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.

This is the best Italian food in town. We have tried many others and nothing can top Fazzini’s. Everything is fresh, homemade and delicious.

The pizza here was undercooked and really doughy.
entrees on other tables looked good though.

we like fazzini italian kitchen because of good wait staff and consistently good italian food. everything there is homemade; pasta, sauce,bread,pizza dough,etc.  large portions and reasonable prices and no ambiance!