Paying all of this money for gas does remind me of so many gas station memories.
Yes, gas station memories.
One, my father (of blessed memory) pulling his Plymouth Savoy into the Sinclair gas station on Liberty Heights and asking for $2 worth of regular. This included a windshield clean and a check under the hood, and some green stamps as a reward.
Our children don’t even know what green stamps are or were. Yet, we would fill books of them, and trade these stamps in. My parents allowed me to use the books once to trade in for a baseball glove.
Okay, so back to gas.
Flash forward and I’m sitting in my wife’s Rambler station wagon at 3 a.m. in front of the Pikes Theater. We were waiting for the Crown Station to open on Old Court Road. It was the early 70s, and the station was going to open at 6 a.m. We stayed awake, listening to the car radio and buying coffee and doughnuts from a man who making the most of this gas line.
Suddenly it’s about 6:15, and the car in front of me begins to move. I turn the key to the Rambler, and the engine won’t turn over.
Cars started to pass us, and I freaked out.
I opened the hood, pulled off the air cleaner lid and did something called “butterflying” the carburetor. I had no idea what I was doing, but thank G-d, the Rambler started, and we got back into line, and were able to purchase gasoline.
Because back then, the dreaded moment was when the “last car to get gas” sign was placed on the car in front of you.
Gas, by the way, was 70 cents a gallon. And we were complaining. Plus, my wife’s Rambler’s steering wheel would smoke for a reason nobody could detect.
Last memory.
I’m driving on I-95 South in Florida in St. Augustine. We pull my 1975 Dodge Dart into a gas station for a fill up. The gas station attendant comes over to me and asks me to get out of the car so he can show me something.
He takes me to a rear tire and shows me oil on the tire. He said I have blown shock absorbers which would cost us $32 to fix.
Now, back in 1976, that was a lot of money for a young couple starting out. We debated and debated and decided we’d better, because the seemingly honest man talked of broken axels and the like.
About a year later, I’m watching “60 Minutes” when the reporter says, “has this ever happened to you? You’re driving along I-95 in Florida, stop for gas, and then learn that you need new shock absorbers.”
My wife and I couldn’t believe our ears and eyes.
The hidden “60 minutes” camera caught the gas station attendant at the very same station we had used, using a pen-like device to squirt oil on the tire. He then approached the driver about needing new shocks.
So, here we are in 2008. We’re paying $4 for a gallon of gas. Air costs 75 cents and nobody’s offered to clean my windshield for quite some time.
We drive better cars, everything is computerized and temperature controlled.
But my dad got us around on $2 a gallon and push button transmission.
Oh, and I forgot.
He also got a free glass for each fill-up.
Now not only is our glass half empty, but so most of the time is our tanks and our wallets.
That’s progress.

“Your class is the only class my child says doesn’t suck.”
Now I’ve been teaching religious school for about 12 years, everything from Holocaust to history to civics.
But this was the first time a parent ever said anything like this to me.
You know what? Instead of dismissing that comment, though I wish he would have used different words, I want to discuss it.
First, Baltimore’s Center for Jewish Education, is taking a really hard look at itself, and is looking to move forward in an admirable, positive way to make religious school better for everyone.
The idea is to create young Jews who are interested and excited.
But we all are way too familiar with the drill now. After a long day of school, extra-curricular activities such as sports and yearbook, the last thing a young teen wants to do is sit and learn about Jewish history.
And come on guys, we weren’t all hatched as middle aged people. I remember hating my 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday morning experiences at Hebrew school. I dreaded those Sundays, and came up with some of my most creative ways of sudden “illness” that I can remember. Don’t get self-righteous, you did the same thing.
So, not to short circuit in any way what is going on at CJE, because I think it is all great and I admire CJE’s leadership for having the guts to seek re-invention.
But as a part-time teacher of teens, here are several ideas I’d like to see happen. Let’s make it experiential. Let’s let the teens experience Judaism. Let’s let the teens see what we’re talking about. They should know “where” they come from. They should see Judaism at work, and why it is what it is. So, in no particular order:
• Challah. Let’s take the kids to a person’s kitchen and watch as they make braid the dough and make challah for Shabbat. The kids should also make their own challahs.
• Take a bus tour of neighborhoods where Jews just weren’t allowed to live in or even visit at one time in this city’s history. Also, a bus tour of what was once Jewish Baltimore, so that they see where their parents and grandparents once lived. Give them a sense of who they are.
• Let’s head over to Levindale. Let the students meet and talk to old people, who can describe to them how they were once captain of the soccer team too, they once had a crush on boy or a girl, and they loved music and loved to dance as much as any contemporary teen.
• Meet a Jewish soldier who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• Spend a Sabbath in the home of a Shomer-Shabbat family from candle lighting to Havdalah.
• Go to a mikvah, and see what it looks like with an explanation of what happens in a mikvah and why.
• Meet a person who actually writes Torahs in their work space. Watch as the sopher uses a quill pen and writes the sacred Hebrew letters.
• Have the kids help out for a night with Ahavas Yisroel, actually packing food and then delivering to those Jews in need.
• Take the kids on a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Don’t ever take it for granted that they’ve been there.
• Take the kids to a beis medresh or a study hall in a yeshiva so they can see people talking over or debating issues of Torah together.
• Have someone come in with a Talmud and explain to the kids what the Talmud is, what it means and how it came to be.
• Give the students a bus tour of organized Jewish Baltimore. Let them see where the Associated building is located, and teach them what happens there. Let them see the Jewish community campus on Park Heights near Northern Parkway.
• Take them to Annapolis to meet Jewish elected officials and lobbyists.
• Take them to meet families who have been helped by Jewish charitable dollars.

