Phil Jacobs

Ocean City’s Jewish Presence

2008-07-03T19:47:00-05:00

Last week, my wife and I took a drive to West Ocean City to do a interview with Stephanie Becker, owner of Steffi’s Place, the Eastern Shore’s first and only kosher bed and breakfast.
When we turned the car onto Elm Street, gorgeous B&B’s location, we saw a young frum man mowing his lawn at a house. A little up the road, we saw what looked like a replica of 770, the Crown Heights, N.Y. international headquarters of Lubavitch.
In the backyard of Steffi’s Place is an eruv. The living room area is well supplied with holy books, and glatt kosher food is served in the spacious dining room.
I write all this with amazement only because it was in 1975, my first job out of college, was as sports editor of an Ocean City-based newspaper, “The Eastern Shore Times.”
After Labor Day, I sometimes felt I was the only Jew in town, knowing, though that a small Jewish presence was growing in nearby Ocean Pines, and that there was a shul in Salisbury.
But still, back in the 70s and in the immediate preceding decades, Baltimore’s Jews headed off for Atlantic City, N.J. Many of us over 50 have memories of the Breakers Hotel, Nathan’s, and endless summer Boardwalk walks where we’d see many of our neighbors.
That summer get-away has been replaced by Ocean City, Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach. To see these outward signs of observant Judaism on the lower Eastern Shore is wonderful. Our children don’t know of a time when Jews didn’t frequent Ocean City.
I can remember doing interviews with poor blacks, who lived in Worcester County outside of Ocean City and Berlin, literally in tar shacks. I can remember the “n” word used in conversation among whites in town. Every time I’d hear it, I’d cringe and ask that it not be used. I can also remember at least one establishment in 1875 with separate entrances for whites and blacks.
I did run into anti-Semitic comments every once in a while. One enlightened fishing tackle shop owner told me that he used a particular fishing tool “to circumcise certain people.” Sure, he didn’t mean anything by it. Mmmmm.
Now I’m told that the rebbetzin of the Ocean City Chabad prepares dozens of kosher lunches for the number of Israeli students who work at T-shirt shops on the Boardwalk. It’s not uncommon to hear Hebrew and Russian spoken in these shops or to see a mezuzah on a door.
So by and large, I am so pleased to see that diversity, and the real world have come “downy oshun.”
Because I like others do remember when the Eastern Shore was known more for its taffy than its tolerance.
Glad that’s changing.

Disagree With Justices

2008-06-30T16:39:00-05:00

“It’s all reward without the risk.”
Murray Levin’s quote about the life-changing molestation he suffered at the hands of the late Rabbi Ephraim Shapiro will forever stick with me.
But the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision recently saying child rapists cannot be punished with the death sentence, does nothing but further Murray’s reasoning.
In his majority stance, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote “the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child.”
The Washington Post wrote in a recent editorial that supported this saying that a rape of a child though terrible is not as brutal as the government sanctioning the death of the rapist.
I so disagree.
The spirit of many rape victims is all but dead for some a lifetime.
I cannot stand reading quotes from elected officials reading something like “our top priority remains the protection of our children, our most precious commodity.”
I hate the fact that I’m supporting any sort of death in any sort of way.
Yet, I cannot help but feel that the only reasoning that a rapist or molester might “get” is their own death.
Any person who would rape a child, in my opinion, isn’t worth the tax payer dollars of prison or rehab. He deserves to go. And the word on the street for the rapists has got to change.
It isn’t something you can get away with.
This isn’t something you can get legally slapped on the wrist with.
You could very well die.

JCC Hall of Fame Event

2008-06-16T20:47:00-05:00

The Jewish Community Center did a wonderful job in inducting its first class of Hall of Fame honorees last Thursday at the Gordon Center.
The honorees included: Jacob Blaustein, Shoshana S. Cardin, Jacob Epstein, Dr. Louis L. Kaplan, Zanvyl Krieger, Joseph Meyerhoff, Daniel Nathans, M.D., Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., Walter Sondheim Jr., Bert Vogelstein, M.D. and Dr. Abel Wolman.
A tremendous amount of credit should go to the JCC, its Board Chair Beth Mayers, the event committee lead by Marcy K. Kolodny and Morry Zolet, the Gordon Center’s hard working Nancy Goldberg and for sure WJZ-TV’s Marty Bass, the evening’s emcee.
I think the format of the evening was well conceived. With 11 honorees, the committee decided to do an informative video presentation, encapsulating their achievements in minutes. At the end of each segment, Mr. Bass gave a well done transition into the next honoree’s story.
This was as a first for Baltimore, and it was a terrific success before a packed Gordon Center crowd.
Plaques of those inducted will be hung in a special Owings Mills JCC location.
The video will be used as a “classroom” of Baltimore Jewish history.

