Phil Jacobs

Unemployment Without Stigma

2009-11-19T16:28:14+00:00

Over 20 years ago, on a cold Christmas eve, I covered an incredible volunteer effort in some pretty bleak areas of Baltimore.
A Jewish woman named Linda Greenberg was spending a great deal of her own money, renting trucks and distributing gifts such as gloves, hats, scarves and socks to the homeless.
We traveled to spaces next to railroad tracks, highways, back alleys and shelters. We saw the neighborhoods of the forgotten.
It was the human condition in terrible, terrible need.
Helping lead the effort was a young lady who had been homeless, but worked her way out of it.
This was in the mid-1980s. I asked the lady if she knew of any Jews living on the streets.
She said she knew of at least four homeless Jewish men.
The very next week, we met again. This time I drove her in my car, and we found the four men.
One was a childhood friend of mine who was sleeping outside in the dead of winter behind what was the old B&O Railroad Station.
Another man was a Vietnam vet who would walk from a inner harbor shelter to Temple Oheb Shalom on Friday evenings, to stay connected Jewishly and to have something to eat.
At least one other lived in a car.
And the fourth was one of those heaps of humanity we see sleeping on a sidewalk heating grate.
The article would appear in the Jewish Times.
The very Friday it published, I was in the office of a community leader when one of his lay leaders, a local philanthropist could no better than say to me, “We have close to 100,000 Jews, you found the four who slipped through the safety net.”
It’s that attitude, while I know extreme, that is keeping Jews from seeking and getting help they need during these awful times of record unemployment.
Some people are afraid to ask. Or they live with the feeling they have done something wrong or they aren’t living up to some high bar of Jewish expectations.
Why?
Because of the 100,000 Jews in Baltimore, there is an attitude among some of “what’s the big deal? So what if there are 1,000 unemployed Jews? That’s only a small percent after all. And these unemployed. They live out there somewhere.
Jewish Community Services is the anecdote for that attitude, and I know that feeding, housing, caring for and keeping Jews alive, well and productive IS its priority. So this isn’t about an agency or a person. The Associated and other local agencies are about solutions and compassion.
I’m not concerned there.
We need to understand, those of us who aren’t unemployed or who aren’t service providers, that when we look into the eyes of an unemployed person, we are looking directly at ourselves.
Unemployment in the Jewish community cannot be looked on as a stigma. A temporary setback, perhaps. But nothing more. And it has to be that the unemployed flow through the Jewish “system” just as equally as everyone else.
And that is also the system of human nature.
We have to ask our co-community members without them feeling stigmatized, “what can I do?”
Sometimes, it’s just about listening again and again and again.
Other times it’s networking.
And still other times, it might come down to financial help.
But we have to create the environment where those conversations can happen without shame. Because the more we talk openly about unemployment, the more we take whatever stigma there is off of it.
It’s not about 1,000 people. It’s about individuals we love. It’s really about us.
Can we start by at least listening?
We can.

Shomrim Football Game Vs. Police on Sunday

2009-11-13T17:34:54+00:00

Sunday is going to be a day of fun, football and a community showing its appreciation for our City’s Police force.
From 1-5 p.m. the grounds of Northwestern High School at Park Heights Avenue and Fallstaff Road will be transformed into a festive carnival with children’s activities, food, police exhibitions and of course the big game. Shomrim will take on the Northwest District of the City Police Department in a game of flag football. This is the second time the two groups have faced off in football. Last year, Shomrim won, 40-13. The score, however, is less important, than the opportunity to come together and raise monies for the City Police Mounted Patrol Unit, which has been in existence since 1888 and is hampered by financial constraints.
Shomrim, which started only four years ago as the “eyes and ears of the police” in Upper Park Heights and Pikesville, is looking forward to day for families to meet city and community officials, police and other neighbors.
The Honorable Judge Chaya Friedman will serve as emcee for the day’s activities. We will be treated with the voices of the singing group “Who Knows 5?” We are looking forward to greetings from the mayor and police commissioner.
It’s going to be such a great day, something to bring the entire community together.

