to do anything about it. They have us over a barrel—an oil barrel, that is.

Again, the most technologically-advanced country on earth should be able to figure out how to get from point A to point B without pouring liquid that builds up Chavez’s and Ahmadinejad’s economies.

Shame on President Bush, who for six years promised to fight a war on terror but in the end, because he’s in bed with the oil industry, has left us more vulnerable to these fascists and weaker financially to the whims of oil-based inflation.

Wow! I got great feedback – pro and con, and on-line and in conversation—on my last blog about boosting the Maryland gas tax to raise much needed funds for our state’s infrastructure. I suggested ways to find expense cuts as well. The purpose was not only to close the budget gap, but to help fight terrorism.

This week I heard Richard Foltin, legislative director and counsel for the American Jewish Committee’s Office of Government and International Affair, speak at the Associated.

His message: the importance of reducing oil consumption.

His premise: the greater the demand for oil on the global market, the more money flows in the coffers of terrorist states.

How can Maryland help? We should raise the state tax on gasoline by another 10 cents per gallon. That will help Israel and the United States fight terrorism because oil consumption will decline, lower the price of oil, and reduce revenue for Iran and Saudi Arabia. Not sure we need to do this. Well, in addition to the environmental gain, consider this: Soon we’ll have spent $1.6 trillion or $16,000 per family on the failed War in Iraq, which started in part because of our oil dependence.

What will this do to working class Marylanders? If the average person drives 15,000 miles per year and gets 20 miles per gallon, a 10-cent hike would cost them $75 a year.  It’s yet another burden, but we have to take dramatic moves to lower our gas addiction.

Recently I also met with business and civic leaders who gathered to discuss the budget situation with State Comptroller Peter Franchot. One, a state Republican close to former Gov. Robert Ehrlich, told me that Maryland hasn’t raised its gas tax in a decade, but costs go up every year to maintain our roads and our mass transit system.

We need this additional tax – up from 23 to 33 cents per gallon – to encourage buyers to purchase more efficient cars and to take public transportation. That will reduce our oil dependence and properly fund our state. An important by product will be keeping the U.S. and Israel safer as terrorist nations take in less revenue. Then they can’t continue to support terror.

Don’t think of it as a gas tax; it’s War Against Terror fee.

Maryland seems to be in a bit of a financial challenge – one that affects all Marylanders, including the Jewish communities of Baltimore and suburban Washington. Over the years, the Jewish communities have become increasingly dependent on state dollars to help provide services from drug counseling to programming for the developmentally disabled to creating infrastructure to support our institutions.

Jews not only care about themselves; we have a commandment to make the world a better place. That means helping out the sick, elderly, and those can’t help themselves. It also means providing support for our civic and cultural institutions that make Baltimore/Washington so special, from the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall to the Weinberg Building at Catholic at Mercy Medical Center, historically a Catholic hospital.

That’s why a sound solution to our budget crisis is so important. We need a balanced budget, as required by law. But while we must ensure that Marylanders aren’t overtaxed, we cannot let funding for crucial programs be cut.

Gov. Martin O’Malley needs to sharpen his pencil and rid the state of legacy costs that are out of date. In fact the Governor isn’t giving out copies of the budget during the special session, which means lawmakers can only look at new taxes and not spending cuts. That’s a huge mistake.

Some new taxes are needed – not on sales and income. Those taxes will only force wealthy Marylanders to establish residences elsewhere and hurt local retailers. Instead, we need to raise the gas tax to pay for roads, bridges and mass transit. That would force people to use less gas, which helps the environment and takes money from terrorist nations.

The Jewish community is filled with leaders and it’s imperative that we show leadership to protect Jewish interests and the well-being of all Marylanders.

I intended to take a break from beating on my reduce oil consumption/reduce terrorism/save Israel/help the environment drum. Actually, I really wanted to follow up my last blog on the Dalai Lama with another one.