Honoree Facts:
Jacob Blaustein

• Founder of AMOCO. He was responsible for the first drive-in filling station, first gasoline pump, first anti-knock motor fuel.
• Lifelong human rights advocate. First to propose the appointment of a United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights.

Shoshana S. Cardin
• First woman to chair the board of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.
• First female president of the Council of Jewish Federations.
• First female Chair of the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
• First female President of the National Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL).
• Chair of the and co-founder of the Shoshana S. Cardin School.

Jacob Epstein
• Innovative wholesaler who started the Baltimore Bargain House.
• Inaugurator of matching grants in philanthropy.
• Extensive personal art collection was bequeathed to the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Dr. Louis L. Kaplan
• Grandfather of modern Jewish education in Baltimore.
• Established Baltimore Hebrew College.
• Served for 40 years as head of Board of Hebrew Education now known as Center for Jewish Education.
• Founder of Beth Am Synagogue, and its first spiritual leader.
• Head of Board of Regents for the University of Maryland.
• Chancellor of University of Maryland Baltimore County.
• Headed Joseph Meyerhoff Fund.

Zanvyl Krieger
• Dedicated philanthropist to Jewish causes.
• Charitable interests included the Krieger Children’s Eye Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Holocaust Memorial Museum and many others.
• Brought both professional baseball and football to Baltimore.
• Key investor to U.S. Surgical, which owned the rights to a method for closing surgical incisions.
• Greatest single gift was a $50 million challenge grant to the School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Joseph Meyerhoff
• Instilled in his family that the greatest testament to life is the legacy of community involvement.
• Developed the Israel Bond program. In 1951, co-hosted first Israel Bond meeting with co-chair Golda Meir.
• In 1964 with David Ben-Gurion, he launched the Israel Education Fund.
• President of the United Jewish Appeal.
• President of the Baltimore Symphony for 18 years. Funded seed money in 1965 for the symphony hall which bears his name.

Daniel Nathans, M.D.

• 1978 recipient of the Nobel Prize for discovering the use of chemical scalpels in analyzing DNA.
• In 1993, he was the recipient of the nation’s highest scientific award, the National Medal of Science.

Solomon H. Snyder, M.D.
• Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.
• Many advances in molecular neuroscience have stremmed from his identification of receptors for neurotransmitters and drugs.
• Applications of his techniques have enhanced the development of new agents in the pharmaceutical industry.

Walter Sondheim Jr.
• Championed Baltimore’s downtown renaissance.
• Instrumental in guiding the city through desegregation of its schools in the 1950s.
• President of the Board of School Commissioners.
• President of the State Board of Education.
• Pushed projects such as Charles Center, Maryland Science Center, the National Aquarium and the Inner Harbor.

Bert Vogelstein, M.D.
• Led a Johns Hopkins team that discovered the specific mutations responsible for colon cancer.
• Pioneering studies of the genetic causes of human cancer have earned him many awards including the Medal of Honor of the American Cancer Society and the Lounsbery Award of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Abel Wolman
• Johns Hopkins professor of environmental engineering.
• World renowned water treatment expert, working to standardize the methods used to chlorinate a city’s supply of drinking water.
• Helped build water treatment systems in 40 countries.
• Named Marylander of Century by the Baltimore Sun in 1999.

An Enemy At Home

2008-06-06T18:36:01-05:00

So, on top of worrying every day that a Quassam rocket could have killed them or a visceral response to the “code red” alarms this town faces, these people have a baseline of terror putting “code red” into an even more horrifying definition.
Mrs. Katzir runs the shelter with her staff on the grounds of Kibbutz Beit Kama. Almost all of her residents had a father or brother or relative as their perpetrators.
So, in addition to worrying about the communal alarm sounding, they had a private one going off as well.
“I think the situation with the Quassamim makes it worse,” she said of the molestation. “You can see a regression in the way people are functioning. Plus, if you have a vulnerable population to begin with, you can only double its vulnerability when you face the stress of rocket attacks.”
She said she has noticed that in this town, the males seem to become more aggressive with the stress, while the girls keep it in. The girls, she said, will more often than not, cut themselves they are in such distress.
Creating a home is the most important aspect of Eden, she said.
“They feel like it is their house,” she said. “They show a basic need to belong to a place where people care, a safe place.”
Mrs. Katzir is also the mother of three, a son and two daughters. Her son is a swim team member, and she is always answering questions from friends and relatives outside of Sderot, “why do you stay there? Is it safe for your children?”
“It’s a real dilemma sometimes being here,” she said. “Sometimes we deny it is happening. We’ve lived here since way before the Quassams, so what would be the message for our children if left here. And plus, we love our home. Everything is simple and modest and quiet.”
Eden is supported as part of the UJC’s Israel Emergency Campaign’s Yuval or “Helping the Helpers” project. At Eden, therapists work with residents to not only work through their deep wounds of molestation but also the attacks from Hamas.
“We give them the tools to raise their self images to survive in a normal life,” she said. “We all have a duty to be responsible for someone and something,” she said. “We help these girls and women. They are living through a crazy situation. We want to help them heal.”