Veterans Day

2009-11-11T15:32:23+00:00

Wednesday, November 11, Veterans Day.
Today, certain municipalities close their doors while many businesses attract customers with sale prices.
Our military is engaged in wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet, I am willing to bet that Veterans Day won’t be or wasn’t mentioned much among our families this week. Many American citizens simply don’t know what it is or where it came from or how it’s not about the pre-Thanksgiving markdowns at the department stores.
Indeed we all seem to know that “Black” Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. Veterans Day?
As long as our nation is a free country with a democracy, every day will be Veterans day. It’s syrupy, I know. I don’t think for a second that we’d be in a position to live in freedom if not for the people who had to go into a war.
On Tisha B’av this past summer, I went with a friend to Arlington National Cemetery. Yes, there’s a difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day. But if you ever want to teach your children about what all of our freedoms cost us as a nation, or if you are unsure of that price yourself, then go to this historic place.
You will just look at a person in uniform or listen to the nightly news casualty figures a little differently.
You can learn all you need to know about Veterans Day by using any search engine on the Internet.
Just make sure you at least find out why there is more to this than sales and no trash pickup.
Be able to tell your children about this day, because you appreciate it yourself.

Warm Feeling

2009-11-05T16:44:02+00:00

Just want to remind as many people as possible that next Sunday morning, if you have time to spare, you can do so with a huge mitzvah.
Weather forecasters are already warning us that this might be a severe winter.
It’s more concerning this year because of the worries we have of both the seasonal flu and the swine flu. So CHAI is having its annual weatherization day on November 15. And it would surely be a mitzvah if as many people as possible could show up at Yeshivat Rambam that morning, grab materials, get a housing assignment and go help someone in need. Be there before 9 a.m.
You don’t have to be an expert or handy. Just getting enough caulk to seal a leak around a window isn’t going to require expert artistic standards. But we can keep that cold from debilitating an elderly neighbor, then who cares what it looks like.
The idea is to keep people healthy and warm and safe.
It’s going to help someone feel good this winter, and you’re going to be surprised how good you feel after having helped someone out.

You Don’t Have To Ask

2009-11-03T16:06:36+00:00

I was watching the other night a stand-up comedy routine by an African-American comedian.
She talked about how when she was growing up when she and a sibling would misbehave, her mother would scold them by saying, “stop it, white people are looking at you.”
She went on to say that since Barak Obama became President, she feels a little less inhibited and worried if any one is looking at her.
I couldn’t help but think of her routine recently when once again I experienced yet another act of thoughtless arrogance.
The person standing in front of me last Friday night at the local grocery store was a young, well dressed man. He was wearing a kippah and yes he was having a rather loud conversation on his cellphone. He was buying flowers for Shabbat as well as other items.
He didn’t validate the existence of the African American employee scanning and bagging groceries. He automatically slid the credit card into the card reader, turned his back on the lady when she said’ “Thank you, have a good day,” and walked out of the store.
I wanted to say, don’t do that, a black person is looking at you.
But what I wanted to say is next time we wonder why people hold certain ill feelings about Jews, we don’t have to search far for answers.
If this was the first and only time I’d seen this, I wouldn’t be writing this. But it’s not. I’ve seen young Jewish women, students, teens, all of them going through these grocery checkout lines like they are above the person that is serving them.
When it came my turn last Friday, I knew from her eyes what the checkout lady was thinking. I said thank you, paid attention to her and guess what, my phone was vibrating away. It could wait.
Several years ago, I interviewed a young woman, a senior at Beth Tfiloh Community High School. She wore a kippah just like the boys.
I asked her why.
She told me that it reminded her of her obligation to do mitzvot. Because she was from Harrisburg, Pa., she wanted people not necessarily familiar with Judaism, to understand that the person with the kippah holding the door for the elderly person was a Jew. That the person allowing another customer in a store to go ahead of them in line was a Jew. That the person who said, “have a good day, and thank you,” was a Jew.
Point is, we can study in our scholarly texts all day. We can argue over the most difficult points of Torah and Talmud. If we treat another human being by ignoring them or withholding a positive word, we really haven’t learned anything.
This morning at Dunkin Donuts, I held the door for three people. Two of them were teenage female students wearing their uniforms. The third was a black woman holding her baby. Guess who said thank you?
You don’t even have to ask.

Watching the Sun Go Down

2009-10-29T20:01:29+00:00

I read with interest the comments to the Baltimore Sun’s article on the Jewish Times suspending principal payments on a city loan.

