The further I distance myself from Monday evening’s Memorial and Solidarity Gathering, the more upset I feel.
This was an evening in memory of the terror victims in Mumbai, and it was co-sponsored by Lubavitch of Baltimore, the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, the JCC and the Vaad Harabanim.
Governor Martin O’Malley spoke. Mayor Sheila Dixon and City Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake along with State Dels. Sandy Rosenberg and Dr. Dan Morham kindled memorial candles.
But when I looked around the crowded JCC Park Heights auditorium, I didn’t see a single non-Orthodox rabbi, not one. Now, maybe I missed someone, but I’m going to find out over the coming days who was invited, and who wasn’t invited.
I also noted that with only a handful of exceptions, most of the crowd was from the Orthodox community. This shouldn’t have been the case, not at all.
First, on its own merit, the sign on the door doesn’t say the Orthodox Jewish Community Center, it is a facility Jews of all denominations and non-Jews can enjoy.
Second, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, victims of this tragedy, dedicated their lives to bringing spirituality to all Jews regardless of their level of observance. In the video shown on their lives following the speeches, I remember one scene of Rabbi Holtzberg sitting and learning with a young man who was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt.
Alan Scherr, who grew up on Nadine Drive, and was not Orthodox, was memorialized as was his daughter, Naomi. Both were killed while dining at a Mumbai hotel restaurant.
The fact is, we have to tell the truth about what the word “community” means in Park Heights. Because unfortunately the “community” members who attend Baltimore Hebrew, Oheb Shalom, Beth El, Chizuk Amuno and others aren’t the same “community” members who call themselves Orthodox.
They are from altogether different communities. I’m not so sure that one community reached out and invited the other community over to this Monday night event.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
How many times there is a “community” tehillim or prayer gathering when there’s a difficult event happening in Israel or even when someone’s life is in danger. I don’t think I’d be in error in writing that the Conservative and Reform synagogues aren’t even on the “phone tree.”
But on Monday night when we had elected officials on hand, when the president of the Associated spoke, when the executive director of the Center for Jewish Education spoke, wouldn’t you think that we were all invited to this event.
I don’t think we all were.
The Reform, the Conservative, the non-Orthodox were overlooked.
As much as I have given credit to the sponsors of this event Monday night in my previous blogs and in the JT itself, the more I distance myself, the more it bothers me.
At the risk of promoting any one organization or constituent agency over another, I think the Baltimore Jewish Council should be the organizer of events such as these in the future. The Council is an umbrella group already in place with connections that transcend all of the Jewish and non-Jewish “communities” out there.
Monday evening was an Orthodox event with the Governor and Associated President and a few candles lit to touch some bases.
But community event?
Hardly.
I wanted to hear what my personal hero and Jewish leader Shoshana Cardin had to say.
I needed to hear Rabbi Steve Schwartz’s calming influence.
Dr. Robert Friedman is arguably the Baltimorean with the greatest knowledge of how this world works. He could have helped us gain understanding.
Kudos to Rabbis Hauer and Kaplan, the governor, Marc Terrill for their beautiful words and Cantor Avi Albrecht’s for his powerful, emotional voice.
Offer us more. Diversify. Let the community be represented by those who really make it a community.
We don’t mourn for the deceased of this horrible Mumbai tragedy because they were mostly Orthodox Jews. We mourn because they were innocent victims. Can we as a “community” agree to that or do we have to wear a certain kind of yarmulke and long skirt and sheitel to be entitled to express our grief.
Let’s hope not.

You are pathetic.  You are the scum of the earth to take a beautiful event and belittle it.  You better start repenting as rumor is its hot in hell.

Steve, don’t be surprised, this is Phil’s M.O.  The event was broadcast on Channel 2 News with a live shot in the morning and they mentioned that it was open tot the community about 5 times.  But Phil is never wrong so channel 2 maust have been subliminially saying it was only for the Orthodox because the Reform and Conservetave communities would surely show their support had they been invited.  Maybe next time we should send a printed personal invitation - don’t bother if your doing it for Phil’s sake, he’d complain then too.  Remember when Phill stirs it up, it sells more JTs.

Unbelievable. You bash the orthodox no matter what they do. This memorial was sponsored in part by The Associated. However, the Associated neglected to send out emails promoting this event (emails to a contingency which in large part, is not orthodox). As well, the Board of Rabbis (mostly conservative and reform) were aware of this event, as they are an integral part of the Associated. Have you questioned why the Board of Rabbis neglected to inform their constituency?

This event was also posted on Facebook, which from my understanding drew in a lot of people. I personally know of many non-religious people who came to the event (one of whom, I may add, started lighting Shabbos candles because of it).

Were you able to personally view all 900 attendees and gage there religious preference? Highly doubtful.

It seems all you want to do is expose the negative about the orthodox community, but never the positive. Case in point, have you ever written an expose on sexual molestation in the conservative, reform or reconstructionist communities?

You know, Phil, it’s very interesting. When the Orthodox don’t show up to an event you bash them for that. When they do show up you bash them that they didn’t invite anyone else!!!  This WAS a community event. YOUR “personal hero” and “leaders” didn’t show up! It was advertised for everyone to see and everyone was invited. They chose not to attend.  And by the way, you apparently knew about it so why didn’t you invite them? I think it was beautiful that Orthodox Rabbis spoke about accepting everyone, even non Jews. You’ll always twist it to make the Orthodox look bad, whatever they do, don’t you.