I remember when the summer was starting looking ahead at the calendar.
This wasn’t any ordinary summer. It was really busy.
That Rosh Hashanah started the High Holy Days on September 9 meant that we were going to get into the Days of Awe with days of summer remaining.
So here we are, and Simchat Torah is already here. That was quick.
During those months, we watched a primary election unfold. I remember the day in July when Gregg Bernstein announced for City State’s Attorney. It must have been 100 degrees outside. His staffers were handing out bottled water to those in attendance.
The election, though, proved much hotter as Mr. Bernstein, the challenger, defeated 15-year-incumbent Pat Jessamy.
Kevin Kamenetz would win the Democrat primary for County Executive, and Vicki Almond was her party’s choice for Second District County Council.
During all of this on the summer calendar was the Maccabi Experience hosted by the JCC.
This was the first time in JCC history that JCC Maccabi ArtsFest and the JCC Maccabi Games were held at the same time in the same city.
The result: amazing.
Baltimore had some 500 host families with well over 1,200 athletes and artists in town.
That was our August.
Then came the September 14 primary.
Followed closely by Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.
So now before we can sit back a little bit, there’s the gubernatorial race to watch.
Governor Martin O’Malley and former Governor Robert Ehrlich are already vying hard for the November 2 election day.
Chanukah this year? December 1.
We’re we just shoveling through the blizzard of our lives?
It’s been a whirlwind year.
Time to start looking at the winter calendar.

Sunday late afternoon, I was headed home from errands.
My route home took me along Western Run Drive between Bancroft and Strathmore.
The sunset was at its beginning stages. There were shadows.
As the road bends, I saw two little kids on a Western Run front yard stop playing and run inside of their house.
Then I saw what I saw.
Eight young teens were walking almost in a broken horizontal line, not giving much room to a couple of passing cars. There was a defiance in the walk. A big kid punched a smaller kid. The smaller kid took a stick and threw it at the bigger kid. I don’t know if this is why the two smaller children ran into their house. Maybe they were called in for dinner.
I pulled over and watched the eight. They passed my car, and one kid took his right arm and put it in a throwing motion towards me. There was nothing in his hand. So nothing made contact except for our eyes.
The kids weren’t doing anything else than that. Just walking in a taunting way.
Almost 24 hours earlier, Rabbi Dovid Katz was pelted by thrown stones from a group of eight teens.
Hertzberg’s spiritual leader was walking to shul along Taney adjacent Cross Country Elementary School, at about 5:45 p.m. when the assault occurred. It would be his second victimization of crime since Wednesday night, when his Dodge Caravan was stolen and left smashed and abandoned near Pimlico Race Track while he and his family had a meal in their sukkah.
He was on his way up to Herzberg’s Shul, where he is the rav, to give a speech prior to mincah or afternoon services.  Rabbi Katz, who grew up in Baltimore, who is one of the treasures of our community, didn’t run.
Instead, he stopped, and shouted at the assailants. He told them ostensibly that it didn’t take much courage for eight people to pick on one guy. They responded, he said, by under-the-breath mumbling, and then split off towards another street.
Rabbi Katz wasn’t so much terrified as he was angry.
Though some of the small stones hit his hat and upper body, he wasn’t physically injured. Yet, the further he distanced himself from the assault, the more upset he became.
He wasn’t the only victim on Shabbos afternoon.
A 15-year-old boy was assaulted by four rock-throwing youths. He ended pushed to the ground with a broken arm. Hatzalah transported him to the hospital.
He was walking on Strathmore Avenue at 5:15 p.m. on Shabbat. The assailants called him a “dirty Jew” before they pushed him into the ground.
Enough.
This isn’t new news. This community has been in place for decades. Working with the Orthodox community is more than a three-hour ride each night. It’s a concerned investment. The solution so far, have a meeting. That doesn’t work, have another community meeting.
The meetings are fine, but can we have practical action? Can there be a patrol schedule that takes in account Jewish holidays and the earlier onset of darkness?
Something that Rabbi Katz said concerned me, though, the more I had distance from our Sunday conversation.
He said that he is worried that a potential victim, say a child, will be frightened if he is assaulted and start running. That running, he said, could lead to the pack of youths chasing and hurting their victims.
I remember just a few years ago when at a community meeting held at Cross Country Elementary School, a man faced the politicians and police, and told them about how a group of kids surrounded him in his very own front yard. One of the kids walked up to him and spit at him in the face.
That was what five years ago?
Many of us have spent many years of our lives in these neighborhoods. We’ve invested in the community, but is the government invested in us? I think it is, but sometimes I’m not so sure.
There is today something percolating in the neighborhoods of 21215 and 21209.
On a regular basis, we’re hearing of Jewish children being pushed off of their bikes and watching their assailants ride off with their bicycles. Too many kids are returning home with their bike helmets on, tears streaming down their faces, and their bikes gone. It’s not just the material aspect of all of this, it’s the feeling of not being safe in one’s own neighborhood to even ride a bike.
On Sunday I stopped and watched, making sure the “8” wandered away. They could have been kids being kids. I feel, though, as if I am now positioned by circumstances of late to stop and to watch.
This saddens me.
For Rabbi Katz?
Any reaction?
Not yet?
Is it because he’s “just” a Jew?
Bikes are going to get stolen, hate language will be directed, but look, we’re told, it’s a lot worse on the other side of Northern Parkway.
And it probably really is that bad south of Northern Parkway.
But we need practical solutions to this crime. Any directed Shabbat police presence would be nice.
Next time elected officials, why don’t you go walking along some of these streets in 21215 or 21209 on a Friday night or late on a Saturday afternoon in a show of solidarity? At least show us you are out there with us, that this matters.
That Rabbi Katz was touched by a tossed stone should be an issue of action for this city. He grew up here, lives here, raised his family here and works in Baltimore City.
Rabbi Katz shouldn’t have to worry about walking to shul.
Unless, however, something is done and the elements who behave this way are found, booked and jailed, it’s just going to continue. I worry it’s getting worse.
Yeah, I know it’s me being hysterical.
But I walk where you walk, and I see what you see. A respected rabbi gets pummeled by stones. A 15-year-old Rabbi Taub congregant, gets his arm broken. All within 15 minutes on a Shabbos afternoon.
There’s got to be a way to fix this before someone else gets hurt.