These are just suggestions. But I think to borrow the phrase from the adult I heard it from, class would “suck” a lot less, if we were able to show our Jewish teens where they fit in the holistic Jewish fabric of community. I think they’d learn more about Judaism, about themselves and why all of this is so special.

I wish I could find brave people who aren’t afraid of the politics, who don’t make hollow or artificial decisions.
So many appearances, so many speeches, so many statements these days are politically orchestrated, tied into money and not done in the spirit of bravery and just plain old fashioned righteousness.
Hillary Clinton drinks a shot glass of liquor to please the common white folks.
Barak Obama all of a sudden wears an American flag pin.
We write in this week’s Jewish Times about a Jewish student who is given a hangman’s noose.
What is the response?
“He was a behavior problem and deserved it.”
The school’s head master actually told me that if I could get the parents to sign a waiver, he’d show me the child’s academic and behavior records.
What kind of head master skill sets were these learned from?
Throw the kid “under the bus.”
Let’s not take a serious, hard look at ourselves, warts and all, and find a way to keep any child from hurting.
Instead, let’s blame the kid.
A rocket lands on a shopping center in Ashkelon, nearly killing people, including children and all of a sudden I’m told that this is the result of Israel’s occupation.
No, the people who fired the rocket are wrong. They must be stopped.
But there’s politics involved. There’s money, there’s image, there’s this, there’s that.
There’s no bravery, though.
We do a series of stories on child molesters, and some of the victims of this abuse are simply called “crazy.” Yet, their lives are forever maimed by people who hide truths in the name of religion. It’s not the system, it’s them.
Again, bravery, I miss you so much.
I think we’re broken, across the denominational board.
We’re caught up in mission statements that are merely filled with marketing words, not deeds.
We so desperately need heroes to come forward and help us re-invent this system, and yet we stifle so many good people who are afraid to tell us the truth.
The truth hurts, it is said.
As scripture tells us, it is the truth that will one day set us free.
When is someone going to step forward and ask why is it that a tank of gas is so expensive?
The people who are making these decisions don’t care that others can’t afford to drive to work these days, not to mention take the family on a vacation.
I read an article about a woman who had to leave her rented house, because her landlord foreclosed on the mortgage. No warning to the tenant, no nothing, just get the hell out.
The Tibetans are beaten and religiously strangled by a China that is one of this world’s worst violators of human rights. Yet, we are sending athletes there this summer to compete. Don’t want to tell the truth, don’t want to anger the big sleeping monster.
Israel is under a constant barrage by a leader in Iran who has sworn to sweep it from the earth. The last time someone threatened to kill our people, he followed through on his plan.
President Bush stands up and for once is brave enough to tell it like it is.
But even that gets swallowed up. Because it doesn’t make Barak or Hillary look so good.
The world needs a hero or two.
The world needs them now. 

