So there’s already a small buzz in the “neighborhood” that come election day we Jews need to be vigilant, especially if the outcome isn’t so favorable for Obama.
Seriously, that is what many people are talking about, this inherent fear of rioting by blacks should Obama lose. Or this fear of overzealous celebrating should Obama win.
The level of apocalyptic rhetoric over this election from both sides of the fence has I believe gone over the top.
If you’re a McCain-Palin supporter, some Obama backers see you as a right wing nutcase.
If you’re an Obama-Biden backer, you’re now a member of the left wing liberal socialist elite. 
Can’t we just be Americans making a choice on election day?
Isn’t this what being an American is all about? We get to cast a vote privately for the candidate of our choice.
Yes, as far as ceilings go, this is an incredible time in our history. On one side, we could have our first American president who is black. On the other side, we could have our first American vice president who is female.
I think the country needs to stop for a second and at least congratulate itself that we have reached this level of leadership. Instead of using scare tactics to create worry over riots, we should be talking parades and dancing in the street of this accomplishment.
I don’t know, wasn’t a couple of morons calling themselves “skinheads” who got busted the other day for plotting death and destruction? Why isn’t there this equal concern by some over these crazed white guys like there is over blacks.
It was a group of lilly white voters in Iowa who got this ball rolling for Obama, don’t forget that.
And it don’t fool yourself that there aren’t plenty of black Americans who will vote for McCain next week.
But we vote our choice because we can.
Try this act in Cuba, Saudi Arabia, North Korea , Syria or Russia? It’s a no go.
I’ve heard that rabbis might be asked to speak from the pulpit about this fear of rioting.
Can we tone this down please?
Can we instead get our rabbis and our clergy of all colors and religions to talk about how incredible all of this could be for this great American democracy and celebrate that.
The glass is half full on this one guys, no matter who you choose to vote for. We are a land of opportunity. This election proves that.
It makes me proud.

So I know you are talked out when it comes to the November 4 election.
So I want to address another issue that you’ll be voting for or against, slots.
The slots lobby in this state is trying to wear down every argument against this form of gambling.
But let me remind you that gambling addictions experts call slots the “crack cocaine” of gambling.
And in this day when there just isn’t any extra money, are you prepared to vote in favor of something like this?
The lobby wants you to believe that we’re losing out to other states. No, those states are the losers that they had to resort to anything compared to “crack cocaine” to gain funds.
And you know what? If you accept it, and legitimize it, and do it over and over again, then something like slots becomes okay. We forget as a society that it is an addiction feeder, that it contributes to the break up of families and incomes and retirements.
I’m afraid.
I fear that if this passes, it will be just a matter of time until we have casinos and table games.
And then it will be okay for prostitutes to sell themselves, but of course, “only in certain parts of the community.”
What happened to morality?
Where did it go?
Why is this a good thing?
And especially slots? Do a little research. Slot machines are programmed by computer so that whatever the winnings are, are very small, very calculated.
But even more, slots are societal sign of failure.
We’ve failed to up the (you should excuse the expression) social ante of Maryland, seeking other ways to gain resources for our state, instead we’re hitting the lowest common denominator, slots.
Rabbis, please tell your congregants to vote no on this one.
Elected officials, please do the right thing here.
Vote this away, and let us spend more time working on a better solution.

I am sure like me you get your share of emails from friends and relatives with the links that they think are very cute, very funny.
So I happened to open one up recently that I knew was going to be anti-Palin, because it said so on the email.
There was this “really smart” man and woman singing in a folksy way about how if Sarah Palin were to be elected, our country would go to hell and they would end up moving to Canada.
When I was a child, I remember seeing bumper stickers during the Viet Nam era that read, “America, love it or leave it.” Each time I saw one, my late father used to roll his eyes and call the person driving the car a “reactionary.”
I think, though, when I hear people who call themselves “liberal” talking about leaving the country if Gov. Palin is elected, I roll my eyes and call them reactionary.
Leaving the country?
You thought these were fun, smart, out there lyrics for a music video?
I think they were cheap and at best cowardly.
Instead of leaving the United States, how about staying and making it a better place to live in the future.
I’m also confused about the word “liberal.” I thought I was one, but this election has made me take pause.
I always thought that my liberal status meant that I was accepting of other peoples’ right to a point of view even if we disagreed. I wasn’t going to run away if we disagreed, I’d just vote my way and the other person was free to do what he wants. And I’d defend that person’s right to have a differing opinion.
But now I’m hearing the word “liberal” in the hands of new voices and they are telling me that it’s there way or the highway. Now, I know plenty of conservatives who are saying the same things. For example, I’ve heard people say with a sigh that they might move to Israel should Obama win.
Come on.
Can’t someone stay here and make this country better?
Obama and McCain aren’t running for King of the United States. They are running for President. And if either one stinks up the joint, we can vote someone else four years from now.
Or better yet, we can choose as individuals to stop complaining, stop being “smart” on YouTube and do SOMETHING to improve the life of your family, your neighborhood, your community. You don’t have to rely on a president to make your life better, you can do it yourself.
Don’t run to Canada.
Be an American, not a liberal or a conservative, but a good American person.
Can we do that?
As Sarah Palin might say,
“you betcha.”
That make your eyeballs roll?
Get a grip