I attended his Gold Medal Gala sponsored by International Campaign for Tibet. I was impressed with the Jewish representation there, especially Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Cal.), who is an Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Jews, of all people, should be leading the international effort to allow Tibetans religious freedom in their homeland.

But on the way to writing about that, too many other things have happened:
•      Turkey’s army and Iraqi-based Kurds fighting for an independent Kurdistan began a dangerous build up to war;
•      An analysis came out that the Iraqi war will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion;
•      A defiant Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran;
•      The Bush administration imposed additional sanctions on Iran;
•      Oil futures hit $90 a barrel;
•      Vice President Dick Cheney gave signals the U.S. may bomb Iranian targets before the Bush-Cheney administration leaves office.

Where to start? While I’m in favor of taking tough measures to keep Iran from going nuclear, I’m getting tired of Mr. Bush’s same two policies – war and economic sanctions.

Ironically, now that we impose additional sanctions on Iran, oil prices are surging, giving the Iranians an even larger war chest to destroy Israel and target other U.S. friends. And, we’ve seen what a mess we’ve created in Iraq. It’s not enough that we caught between flying bullets in an Iraqi civil war, but now we’re watching as the war is moving across the Turkish and Iranian borders. Clearly, a military strategy is not working. There’s no real democracy in Iraq and we can’t seem to stabilize the Mideast oil supplies.

I don’t mind carrying a big stick. But, we need other approaches to get oil below $90 a barrel. What if we invested a fraction of that on creating an engine that didn’t run on oil? It worked for John F. Kennedy.

If we could do that, I believe we would bring all of Israelis enemies to their knees and save the polar bears at the same time. It’s a solution even the Dalai Lama would approve.

The United States is in a bit of political tough spot these days. We have had to make some tough choices, and they’re particularly vexing for American Jews.

One situation is Congress’ upcoming important, yet toothless vote on whether to officially proclaim the Ottoman-Turks’ murder of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I a “genocide.” This is prickly issue for Jews because we like to think our Holocaust is unique. But many Jews of conscious speak out against all systematic slaughter. Normally this would be no-brainer for the U.S. and the majority of Jews, but this resolution would anger Turkey, a key ally in the war in Iraq. The United States cannot afford to alienate them right now. The Turks also have specifically warned that the vote could harm Turkish-Israeli ties. Meanwhile, Turkish Jews are nervous about their fate. Where, as American Jews, are we supposed to stand? Against all mass extermination or for the current war on terror or for the State of Israel and Turkey’s Jews?

The other tough choice of late concerns the Dali Lama, who just received the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Nobel Prize winning Buddhist spiritual leader is despised by China for his push for an autonomous Tibet. Now Jews know a little about living in the Diaspora while advocating for a safe religious homeland. Again, it’s a non-issue.

The challenge for the U.S. becomes how do we stand up for the Tibetan Buddhists and not alienate China? After all, that country is a huge trading partner, can help pressure the Iranians and can be useful in other ways. For certain, with more than 1.6 billion people it cannot be avoided. At the same time, many Americans and Jews are concerned about China’s relationship with Sudan. The Chinese government is quenching its tremendous thirst for oil directly from Sudan, whose roving janjaweed gangs of murderers have slaughtered some 400,000 people and displaced as many as 2.3 million. We need to ensure we can work with China to get of Sudan.

American policy is caught between condemning China for its acts against the Tibetan people and trying to stop a current genocide.

These issues make for delicate maneuvering for the U.S. and challenging stances for American Jews.

All of the leading Republican presidential candidates decided to skip the debate scheduled for tonight at Baltimore’s own Morgan State University, a historically black college. I’m sure all of their excuses are valid – they all had scheduling conflicts. Just like they happened to have scheduling conflicts recently for the Hispanic issue debate as well.

You know they’re wrong when members of their own party like Newt Gingrich chastise them. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who is African-American and a Republican, told the New York Times that he was disappointed and that this is a bad reflection on the GOP. Even Steele’s ex-boss, former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, posted in the unfriendly confines for a debate against Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Sadly, this is the direction our national political climate is moving. The man who pioneered this behavior is none other than President George W. Bush. Rather than talking directly with Americans who may disagree with him, he cherry-picks pro-Bush audiences who cheer him. His famous “Mission Accomplished” photo ops keep him in the dark and avoid any tough questions.