Why was the Jewish Times singled out? The Jewish Times, after all, is just one part of Alter Communications, a diverse media group including Style Magazine, Chesapeake Life Magazine and an array of custom publishing magazines.

Being Jewish had nothing to do with the request we made of the city. Yet based on the comments I read on the Sunpapers website, it seems to some to have everything to do with it.

Great reporting job there.

Of the intellectually charged comments I loved the best was the one asking where was the Jewish community in keeping libraries, pools and Police Athletic League Centers open in the city? Excuse me. Open your eyes. Read the names on some of the buildings around the city, names like Meyerhoff and Weinberg. Check the left hand margins on the letter head of organizations within this city. The stake in this city from Jewish community members can’t be questioned except by those with an agenda of hate. This week’s Jewish Times cover story is an interview with the Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld. Guess what? He’s isn’t Jewish. But he’s working with a public safety group, made up largely of Jewish citizens, who are hoping to assist him in the saving of the financially strapped mounted police unit. The one comment about the city having funds for bankrupt newspapers and movie theaters, but not for police and firefighters comes to mind. Well, we’re not bankrupt. And we’re hoping that funds can be raised for the police department.

How could any publication not know that when there is a question of economy and the need for someone to blame, just dial up the Jewish community. It’s not hard to stir up the hate that’s out there. It’s lazy and it’s easy. That’s why I wonder why it wasn’t Alter Communications that was reported on, it was the Jewish Times. Good reporters get good information. Doing it on the cheap, results in thin information. The question should have been asked, why is the Jewish newspaper based not in the center of its circulation, but instead in the city?

Nowhere, however, do I read any story or comment anywhere asking why the Baltimore Jewish Times would locate itself for decades at 2104 North Charles Street, leave for Owings Mills for one year and then return to the city. It would have been easier to stay in Owings Mills on 90 Painters Mill Road. We certainly wouldn’t have had to pay the price of moving expenses to relocate twice.

Every day, our employees would spend money at local restaurants like Tony’s or Trees, Cleo’s or the Golden Temple. We’d walk up to the Safeway and purchase groceries. We’d make use of the advertising studios that used to call that part of Charles Street home. We’d get our cars repaired or buy tires from the businesses along Howard Street. We’d walk to Memorial Stadium or restaurants in Charles Village. When Camden Yards opened, we’d sometimes walk there. We walk to the central branch of the library. We could have just as easily found a nice, comfortable home in Pikesville in the center of our readership, but we didn’t. And we didn’t because the company for generations has made a commitment to the City of Baltimore. We believe in Baltimore. The Jewish Times pumped its share of tax money into the community. We employ people in the city.

We literally left the city for one year. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to move a company. We did it twice. We were the first occupant of the building we moved into. And guess what? We’re out there again spending lunch money, taking long walks to Mt. Vernon Place, and sometimes walking to the Mitchell Court House when we serve on city juries. We take the Light Rail, and we pay rent in the city. Because we believe this is where we belong.

Didn’t read that anywhere today.

When almost all of the businesses we knew left or went out of business, we stayed. It wasn’t until our employees had to worry about a serious increase in area crime, that it came time to leave.

Of course we’re struggling. Who isn’t struggling? Yet our readers look to the JT for their news of their community. It is “their” Jewish Times. They remind us of that, be it in positive or negative ways.

So, are we paying back the City?

Yes. But we give back to this city every single day in every single way.

We report news of the city from the inside out, not as observers from the outside looking in.

Oh, and that need to get a quote from the Poynter Institute saying, “the problem is that if you are in debt to a powerful organization, you may be inclined to not cover them. You may not ask the tough questions.”

I can’t even dignify that a reporter would get a quote like that without even checking the issues we’ve been covering here. It makes me think that the comments I hear more and more about our lone daily newspaper, are unfortunately not biased, but are true.

Are we struggling financially? Who doesn’t have to re-invent to survive.

We’re better for it.

But “City gives Jewish Times financial break”

Give me a break.

Come on, you guys can do better than that.

At least I thought you could.

Can’t Afford Yeshiva? How About Half A Day At Public School? It’s Free.

2009-10-27T14:27:05+00:00

Had one of those conversations again.

The one about affording day school education.

There are just so many difficult nuances to all of this.

I, at one time, sat on a tuition committee.

We’d weigh a family’s request for tuition reduction. We’d ask for full financial disclosure, check important financial documents and then do what we could do to fulfill the mandate of educating every Jewish child Jewishly.