The Negev

2008-06-05T20:31:00-05:00

Today, on our UJC-fact finding mission, we spent the morning in a Bedouin tent listening as a Bedouin Israeli talked of her struggles to gain what she called basic opportunities and rights in Israel.
The hot desert heat beat down on the tent we sat in, and our contingent consumed bottles of water just to stay with the conversation. But this was a stop where Jewish and Arab cooperation, especially when it comes to the rights of women in Arab society in the Negev, are supported through projects that get help from Baltimore’s own Meyerhoff Foundation.
From our trip to the tent, we met ambitious young Ethiopian ninth graders who are already taking college level courses in the sciences.
And finally, we stopped at a school where high school children are given a certified after-school course in computer operations and repair. They will most certainly find work in the army and after college in the computer field.
When this is over, I will come back to Baltimore with new names and new stories to tell about. But in one 72-hour period, we ostensibly saw Israel at war in Sderot and Ashkelon and then a building, constructing Israel in the Negev. The contrasts were amazing.
Finally, we met Israeli small businessmen who were given grants to go ahead and accomplish their dreams, be it raising fish farms to providing ambulance services. Again, the growing Israel, not the victim Israel.

Two Amazing Women

2008-06-04T20:03:00-05:00

ASHKELON, ISRAEL—By now all of the journalists on this UJC fact finding mission have seen enough tragedy and heard more than their share of difficult stories, all regarding rockets hitting Baltimore’s sister city and nearby Sderot.
Today in Ashkelon, I was able to meet Zuwalu Samai and Takelah Zamir, two members of the Associated-sponsored Ladies Ethiopian Art Project or LEAP.
Both of these ladies are part of a needlepoint get-together group where Ethiopian ladies not only create gorgeous pieces of artwork, but also get a chance to get together and share a story, a laugh and offer one another a needed show of support.
First, Takelah, who dressed in a beautiful white dress, expressed an undaunted feeling of support from G-d. She came to Israel in 1985 as part of Operation Moses. But this was after her husband disappeared while serving in the Ethopian Army. She spent five years looking for him. Takelah spent harrowing days in the Sudan, risking her life with the ultimate goal of getting to her Jewish homeland.
Next to her at our meeting was seated Zuwalu Samari.Her needlepoint was especially beautiful, creating a design of multi colored flowers and a white dove. She came to Israel in 1991, after enduring the death of her first husband. She remarried in Israel, and her husband was employed as a prison guard. One one horrific day, he returned home only to use his handgun and kill two of his children and then himself.
Zuwalu cries when she tells the story, and her friend Takelah comforts her. It hasn’t been easy, yet she and her two adult daughters carry on.
The struggles that these two ladies endured just to get to Israel reminded me of the many Jewish Americans who have never come here, usually out of some sort of fear or ignorance.
Despite its struggles, just like these two special ladies, Israel carries itself forward, creating its own sort of “needlepoint.”
“I kissed the ground when I first got here,” said Takelah.
LEAP empowers these women, said coordinator Nicole Rosenberg. It allows them to use their artistic talents to supplement their incomes as well.
Last year, as part of the Diller program, bringing together youth from both Baltimore and Ashkelon, a book of biographies was created by high school students of these remarkable women. Information on obtaining their book and the ladies’ artwork can be learned by emailing LEAPAshkelon@gmail.com