In recent years, more Jews have found a home in the Republican Party, which had been known as a primarily white Christian organization. Avoiding issues important to the black community and the growing Hispanic community reflects their poor leadership capabilities, a la President Bush.

The African-American and Hispanic communities – and the Jewish community—deserve better.

It seems as if Lebanon is quickly spiraling into another civil war. The last one, which raged from 1975 to 1990, changed a Beirut from the “Riviera of the Middle East” into a synonym for a bloody war zone. After relative calm in recent years, the serenity appears to be quickly falling into the hands of Hezbollah – one of the world’s veteran terrorist groups—and its main supporter, Syria.

Yesterday, Antonine Ghanem, a Lebanese Member of Parliament was killed by car bomb. He was a supporter of the current Prime Minister, putting him at odds with Hezbollah and Syria. Two years ago, a moderate, anti-Syrian prime minister also was killed. Other anti-Syrian, anti-Hezbollah legislators have been assassinated as well.

The situation is not dissimilar to Gaza, which also is involved in a civil war between Fatah and Hamas. Of course, Israel is blamed by many for the Muslim-on-Muslim strife in Gaza for not allowing Palestinian workers into Israel, which has to be done for security reasons.

I’m waiting for the U.N. Human Rights Commission to yet again get it wrong and blame the deteriorating situations on Israel. Perhaps they’ll point to last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah, one that started when Hezbollah murdered and kidnapped Israeli soldiers on Israeli territory. Then there’s my favorite excuse: Israel still controls the Shaba’a Farms, which every international authority starting with the United Nations says is not Lebanese, but Syrian, and which Israel says can be returned in an eventual peace deal with Syria. What’s reality when you have a good excuse to whip up the terrorists?

Meanwhile, Muslims continue to kill each other across this earth – in Iraq, Gaza, and Lebanon. To cover up these crimes they blame it on the Jews. Otherwise, they’d have to take responsibility.

I’d be dreaming to expect the U.N to take any action based on reality.

I spent my 9/11 memorial morning running in Josh Levenson’s Run to Remember. The money from the race goes to support the police and firemen.  I love that run. It has you up before the sun along with hundreds of like minded people.  For 25 minutes you can concentrate on the 3,000 who lost their lives that day. And, running along side police and firemen remind me who the real heroes are in this world.

Tonight, I’m heading for Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s Rosh Hashanah Under the Stars. My co-worker Joe Sugarman heard I was going and approached me saying, “Dude, got any extra tickets for the thing at Oregon Ridge?” like he was trying to cop some tickets to a Phish show.

What? Baltimore Hebrew sold out of its 3,000 tickets more than a week ahead of the Jewish New Year? You mean, even though you may have heard an ad on the radio and ran to get tickets on-line, none were available?

Maybe we’re onto something here Baltimore. Like New York’s B’nai Jeshrun or L.A.’s Temple Sinai, we may have found something that Jews want to do religiously in Baltimore.  We’ve been unable to generate that energy any other way, even copying the above mentioned services.

Just like I love the spritiuality of running on 9/11, many Jews seem to be longing for a casual spiritual Holiday service that doesn’t require expensive tickets, the latest Couture fashions, or a stale sanctuary. You can find God where he is – under the stars.

After Michael Sarbanes, candidate for Baltimore City Council President called us for a meeting, we reached out to his main opponent, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

The two are locked in a very tight race, and with good reason. Both are qualified for the position. As I wrote in my last blog, Michael would bring a wealth of ideas and a strong resume to the position.

Stephanie, too, is very impressive. The youngest person ever elected to the City Council, since age 25 she’s worked her way towards leadership positions on that legislative body, calling herself “a work horse not a show horse.” Over her 12 years in the City Council, Stephanie has learned when to compromise with her colleagues and when to stand up for what she believes is right.