I think we have to be careful when we loosely label a person a “self-hating Jew.”
That label was given over the airways Tuesday night by a Jewish community spokesman in reaction to the recent anti-Semitic graffiti painted by Jewish vandals.
In a time and place where this community holistically is fighting a battle against substance and alcohol abuse, where in just over a year, we’ve literally buried eight young Jewish adults who overdosed, “self-hating Jew” is a bit much.
Indeed, we buried on Tisha B’Av a 16-year-old who was out at 5 in the morning and on the way home died when the driver of the car he was in crashed the car.
We live in a time when many young Jews are using heroin because it’s readily available now. Even the weed, according to experts, is so much more potent than anything a teen’s parents ever tried.
We’ve got a large contingent of kids who say they have nothing to do. How do I know? Many of them, following the death of the above mentioned teen, told me. And the only way we give them attention is when they die or when they act in an over-the-top way a la spray painting swastikas.
And is the first time for this? Hardly. It’s just that the spray paint happened on synagogue turf. Last spring while houses were being constructed in the Strathmore and Cross Country area, the Jewish volunteer anti-crime group Shomrim was called to a similar scene in a house under construction. There were swastikas, the letters KKK, and even satanic symbols. The difference, the vandalism happened on private property inside instead of outside. The city police sent an investigative team. I photographed the symbols. Turned out the perp was a Jewish kid from the neighborhood.
Years ago I was sent to West Hartford, Conn. because a Conservative synagogue’s chapel was set on fire as was the study of an Orthodox rabbi and the home of a Jewish state legislature. Guess who? A yeshiva kid who studied here in Baltimore.
Wasn’t there a similar story about the fire that brought the former Etz Chaim building down.
Troubled Jew.
Detached from the community Jew.
Needing help Jews.
But self-hating Jews?
I don’t think so. Do you?
Here’s a self-hating Jew for you. I had an uncle who is now deceased. He worked for years for corporate America and became an executive. When he was a young man he couldn’t nail down one of these jobs. Then came the magic decision. He changed his last name. It went from Eastern European shtetl sounding to baseball and apple pie, American sounding. Here’s where it gets worse. He never told his children that they were Jewish. My aunt and uncle’s beautiful home was something out of an early American furniture catalogue with no hints of anything Jewish anywhere. My late sister told my oldest cousin that she was a Jew in a conversation 11-year-old girls might have sitting on the stoop and brushing each other’s hair. When my cousin heard this, she called my sister a “liar” and ran in the house crying. My aunt firmly asked my mother to talk to my sister that this story shouldn’t be brought up again.
Many years later, we were having a family Thanksgiving dinner when my other cousin, started complaining that he was being edged out of medical school possibilities because of quotas he complained were in place for Jews.
This was coming from a Jew.
This is an example of a self-hating Jew.
No, when a kid vandalizes property, it’s easy to use the swastika. A swastika gets attention, a swastika is the mother of oppositional graffiti. Do you think we’d care if those signs had flowers spray painted on them. Don’t think so.
But here’s the real definition of “self-hating” Jew.
When we don’t act to help our Jewish teens and young adults feel part of something bigger, that they are important in the puzzle we call Judaism, than that’s a community in hatred of itself.
When we don’t show people patience, love and validation, that’s a community in hatred of itself.
Yes, these people who vandalized should face the consequences for their actions.
But you know what? We need to do the same thing so maybe venting or a need for attention can be gleaned in another way, a Jewish way.
Before the Jewish part comes in, these guys need to go from just plain “self-hating” to “self-loving.”
Then, we can add the Jewish component.