Last Tuesday night while driving home from the Gregg Bernstein election night headquarters, I came a corner in Canton and there was a young adult man, holding the hand of a young child.
Normally a nice sight.
But not at 11:30.
Not when the little child should have been tucked in with nothing more on his mind than sweet dreams and a playful, learning day to come.
I’ve seen this scene before. Many times in fact.
And it is one of the most heart breaking parts of growing a little older for me, that children shouldn’t feel safe and warm and protected.
So here it is Sukkot.
We build our temporary huts, but most of us, thank God, are able to walk into the comfort of our homes even if we choose to sleep in the sukkahs.
I think then of a friend of a friend who is going through foreclosure of his home. He is as normal and nice and productive as anyone else. He just ran into a horrific financial year.
I saw him recently.
He was building his sukkah on the grounds of his foreclosed home.
I thought of the young man with the little child in Canton.
We’re not that much different are we?
May we all think while we’re in our sukkahs of the beauty of life, but the frailty the sukkah can represent.
And may no child ever be anywhere but in a safe, warm bed with the protection of his family and home.
Chag Sameach.

Last year, this time I was wondering about the Book of Life.
This year, after a difficult time watching the challenges of people I know and love, I approach the Unetaneh Tokef prayer again. It’s the one that says that on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur who shall live and who shall die.
It’s the line during these days that haunts my wife the most. Decisions she has said to me over the years, decisions are made as we are all standing on the starting line of the new year.
And this year was more difficult than I can remember since I lost my sister to cancer in 2004.
So I wish for you all the most meaningful of holidays in any way that you connect with a Higher Power.
If the words don’t work in one particular book or place, try another book or place. Or make up your own words.
This year I’m going to try to reach under the heaviness of what bogs me down and find a clearing, a space where I can even attempt to understand what life is about and why I am here and how I can be of service.
But if I offer one prayer to God, please God, please, eliminate the cruelty. Ease the suffering. And for those who have suffered, give them a place to find themselves whole again.