She’s passionate, tough, and focused. She knows the system.

This primary on September 11 is, unlike most races, NOT about the lesser of two evils, but rather the better of two very good candidates. It’s too bad one isn’t running for a different office.

For the Jewish community, which has a lot at stake, we can’t lose. We have two great people vying for our vote with strong ties to our community and its issues.

We are a diverse community with a spectrum of different needs. Yet, we all have a concern for our local community on issues like:

• The future of Pimlico Race Track;
• Protecting the safety of Upper Parks Heights near the JCC as the neighbor deteriorates;
• Lowering property tax rates so houses are more affordable;
• Ensuring that there are quality, safe public schools;
• and crime, crime, crime.

Either way, it’s more important than ever to perform your civic duty on 9/11. So please, for all of us, if you are a city resident, get out there and vote. And if not, please pay attention. Obviously whatever happens in the City of Baltimore has a direct impact on how the rest of us live.

For me, I think Michael has the ability to be like another Michael – Michael Bloomberg.  Sarbanes, the outsider, has the vision and management skills to move our city forward.

We get a lot of politician making their way through our office, particularly during election season. That’s smart on their part because the Jewish community plays a central role in elections, and candidates want to state their case through the JEWISH TIMES. Over the years, we’ve met with everyone from presidential candidates to Baltimore City Council hopefuls.

When political scandals with politicians (see Larry Craig, David Vitter and Mark Foley) are more common than with professional athletes, things have gotten pretty bad. That’s reflected in how the combined approval rating for the President and Congress is only 60 percent.

So it was refreshing yesterday when Michael Sarbanes stopped in to share his agenda should he be elected to Baltimore City Council President. Michael was a year ahead of me at Gilman, and back then was known for his academic and athletic prowess.

Michael is the son of former Senator Paul Sarbanes. His brother, John, was elected to the U.S. House last year.

Michael has many well thought out ideas for reducing crime, lowering taxes, increasing business investment, and improving education. It may all sound a bit ambitious, but it was great to hear someone articulate such original thinking without any ego.

At a time when we like to pigeonhole people as black, white, red or whatever, Michael, who is white, has with his wife adopted three black African children. They all live in the predominately black of Irvington and attend both Greek and Methodist churches. Michael is Baltimore City.

We talk about the great promise our city has. It was impressive to meet with someone who really wants to make that happen. These quality type people are not usually found in local government.

Next week we meet with his opponent, Stephanie Rawlings Blake. We hope she can be as strong a candidate as Michael.

PR As The Best Weapon

I’ve always said the Israel needed a better PR agent. After all it’s the best country on earth, and yet it’s had one of the worst international reputations.  Being in the media, I always wondered why Israel couldn’t find something to help them. 
Remember those Israelis that would come on TV with the heavy accidents explaining why they were killing innocent Palestinian children?
Enter The Israel Project.

In 2002, before, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi started TIP, only 40 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Israel. Since then, they have educated the international media, coach Israel spokespeople, and have assisted journalists in new gathering, all in the hopes of giving a more balance view of the Jewish State.
In 2007, one year after the Israeli war with Lebanon, over 60 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Israel. That makes them as popular as the American Congress and President combined. (I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a sad fact.)

As old Israeli leaders used to say, “Win the war, not spin.” It goes against the Israel grain to invest in PR. Why should we care what people think of us? Because too much is at stake Jennifer pointed out to a group of people today that it’s survival of the fittest. Congress wants to pass laws that are popular with its constituents to stay in office. If Israel has a high approval rating, it’s easy to pass pro-Israel laws and garner billions in aid.

Now, the issue of Iran is utterly important to Israel. We need to garner support to ensure Iran doesn’t get the capability to nuke Israel.

The name Noah Feldman suddenly swirled around the country. He had written a lengthy story in the New York Times Sunday Magazine claiming he was edited out of a photo in his high school alumni publication. He believed it was because his fiancé, an Asian-American and non-Jew, was a no-no for his Orthodox Jewish day school.