Last Sunday’s community wide Yom HaShoah/Yom Ha’atzmaut event at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation had more sub-plots in it than an episode of “24.”
All 1800 of us were ostensibly there to hear Alan Dershowitz, arguably the most recognized international voice in the area of combating Holocaust denial and Islamic anti-Semitism.
Thankfully, we did get 45 minutes of Mr. Dershowitz’s inspiring brilliance.
Apparently not enough thankfulness was spread around.
In no particular order, here goes:

The University of Baltimore School of Law was absolutely slighted.
No U of B connection, no Alan Dershowitz, pure and simple.
Except for the mention of Prof. Kenneth Lasson, the man who brought Mr. Dershowitz to town, there was almost no Jewish Council thank you to the University of Baltimore School of Law. Don’t think that the officials from U of B didn’t notice the exclusion from the event’s brochure. They did, and they weren’t pleased.
The law school co-sponsored this event, put up about $15,000 and didn’t receive due recognition.

Baltimore Hebrew Congregation Cantor Judith Rowland was humiliated in her own shul. Don’t take my word for it, ask her. She was livid.
The cantor, on her own turf, wasn’t permitted to sing El Male Rachamim, because of the issue of “kol isha” or the public singing of a woman in front of men. I did an official over/under on the number of Vaad rabbis in the room, and I counted three. Why not politely inform everyone who could be offended by Cantor Rowland that they can stand in the hallway while she delivers the words of our sages. Or better yet, let’s just open up our programs and read it out loud together. The words were there. Instead, we took the hosting chazzan and assigned her candle lighting duty. Beth El’s Thom King filled in beautifully. But Cantor Rowland should have been given the honor.
Oh, and by the way, was I the only one who heard a group of boys and girls, some teens, singing together from the bima? Didn’t I also hear the voices of a girl or two singing solos? So if they could sing, why couldn’t Cantor Rowland?

”Would the Holocaust survivors in the room please stand?”

Are you kidding me? All, they get to do is stand?
We have survivors in this community who are amazing people and remarkable speakers.
They were around when the handwriting on the wall in Europe came from the hands of Nazi terrorism. Who better to talk about what they saw then and what they are seeing now courtesy of the Islamic terrorists than actual, living survivors? May they live to 120 but they aren’t going to be here forever. Don’t just have them stand, have them speak.

Finally, I don’t know about you, but does it really matter on the issue of the Holocaust what the governor and the mayor think? I don’t think so. They were up there on that bima, because we as a community feel the need to politically pander to them, nothing more, nothing less. Their families aren’t connected to anyone who faced an oven or extinction thanks to the Nazis. Know what? Next time there’s a speech given in Annapolis or in Baltimore City Hall on the legislative process in this state and city, let’s get a Holocaust survivor to deliver that speech. Why not? They know as much about that process as the governor and mayor know about the death camps.  We could all have stood a lot less of their prepared speeches so that more time could have been given to the keynote.
And while I’m on politics, could someone have prepared the emcee with the name of the our City Council President, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. She is one of our community leaders and a friend to the Jewish community. Can we not botch her name?

I know, I have a lot of nerve. I didn’t spend one moment working on this. So what right do I have to tell the organizers what to do? They did all the heavy lifting and for that deserve our admiration for their hard work. But, the truth is, even if I did have something to say, what we got the other night was basically the following:

It was “Jewish Community Celebration In A Box.”
We’ve all seen it before, we’ve all been there and can substitute the holiday in this handy kit.
Comes complete with a Kaddish, the cute kids to sing the Hebrew songs, elected officials, some Holocaust survivors, a video about Israel, candles, plenty of candles, the keynote address and the big Hatikva finale.

Everyone goes home happy. It’s sterile and without risk.

Can we re-invent this please?

We had a speaker who has a message we need to hear.
Can we listen to him longer?
Can we get rid of the video commercial? Can we ask the politicians to stand and wave instead of the survivors?

There’s a lot of good ideas in the community, maybe the one’s who think they have to do all the thinking for us, should do some listening for a change.
Or don’t they want to hear Cantor Rowland, a beloved group of Holocaust survivors or even share credit with the University of Baltimore.
It didn’t fit in the “How to Put on a Community Event” handbook, I guess.

Apologies.

The Jewish Council owes U of B Law School a huge apology.
It also owes Cantor Rowland one as well.
Most of all, the Holocaust survivors. They stood in lines at death camps. Don’t make them stand in rows at Baltimore Hebrew.
They deserved better. So did we.

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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!