For those in the know, in but moments unhealed wounds from the verbal war between some supporters of the Baltimore Hebrew University and the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore could be opened yet again.

That’s because Dr. Robert O. “Bob” Freedman – one of the finest scholars ever to grace our community – stepped up to the microphone to deliver remarks after receiving an honorary doctorate from BHU.

In diplomatic but unmistakable language, he did not disappoint.

First some background. As a former BHU President, Dr. Freedman has long fought to promote high-level Jewish education and ensure that academics take it from the classroom into the community. Some of his key causes during his 33 years at BHU – when not preparing for Torah reading at Beth El Congregation or giving background briefings to CIA and State Department agents on Soviet/Russian affairs—has been serving as a leader in promoting Mideast peace and advocating for Soviet/Russian Jewry.

And in full disclosure, the brilliant man has been my academic mentor for 22 years.

So knowing that he would not be silent, how harshly would he criticize the Associated, which is cutting funding for BHU’s degree-granting programs in favor of more adult ed work and other identified community priorities?

His adroit tactic was to offer the graduates and the audience his four golden rules:

• “Don’t do it on the cheap.” If something’s worth doing – and serious Jewish education is certainly worthwhile – don’t cut back on funding.
• Don’t be afraid to speak out when you see something wrong.
• Make sure that you give yourself the gift of Shabbat to reenergize and internalize the Jewish message that you try to promote all week long.
• And, finally, continue to study, which is after all the essence of Judaism because in our tradition study leads to action.

As one community leader was heard saying to another, “I think he just criticized us.”

Yes he did. And after all these years, he is more than entitled to do so. Community leaders can differ greatly on their views for our healthy future. But they must listen seriously to all perspectives. BHU for certain has its flaws – just like the Associated and, yes the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES—and BHU has not yet done enough to convince the community of its merit, or until recently begin to change enough to meet the community’s evolving needs.

Now the looming question: Is BHU’s new path enough or too little to late?

To contemplate that, I’m going to go study, not be afraid of where that leads me, speak out as needed and make sure that I reflect on it all during on Shabbat.

Out of the mouth of babes.

My seven-year-old son innocently hit me with a 500 lb. sack of matzah balls a few days ago while we were driving home from his school. “I think I’d like for us to move to Israel and make a new life for ourselves. What do you think?”

That’s what you get, I said to myself, for sending your kid to Jewish day school. But, of course, he raised a profound question, certainly one that I have contemplated a great deal over the years. That is: “If Israel really is the easiest and most complete place in which to live a Jewish life, one in which daily existence itself is wrapped up into a uniquely Jewish experience, shouldn’t we be living there?”

One need not be an Einstein to study Jewish history – particularly the modern European brand – to learn that no Jew is safe if there is not a strong State of Israel. So how come more of us in America not want to make aliyah?

The usual reasons are the two big “F’s” – family and finance. That is, our families are here and we simply would not have the same standard of living in Israel, including needing to start over 20-year careers. For me, the second “F” is irrelevant. That’s because in some ways the standard of living would be better. But that first “F”? It looms large. After all, we have Shabbat dinner every week with my parents. Since they’re not moving to Israel, what price can be placed on that?

When one digs deeper, he or she must contemplate another reality: While the modern State of Israel is unique in our history (if anything for attempting to combine democracy and Judaism), so is the Jewish experience in the United States, a land where we are as free to practice – or not practice – our Jewishness as we see fit.

So how did I respond to my son? With honesty: “I always think about moving to Israel buddy. But I know it would be hard for us, a huge transition. But let’s keep talking about it. If we don’t do it as a family, maybe you will. That would make me very proud.”

Thanks to the understandable and inevitable superficiality of our media-driven culture, many American Jews gag when they hear the phrase “Evangelical Christians.” Instantly, stereotypes of politically moronic, easily manipulated and generally anti-intellectual masses come to mind. (Not “masses,” by the way in the Catholic sense.)

Well, we American Jews better get a little more sophisticated ourselves. There are 60 to 80 million Evangelical Americans, according to the Pew Forum. If all 6 million or so of us are on incredibly diverse spiritual journeys, then one need not be Talmudist to realize that characterization must be multiplied many times to characterize Evangelicals. In other words, there’s no such thing as “Evangelicals believe…” (although one can say “a majority believe….”)

That’s part of the message Rev. Jason Poling of Pikesville’s New Hope Community Church brought to this week’s Baltimore-hosted national convention of ARZA – Association of Reform Zionists of America. http://www.arza.org

“People like [Christian Zionist leader Rev.] John Hagee and [former Presidential candidate Rev.] Pat Robertson represent the old fundamentalist strain that is absolute and already passing away,” said Rev. Poling, whom in full revelation is a wonderful friend of mine. He added, “John Hagee is no more representative of Evangelicals than Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright is of the black church and the Lubavitcher Rebbe is of Conservative Judaism, let alone Judaism as a whole.”

And then the myth-buster for those of us who believe Evangelicals really want us all to return to Israel so that we can be converted or killed – the former helping throw garlands at a triumphantly returning Jesus (for whom the Hebrew street signs will be decipherable, unlike the experience the Revs. Hagee and Robertson would have).

“Evangelical support for Israel is not a theological matter for most [Evangelicals],” Rev. Poling explained. “Particularly I think we celebrate Israel for the same reason most Americans do, that it is the [region’s] only democracy … We see Israel as surrounded by hostile Muslim nations. One thing we know as Evangelicals is the actions of hostile fundamental Islam. When we hear about missiles being lobbed from Gaza, we think of the story of people riding by our churches in Indonesia on motorcycles and tossing bombs.”

