Last year, I got a really good taste of the genius, generosity and extraordinary vision of Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin—who died yesterday at age 85—when I wrote a series of articles about the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown district.

If you haven’t been there, get over to the Sixth & I as soon as you can. It’s something else. Housed in the gorgeous, 101-year-old former home of Adas Israel Congregation, Sixth & I is known throughout the region for its innovative services and programming, ranging from the hottest speakers of the day (from the political, religious, literary and entertainment realms) to a plethora of cutting-edge performers and happenings.

It’s more than a shul. It’s an experience, a decidedly Jewish one, without boundaries, hang-ups or labels.

Sixth & I wouldn’t exist without Abe Pollin, his wife, Irene, and his friends and fellow real estate developers Shelton Zuckerman and Douglas Jemal. Back in 2002, these prominent folks were concerned about the lack of a Jewish house of worship and Jewish cultural center in downtown D.C. They wanted to get a Jewish renaissance going in the nation’s capital.

More importantly, they wanted to get young, urban Jews jazzed about Jewish life and culture, according to their own particular generation’s needs and desires. Many of these young Jews in D.C. come from other areas around the country to work in the most powerful city on Earth, and they barely have time to eat, much less have a Jewish experience or go to shul.

Simply put, Mr. Pollin and company saw a need, and they were willing and able to put their money and muscle behind their dream. They weren’t just schmoozin’.

So they purchased the old Adas Israel—which had been a church and was going to become a nightclub—spent millions on restoring the building to its former glory (and it is glorious), hired some really good people to run the place, and generously spent countless dollars on superb programming that would interest young Jews and others from the city, suburbs and exurbs. And they weren’t afraid to try new stuff, even if it failed.

Today, more than 125,000 people every year have a positive Jewish experience of some sort at Sixth & I, whether it’s a concert, a literary discussion, a class, a Shabbat service or otherwise. And no one’s talking at them about membership dues, building campaigns, Hebrew school tuition or continuity concerns.

I know some people here in Baltimore might not be wild about Abe Pollin. After all, he is the man who moved our Bullets to Landover back in ’73, more than a decade before that Irsay guy famously ran the Colts out of town. (We’re pretty good with grudges here in Charm City.)

But after spending some time at Sixth & I and witnessing the wonders there, I can honestly say that Pollin was a true visionary and mentsch. Our community could use a few more Abe Pollins.

I know you’re busy getting ready for Thanksgiving, and maybe even Chanukah, too, but let me tell you a quick personal story about how far we’ve all come in a fairly short period of time.

For nearly two decades (including during World War II), my late father was a Merchant Marine. Only God knows how many ports my dad stopped in during his years as a Merchant Marine, but one of them was Baltimore, on many occasions.

My father told me a story that when he came to Baltimore once in the late ‘50s, he went to the old Greyhound bus station near Mount Vernon Square. He happened to be using the restroom there when he heard the screams of a man coming out of another stall. My father ran out to see what all the commotion was about, to find a cop beating the living hell out of a man. What was the man’s crime? He had the audacity to be African-American and use a “Whites Only” public bathroom in “Charm City.”

My father, a native New Yorker unaccustomed to the harsh ways of segregation, protested, and the cop and his victim piped down and moved on. But my dad never forgot the incident and it stayed with him long after he quit the Merchant Marines, married my mother, relocated in Baltimore and worked closely for years with the African-American community.

Like I said, we’ve come a long way, in barely 50 years.

The journey is not over, not by a long shot, but the stalemate between African-Americans and Jews, in my opinion, has let up a bit in recent years. One piece of evidence of that is the spirit of cooperation that exists between Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the First Mount Olive Freewill Baptist Church. For the past two-and-a-half years, BHC has provided worship space for First Mount Olive because of a fire that seriously damaged the church at Freemont Avenue and Saratoga Street.

The arrangement has been mutually beneficial, of course, and the two congregations have enjoyed working with and learning from each other. Their spiritual leaders have even exchanged pulpits on occasion.

Next Tuesday night, Dec. 8 (which happens to be my dad’s birthday), the Black-Jewish Forum of Baltimore – the BLEWS – will honor the two congregations at its annual meeting. In a statement, the BLEWS hailed BHC and First Mount Olive as “exemplary models of interfaith and interracial cooperation.”

I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t wait for fires or other tragedies to come together as friends.

In a feature article on CNN’s Web site this week, Jessica Ravitz writes about “the New Jews” out there, blazing a new, glorious trail in the latest chapter of the American Jewish experience.

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai about 3,300 years ago, he couldn’t have seen these Jews coming,” charges Ms. Ravitz.

The article chronicles the unbridled and unfettered manner in which many young Jews today are observing and celebrating their faith and heritage, and it generally doesn’t have anything to do with shul, Israel, continuity concerns or paralyzing fears about anti-Semitism.

A few unconventional examples – Gen-X and Gen-Y Jews with tattoos featuring Stars of David and other Jewish icons and themes; women exchanging vows in a Jewish wedding ceremony; guys guzzling bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer; a PhD candidate who writes a letter condemning Israeli policies against Palestinians; a punk rock Jew who incorporates his religion into his music; and Roseanne Barr (who’s even older than me!) dressing up as Hitler, standing by an oven and serving burnt-Jew cookies in a Heeb magazine layout.

These “New Jews” tend to be sick and tired of the shuls and schools and the organizational alphabet games and the Holocaust/everything-Israel-does-is-great shtick, and all of the trappings of institutional Jewish life. They prefer an alternative, irreverent, sometimes even offensive take on their Jewishness, one that eschews the albatrosses of affiliation, tradition and rootedness.

I must admit, I certainly admire their impulse and desire for innovation and free-spiritedness. I, too, get tired of the vapid formality, endless rigidity and pervasive myopia of American Jewish life. I especially like the alternatives sprouting up – particularly in New York – where independent prayer groups for the spiritually hungry and adventurous are giving the mega-shuls a good run for their money (and yes, those mega-shuls sure like their money).

But with all due respect to Ms. Ravitz, I must also take it all in with a great big yawn. Because frankly, there’s not much “new” here, despite some catchy, newly-minted phrases like “Emergent Jews” and “the New Jews.”

Obviously, the old model isn’t working very well. There’s no argument about that. Young folks are bored, and so are most of the rest of us. We all seem to be going through the motions, and that’s across the denominational board. The stats back this up.

OK, yes, Hebrew school was dreadfully tedious. But let’s stop whining about it and try to make it better for our kids. Did our Jewish lives basically stop at 13 or 14?

I’m all for making Jewish life accessible, fun, creative and meaningful. I think we have to, simply for survival. And I don’t think that historical miscarriages of justice and continuity fears are going to inspire the troops. In addition, as important as it is, I don’t think a Judaism inspired and executed solely by social justice programming will do the trick (the Reform movement learned that lesson years ago).

Obviously, we need to employ the wonders of technology (the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and such) to reach out and really connect with the new and upcoming generations.

But I don’t think joking around about the horrors of the Holocaust, castigating Israel on a frequent basis or wearing T-shirts with amusing, caustic messages (“Kiss me, I’m A Christ Killer”) will make anyone feel more Jewish. It’s just something to laugh about, not anything with a profound meaning to help anyone figure out what being Jewish is all about.

Granted, all this stuff might make you feel hip. Tattoos do look cool, and seeing Roseanne with a Hitler mustache might be comical or cutting edge in some people’s eyes. But in the long run, it won’t make you really feel Jewish or understand Judaism. There needs to be some substance involved, too, and I strongly suspect that the “New Jews” will learn that eventually as well.