A Day in Sderot

2008-06-03T18:25:00-05:00

SDEROT, ISRAEL—Today our United Jewish Community’s hosts introduced us to some of the most courageous people I’ve ever met. Our day started on the military base called Nachal Oz, the front line on the Gaza border. There we met young female IDF soldiers who spend hours each day scanning video monitors watching Gaza territory leading up to the fence protecting Israel. These soldiers have spotted and prevented the entrance of countless numbers of terrorists into Israel. From there we traveled to the Sderot Community Center where we met members of the town’s crisis response team. This was followed by a meeting of some of the bravest people of them all, the elementary school children who attend Sderot elementary school. We met people like Shirley Katzir who takes care of young girls who have been molested in their homes. This is on top of the trauma that these girls face each day by just living in Sderot. We met nine year old Vicki Chernak who isn’t afraid to play outside and has lived almost her entire life under the threat of rocket attacks. We met a high school student named Kalin Mymon who is getting ready to graduate and looks forward to being one day both a lawyer and an actress. And finally we met Estee Nemeth, a student at Sapir College who’s moving film making skills have captured the tragedy of Sderot forever.
All of this was pretty much on our first day. Tomorrow we spend most of our day in Ashkelon, Baltimore’s sister city.
We learned some new expressions today. Israeli social workers don’t call it post traumatic stress syndrome. They call it on going stress syndrome. We also learned that color means a great deal here. While every one fears code red an innocent sign in the Sderot elementary school said simply “blue doors are safe (these are the doorways to the safe rooms)."We passed many green and white road signs that said Gaza as normally as if you were driving along and saw a sign for Pikesville. We learned that Israelis refer to the Ashkelon and Sderot areas as a peripheral region of Israel. We saw beautiful sun flowers growing on an open space next to a moshav. We saw the omnipresent white blimps used for early warning systems. We saw concrete walls used to block sniper fire. We learned that Sderot has seen a dramatic increase in its cases of diabetes, and it is attributed to stress. And the thing we seemed to learn the most was that even the therapists need therapy here in Sderot.
A good day is when there’s no Tzeva Adom, or red alert.

A General Speaks

2008-06-03T04:23:00-05:00

Shalom Harari, a retired brigadier general told this group of American Jewish journalists on the UJC fact finding trip many things.
But the major piece of information given was that Israel doesn’t go in and blow Gaza apart simply because it doesn’t want to open a second military front.
The first front, he said, is the north.
He also showed in great detail how Hamas, with Iran’s help, has gone ahead already and prepared for such and IDF invasion, literally packing tons of TNT under major intersections at any invasion route possibility.
The general also struck a nerve when he said that in the seven years of rocket attacks, “only” eight people have been killed and “only” 40 people have been wounded, so far. The cost in lives of an invasion would be so much, much more, he implored. The fear, he said, is the “strategic Quassam,” the rocket that would with purpose hit a synagogue or a school. That, he said, would give the IDF, the country ever reason to go into Gaza. But short of that, he said the world wouldn’t be sympathetic to Israel if it went in now.
On to Sderot.

72 Hours

2008-06-02T20:08:00-05:00

Ashkelon, Israel --
For the next three days, with the help of the United Jewish Communities, and our local Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, a group of American Jewish journalists will get a first-hand look at the economic, social, strategic, emotional and philanthropic issues in play both here in Ashkelon and nearby Sderot.
Ashkelon is Baltimore’s sister city here in Israel.
And in the two months since the last time I visited this beautiful seaside community, one that attracted 250 Baltimoreans to come last December to build a playground, more and more rocket attacks have happened.
Our 72-hour trip started with a “wow” as we all listened to the words of Ashkelon’s Deputy Mayor Levi Shafran
The deputy mayor said that his city has so much to offer Israel society. It is a city at work with a tremendous educational system in place. It is a city of immigrants. It is a city of industry and the arts.
And now, he said with a sigh, it’s a city that is being rocketed.
When the last grad rocket hit a local mall, according to Sigal Ariely, the Ashkelon-Baltimore New Partnership Coordinator, part of the good feeling in this city diminished.
The deputy mayor went so far as to say that Sderot doesn’t really exist as a city anymore. He said that the only people who are there, remain because they cannot afford to leave.
And he wondered out loud “no one is shooting back.”
“My job,” he said, “is to clean up after there is an attack.” A lot of that cleanup comes not retaliation, but in services to take care of the mental aftershocks associated with a rocket attack.”
He said that he doesn’t want to see Ashkelon become a city of shelters like Sderot. Instead, he wants the central government to provide more protection, while monies that it come from organizations like UJC should be given to schools for computers or for the needs of people in post-traumatic stress.
“Money is never enough,” he said. “We want the government to stop the shooting, that’s it. We know that the course this going is heading us towards Sderot.
When asked if the current controversial issues surrounding the Olmert government has triggered an increase in the attacks, the deputy mayor answered that one doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the other.”
My next entry include the opinions of a military expert.
Tomorrow we head to Sderot.

Gas Line Memories

2008-05-29T20:29:00-05:00

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.