(By the way, check out the Pew Forum’s interesting survey on Evangelicals and Israel: http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=80 .)

Do most Evangelicals want us to become Christians with their theological beliefs? Sure. They want that for other Christians, too. And as long as they don’t legislate that, so what? As Rev. Poling is fond of saying, “I’ll let God work out the details of how that happens. My job is to live a good life that I think is true to my tradition.”

In the meantime, let’s realize how complex we humans are and shove the stereotypes in the garbage can of history.

So I ask, how should we approach Evangelicals?

If it weren’t for the presence of three native Taiwanese fellow worshippers and the Chinese writing on the door, I could have been in any synagogue in the western world. But this one was on the fifth floor of the Sheraton International Hotel in this densely populated, colorful and exciting capital city.

I had been invited to worship with the small – as in only seven people – group by Rabbi Ephraim F. Einhorn, a true character if there ever were one.  (About 80 people turned out a few weeks earlier for a kosher Passover seder. There are by estimates only about 100 to 150 Jews on the island of 23 million people, and they’re all either Israelis or Americans connected with businesses. There are no native Jews here, other than a few that Rabbi Einhorn has converted in his 30 plus years on the island. If you’re heading there, check out http://www.haruth.com/JewsTaiwan.html.)

I was here for a few days courtesy the government’s impressive Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov.tw/en/), which invited us to see how they are responding to the awesome challenges they face in the region (in no small part thanks to China’s recalcitrance on that and so many other issues). More on that in print and on-line in the coming weeks.

I had met with Rabbi Einhorn in his office a few days earlier. To say he has stories and has rubbed elbows with the Jewish famous is a bit like saying that Manischewitz cranks out a few boxes of matzah each Festival of Freedom.

AT 89, this native of Vienna, with an Orthodox rabbinical degree from an important seminary in London, has 10 business cards – ranging from honorary citizen of Montana, to chair of the Republicans of Taiwan (as in the GOP type), to founder of the country’s main Rotary clubs and much more. He speaks a host of languages (but not Chinese). He worked for the World Jewish Congress in resettling Holocaust refugees (his parents died in Auschwitz) and he has lived and worked in some dozen or so countries.

He arrived here – apparently his last stop in terms of addresses—in the mid-1970s as, get this, the head of a Kuwaiti business delegation. I asked, but he said, “It’s a story I’m not ready to tell” – which, probably by design, makes him even more interesting.

Back to Shabbat. The small room, which is the rabbi’s permanent synagogue, also houses the rabbi’s truly impression collection of rare Jewish books, dating from the late 1700s to present day, which he proudly showed off. The room also has a Torah and an ark, Sephardi and Ashkenazi prayerbooks (the former no longer used now that the Syrian Jews left for Hong Kong and India to follow business pursuits a few decades ago).

One Israeli businessman chanted the Torah reading. We stopped, discussed, argued the meaning and then went on. In other words, Jews gathering as across the globe to bring new life to our ancient texts. All along, the rabbi interjected his always interesting personal stories and cross references from his vast knowledge of the Jewish cannon.

At the end, there was Kiddush, Hamotzi and some more chatting. Then it was time for me to go and for the rabbi to rest. I could not make it back for Havdalah that night, but this coming week when I perform that ceremony at home with my kids, my thoughts will go East, Far East that is.

What do you say to a wildly popular female Buddhist monk who welcomes you into her serene grounds, engages you in a conversation about journalism ethics, extols the virtues of recycling, and wraps it up with a blessing for peace and a gift of coins (reminding me of how the late Chabad rebbe gave a $1 bill to visitors so they would go do good deeds)?

“Shalom v’todah” (peace and thank you) instantly crossed my lips as I mutually bowed in the respectful eastern way in front of Master Cheng Yen, founder of the Tzu Chi movement (http://www.tzuchi.org/). She is the so-called “Mother Theresa of the East” and we were finishing a visit to her home in Hualien, Taiwan a few days ago.

Master Cheng spoke with us – a handful of journalists brought to the country by its Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov.tw/en/) to check out the challenging environmental situation on that side of the world (more to come in print and on-line) – in what I was told was a rare meeting with such a group of outsiders.

This diminutive 61-year-old woman, in whose presence one sensed tremendous strength of purpose, long ago abandoned a life of family wealth. Since then, she has humbly transformed her own teachings of “earthly Buddhism” – which we might translate into “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world—into an international movement. She and her cadre of activists around the globe have inspired 10 million volunteers.

This Buddhist master is a true environmentalist; she does not even allow the burning of incense as it pollutes the air. She speaks directly but with neither political correctness nor grandiose statements.

“The mission of religions is like social therapy. All different beliefs convey this type of mission of conveying people’s sense,” she said in response to my question about her blossoming relationship with some Israelis enamored by her work, which has resulted in the planting of trees in her honor in Israel and her unexpectedly asking followers to “pray for Jerusalem’s peace.”

So that got me thinking about universalism and how some young Jews are attracted to Buddhism and other eastern religions. In part, I believe, that’s because such approaches to life are simple and don’t demand large sums of money or allegiance on political issues to become a leader. Rather, they are about personal, internal loyalties and values.

That’s something we Jews need to focus more on. After all, it’s not alien to the Jewish culture. Balancing that and our real demands for funding what we do while maintaining important social, cultural and political structure – operations that by definition can quickly become bureaucratic and anti-personal – is a great challenge.

How do we get better at all that?

Last week in the Far East, I began thinking about some answers – that start with qualified and quality leadership, which, sadly, is often an unwestern virtue.

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!