There would be that instance when someone would submit an application and yes, there would be that trip to Florida that acted as a red flag to their request.

Then there was the family where the parents were both working full time and part-time jobs and would request just something to make the tuition more affordable.

The nuances have broadened.

A couple earns six figures, but they have three or more children in yeshiva or day school. They have a comfortable home. Okay, so they are holding on to their cars longer than they have in the past. The kids go to camp, and they do take a week’s vacation, because let’s face it, we all need some sort of respite some time.

So now in this paradigm, this family could very well ask for tuition reduction. Why shouldn’t they? Or better phrased, why should they be penalized for having a nice house, two cars and a vacation?

See, this is relatively new to the paradigm. Upper middle class incomes not being able to fully afford tuition?

In many cases, these people are afraid to even ask for the scholarship form. It could be embarrassing and they aren’t really seen as people in need
We need to blow up that paradigm.

You and I don’t know what’s going on in the lives of people who live in any of these houses. There could be unemployment. There could be furlough days. Salaries based on commissions could be down. There are plenty of fathers, and yes mothers, waking up in the middle of the night worrying about how they are going to keep the lights on, not to mention their kids in school. Sometimes the person asleep by their side doesn’t even know the extent of the family’s financial issues.

Parents look at children with guilt, and worry. Bar and bat mitzvahs have to be paid for, weddings, Jewish holidays.

It doesn’t make sense to blame the day schools or yeshivas if they are asking us to pay tuition. How can they possibly survive without tuition?
I don’t think the Associated during this time in our economic crisis, is the place to go with hands out either. The Associated is working from the other end, in many cases, providing job counseling, emergency survival assistance, therapy, and even avenues of foreclosure avoidance.

So without any reluctance, I’m going to bring this up again.

We’ve got public schools in the middle of the Jewish neighborhoods. They will teach your children AP English, get kids ready for the SAT, and college applications, provide special education services, speech therapy, college prep, phys ed and vocational tech. If you own a home, you are paying for this anyway.

Why don’t we use it?

Is it because we’re afraid of the worldliness of these schools? Are we afraid to mix our Jewish children with Christians, with Muslims, with kids of different races?

Yeah, I think we are.

I think it’s visceral and I think it’s prejudicial.

What I really think is that’s it’s a bad decision, and a costly one.

When many older generation Jews left Park Heights and moved to Pikesville or Owings Mills, a solid core of Orthodox families moved in. CHAI and the Associated helped facilitate the Jewish rebirth of these areas. City services and County services know who lives in these neighborhoods.

But it took a faith, a belief by the early “pioneers” of the CHAI programming to bring people into the neighborhoods and actually create a viable presence. We had streets that were left behind by Jewish people now vibrant with Jewish life.

We have Cross Country Elementary School and Fallstaff and Northwestern and Pikesville Middle and Senior High School. There’s Wellwood and Summit Park.

We have Jewish private schools, some perhaps on the brink of financial insolvency.

Why do we pressure these schools? Why do we keep going back to an already overly stressed Jewish community system and ask it for yet more, more money. It’s like a shark with an insatiable appetite.

We moved into neighborhoods given up for dead Jewishly, and we created Jewish neighborhoods. That, in itself, took risk and commitment.

A critical mass of Jewish families willing to place their children in some sort of workable modality for secular education only in the public schools would save millions of dollars. It could keep Jewish private schools alive, because they would be doing what they do best, offering the Jewish side of education.

The public schools, with a critical mass of Jewish families involved, could offer such positive potential, such possibilities.

We tell the story so often of the man who was drowning, and how God sent him a helicopter with a ladder and a life raft, but the man refused to take the help. And then the man asked God why he didn’t save him? God said, “I tried. I sent you a helicopter, a ladder and a life raft”
We have these buildings, these educational facilities right here in our own neighborhoods.

We have a critical mass of families who just like they saved and changed the very streets they live could save and change the public schools in their neighborhoods.

We are in a box of financial despair. Our schools aren’t equipped to handle the depth of this recession. The definition of Jews in financial need has gotten bigger and broader.

Let our wonderful day schools and yeshivas teach Jewish subjects to the children in a less financially pressured environment.

Let’s let our local public school facilities, educators, special educators, college preparatory teachers and guidance counselors take care of the secular studies.