It’s not exactly face to face, but here we are on the eve of Yom Kippur, and I want to say I’m sorry to those who I have hurt.
If I didn’t return your phone calls, or if I took a different point of view in an editorial that you found hurtful, I apologize.
If I didn’t get that story written that we interviewed about, I’m also sorry. If you feel I ignored you or turned my back on you, please accept my apologies.
I will work towards a better year, a better me.
And I thank you for being patient with me.
I’m still learning. And I’ve got so much more learning to do.
Sukkot is my favorite Jewish holiday.
I love being outside, especially on a colder evening with the steam coming off of a pot of soup, twinkling lights and just the feel of the air.
This year, with HaShem’s help, I hope to be observing Sukkot with my children and for the first time, with my grandson, who at seven months, has wrapped us all around his little finger.
Everyone should have a great and meaningful Yom Kippur and celebrate the days of Sukkot and Simchat Torah with the joy you all deserve.
Here’s to a wonderful 5771.

It’s the High Holidays.
For some, me included, it’s difficult to go off of a spinning merry go round (aka life) and approach these days with serenity, hope and prayer.
It’s a period where it could be, if we let it, reduced to Pray, Eat, Sleep.
I don’t want to have cynicism. So I’m going to find the place where Rosh HaShanah I think could settle me down.
5771 is my first Rosh HaShanah as a grandfather.
My grandson’s name is Shalom.
This weekend, I will Pray, Eat and Sleep. But holding Shalom, I will hope to connect and find shalom.
Find that “shalom” for yourselves, even if it means appreciating, praying and internalizing a Higher Power a little differently.
It’s okay.
Religion needs spirituality.
L’Shana Tova.

So the last time I was driving through parts of the Jewish community and I saw heavily damaged election lawn signs, it was in the mid-80s.
The two candidates whose signs seem to have incurred the most damage were then Del. Arthur Alperstein and Del. Paula Hollinger. The candidates were running for State Senator.
The damage I remember was tantamount to a hate crime.
So driving along Park Heights Avenue with my wife on Monday, I came across what were left of Vicki Almond signs at Slade Avenue. Her name was almost skillfully cut from the sign and left on the ground.
Not a mile away, however, at the corner of Old Court and Reisterstown Road, Sherri Becker’s name lie on the ground as well, cut out the very same vicious way.
These two candidates are running against one another in a highly contentious race for second district County Council.
My question: I know sometimes I live in a vacuum, but why is it that it always seem that this sign damage happens in the Jewish community. If you drove by the signs and saw how Vicki Almond and Sherri Becker’s names were carved out of the signs, it made me think hate crime almost immediately.
The other brazen part of this is that it happened in very public locations. There must have been absolutely no traffic in those areas of Pikesville for anyone to get away with such a crime.
My question is what kind of person(s) could do such a thing?
Why is it in Pikesville and Owings Mills, there always has to be “something?” We just don’t seem to be able to have an election, we have to have a contentious election. We just don’t have signs up, we have to have signs with names cut out with surgical precision. I was almost relieved to hear that other candidates from other races were impacted as well.
Do these crimes happen with such regularity in other parts of Baltimore County?
It happened here right across the street from a synagogue in one instance.
I wish the Becker camp and the Almond camp would get together publicly in the center of Pikesville and condemn these horrible acts. Show solidarity against this.
Neither candidate should be afraid to put up a sign anywhere that it’s going to be desecrated in such a way.
You know what’s even scarier about all of this.
It’s like not enough of the public cares. Over the years, we’ve become numb to sign vandalism in the Jewish community. It’s like, no big deal. It happens.
Instead, there should be outrage. In this day of every inch of every road under video surveillance, I wonder if the police have these crimes recorded somehow. Let’s hope so.
The Almond team should be saddened that these events happened to Becker signs and the Becker team should be appalled that the Almond signs were damaged in this manner.
Once elected, the successful candidate is going to have to work with individuals on the other side of issues.
Here’s a chance to show real leadership for these two leading candidates.
Show condemnation for these acts…together.
Show the voters that you aren’t afraid to be allies in the face of this wrongdoing.
It would go a long way for both sides and really renew faith in many of the voters who are feeling estranged from certain campaigns.