A rabbi friend called me the other day to wish me a Happy New Year.
He then told me that he thought that I was being too critical of the Orthodox rabbis.
“They did sign that document,” he said, referring to the April 11, 2007 condemnation of child molestation.
I told him that since April 11, 2007, little or nothing has changed.
There are still children facing the dangers of life-changing acts of molestation. The use of drugs and alcohol seems to be on the rise, and the connection between molestation survivors and the need to abuse drugs is becoming more and more linked.
And here they are on the threshold of a new year, just saying words out of a Makzor. They are Millie Vanillie in black hats, just lip-synching their prayers, nothing more.
Why is that a rabbi can still live at our area yeshiva even though the college “leadership” knows that he is a concern? And they even know who his victims were. Happy New Year.
And why is that a young woman in Israel continues to speak publicly and urgently about the abuses of her father back here in Baltimore. Yet to discount her, they call her “crazy?” Who is crazy, the molester or the survivor?
Two women I know molested by a rabbi in this town are too afraid to use their names. This rabbi hires legal counsel for protection. Happy New Year.
Last year, we finally had a case come to trial involving a child molester. And all that Israel Shapiro could do to stay out of jail was to resort to an Alford plea. He was given five years of supervised probation. An Alford plea allows the defendant to circumvent a guilty plea, but accept the consequences of a guilty verdict. Happy New Year.
There’s an emerging group of women in town referred to as “buttoned down and shut tight.” They are frum women who dress modestly, were educated in girls’ only schools, but were molested. Some can’t even date men they are so frightened. Some resort to eating disorders to deal with their pain. Look around you, they’re here. Happy New Year.
At a conference recently in Brooklyn, two issues stuck in my head. One, hearing a state legislator, a frum man, call molestation within the frum community an “epidemic.” The other was hearing a formerly frum young man talk about how molestation is now a “rite of passage” in some yeshivas.
You know what I think?
And people here in this community are concerned about the shidduchim of the relatives of these men, the innocent family members who aren’t at fault.
They then turn the accusers into the reasons for their misery, not the perpetrators. They turn the reporters of this information into ones at risk. Rabbi Ben Zion Twersky was named to head an anti- molestation task force in Brooklyn. Soon people wouldn’t acknowledge his existence. His children felt their future shidduchim threatened.
So here’s the idea.
Why don’t these family members buy billboard signs or advertisements apologizing for the acts of their relatives? Wouldn’t it make for an even greater shidduch possibility if one knew that your family was publicly and absolutely sorry for their family member’s transgressions. Wouldn’t it take a sheer act of uncommon bravery to do such a thing?
Is there anyone brave enough in Baltimore’s Orthodox community who could stand up and apologize for all of this.
What about you Vaad Ha Rabbanim? Is the word “brave” in your lexicon of chumrahs?
I think not.
But I do know that on Thursday late afternoon when that Book of Life is getting ready to be sealed, you better be sorry.
And you better be genuine about your sorrow.
If not, even the brave won’t be able to help you.
So, yeah, I’m critical of the rabbis.
But next time don’t produce a letter if you don’t mean anything by it, or if it’s the work of the younger rabbis in town, not the real consensus.
Better yet, why doesn’t the Vaad rent a billboard apologizing and seeking forgiveness? Place it on Reisterstown Road in Pikesville so that we can all take a look.
That would beat a meaningless letter any day.

So, we can watch debates all night long.
We can read position papers all over the place.
We can listen to talk radio until our ears are ringing.
We can sit around our dinner tables with our family and friends and listen to the political experts we never knew we knew.
We can walk down a long, dark, endless corridor of “there’s.”
There’s the door of economy.
There’s the door of Israel.
There’s the door of credit.
There’s the door of Iran.
There’s the door of energy.
There’s there’s the door of Iraq.
The list of “there’s” goes on and on and on.
But like a door protected by horrible attack dogs, locked with a thick chain and lock is the last door.
That’s the door of racism.
Don’t ignore, don’t tell me it doesn’t apply.
It does.
When we go into the privacy of the voting booth, when it’s you, God and the candidates, that decision better not be made based on the color of a candidate’s skin.
Yeah, there’s a good game to be talked about, and you can look around you and see your African-American co-workers, friends and maybe even relatives, and say the right thing in front of them.
Face it, some of us have heard expressions of racism regarding Sen. Barak Obama as that being the reason to not vote for him. I’ve heard them quite out in the open.
Frankly, I don’t know why Sen. Obama would even want your vote anyway if you are that much of a racist. Truth is, I don’t think Sen. McCain wants the color of his skin to be the reason you would vote his way.
You know what I’m talking about, and you know if I’m speaking to you.
I don’t care who your pick is. I just want you to do the right thing once you get in the booth. Vote for the “color” of a person’s politics, not the color of their skin.

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!