It subsequently came out in reporting from the New York Jewish Week that perhaps a different photograph was used and his likeliness was not deleted.

Even if it were indeed the case that he was not deleted, for many American Jews it still strikes a chord as a symbol of inclusion. This is certainly not the first time someone’s made a claim of the organized Jewish community not accepting non-Jewish spouses.

I remember when I first returned to Baltimore a decade ago; a prominent Baltimore Jewish leader cornered me. She encouraged me not to allow the JEWISH TIMES to print engagement and wedding announcements for inter-married couples.

How crazy is that? These people wanted to broadcast their simchas to the Jewish community, and this woman wants us to tell them they’re not welcome? Please. The announcements should be used by rabbis for leads on outreach and conversion. Instead some of our “leaders” want these people shunned?

I read another sad story in last week’s New York Times. 

“Chris Schwarz, a freelance photographer who roamed the ancient heartland of Polish Jewry to record remnants of a disappeared people, then opened a museum to celebrate their cultural heritage, died July 29 at his home in Krakow, Poland. He was 59.”

According to the Times, he did a lot to bring Jewish culture back to Poland. Yet he couldn’t be buried in the Jewish cemetery there. The same cemetery that he helped rebuild with his photographs.

“Mr. Schwarz was buried Friday in a municipal cemetery in Krakow. By Jewish tradition, he cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery because his mother is Christian. In a short profile he wrote for his museum, Mr. Schwarz said, ‘‘I am Jewish enough for the camps, but not for the rabbis.”

No wonder some of our young people are walking away from our community. If that’s your experience with the Jewish “leaders”, who would want to be part of a nation that would treat its people like this?

Britain’s new University and College Union voted in advance a boycott of Israel’s academic institution in support the Palestinians’ plight. Our editorial page applauded the international backlash against the British.

Yesterday, the American Jewish Committee paid for a full-page ad in the New York Times written by Lee Bollinger of Columbia University and signed by 286 presidents of major U.S. universities asking to be boycotted as well.

The ad headline proclaimed, “Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!” It went on to say, “Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.”

By late yesterday afternoon, the AJC was flooded with phone calls of support and requests from 17 more universities, including Johns Hopkins, to join the list. Other local institutions had already signed on were Towson, Goucher, University of Baltimore, and University of Maryland – College Park and Baltimore County. More national institutions continue to join in.

It’s great to see such great support from our major intellectual institution showing solidarity for academic freedom, and recognizing that the Jewish state – with such wonderful and respected academic successes—is being unfairly singled out . It’s a nice twist given the perceived anti-Israel bias in academia.

The two leading Baltimore mayoral candidates called for meetings with our Jewish leadership. Interim Mayor Sheila Dixon met with a group of Baltimore Jewish leaders last week, and the meeting with Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., who’s currently a city councilman, was postponed due to high demand but too many vacations.

It’s a great sign that Dixon, the front-runner by a large margin, and Mitchell, the #2 candidate, find it important enough to have a dialogue with the Jewish community.

Of course, it’s no surprise that any candidate would say anything to get elected. The important thing is what happens with him or her once in office.

We saw our former mayor (and current governor) make his obligatory rounds in the Jewish community while campaigning for his first term and initially after he was elected.

Then, Martin O’Malley seemed to disappear. He took the Jewish community for granted. While he wasn’t bad for the Jewish community, he seemed to forget where we lived. O’Malley sightings became very infrequent in Upper Park Heights while he was in the later stages of his mayoral administration.

Even as governor, he hasn’t made a lot of outreach to the Jewish community. That may be because his Jewish liaison, Izzy Patoka, is far weaker then his counterparts in the Ehrlich administration and on the teams of Dixon and Mitchell.

Whoever becomes our next mayor, I hope that being part of the Jewish community is high on their agendas. We may be a minority, but we have long been part of the solution to building a great city.

And while our needs may be small in comparison to black-on-black crime, if the Jewish community is neglected, it would create huge problems for Baltimore.