It’s free.

It’s there to be used.

Use these facilities.

Or don’t complain.

The Blessing of Esther Rosenblatt

2009-10-19T15:12:26+00:00

Every so often a person passes away, and we feel awful for that person. We hope that she didn’t suffer. And we look at her age, and if that age is say 80 or above, then we add the line, “well, she lived a good life.”
I think Esther Rosenblatt died at the age of 92 because God needed help with something.
Mrs. Rosenblatt, the wife of the late Rabbi Morris Rosenblatt, spiritual leader of Kneseth Israel in Annapolis, was just the person to listen and to help out.
She was the neshama of the Annapolis Jewish Community. Her kitchen phone was like a hotline. And not all of that help was always desperate in nature. Sometimes, she offered just an ear and some direction.
It was in June of 2005 that Mrs. Rosenblatt was honored for 60 years of service to her shul and to Annapolis. That day also served to honor the 20th anniversary of the death of her beloved Morris, who was struck and killed by a vehicle as he crossed the street on June 29, 1985.
So many have stories of how Mrs. Rosenblatt, with her own pain to process, took people by the hand and heart and helped them survive their own personal storms.
I remember writing about the Passover slippers made out of paper for her by a local child and the little bear given to her by a Christian neighbor’s child so the rebbetzin wouldn’t be lonely.
There are people who have served God on this earth by keeping an eye on others and offering time, precious time to help them.
You know them when you run into them. If you are fortunate, you understand what it is they are all doing here.
I remember a man during my years as editor in Detroit named David Hermelin. He was a philanthropist and went on to become an ambassador to Norway. But he was so, so much more. I’d see him at the coffee house, the deli, almost anywhere sitting there listening and being there for other people. He died at 63. And I remember thinking then what I’m thinking now about Mrs. Rosenblatt, that David left us, because there was an even greater mission or simply that God, himself, needed someone who would really listen.
Mrs. Rosenblatt, the mom of my friend and mentor Gary Rosenblatt, was one of those people who knew about people and who knew how to serve others in the service of God.
People like Esther Rosenblatt don’t come along too often in this world.
Somebody I’m sure is going to call her phone out of habit.
Or out of need.
May her memory provide the answers we’ll always need.
She was and will always be a blessing.

Rabbi Max, This is the Season to Ask for Forgiveness

2009-10-05T14:34:10+00:00

Once again,
Rabbi Jacob Max is the center of media attention and for that matter the general conversation in the community.
Be it a meal in a sukkah or just walking along greeting people on Sunday, the Baltimore Sun’s regurgitation of all that we already knew, had people shaking their heads once more.
We learned almost nothing new from the article.
Perhaps what continues to be missing is any semblance of teshuva or asking of forgiveness by Max.
Here we are as Jews in a time when repentance is a central them to our prayers and to our actions towards one another.
One wonders while Max was striking his chest in the traditional way during Yom Kippur prayers, if he put a face to each person who has come out and bravely told their stories of how he impacted their lives.
There was talk that the Sunpaper article would appear last Sunday, September 27, the day before Yom Kippur. Its symbolism then of forgiveness would have been huge.
Still, that it appeared on the second day of Sukkot also brings with it a tremendous amount of inner-symbolism. For Max, like a sukkah, represents man’s frailty. However, a sukkah, never was found guilty of a fourth-degree molestation conviction.
There are beautiful symbols that appear inside a sukkah and outside. The lulav, the essrog, the mere act of convening over meals in the structure. It’s a wonderful place, and for many of us is our most favorite Jewish observance.
Yet, we all know that the sukkah can’t keep out many of the elements, a moderate or strong rain, a blustery wind, a dip in the temperature. When I lived in Detroit, there was even snow to deal with sometimes.
These elements remind us of our own frailties, faults and desires gone astray.
With prayer, with teshuvah, real connection to God, we can only hope for reminders of this, the season of our joy, our gladness.
Max, we all cry out to you and for you. Seek forgiveness.
Allow the sukkah to take you to righteousness.
It’s not too late.

Civics Lesson

2009-10-01T19:59:21+00:00

A civics lesson of sorts was brought to the Baltimore City Zoning Commission last Tuesday.
If any high school or university educator wanted to teach civics and community issues in its most pure form, this was it.
It involved the request by a private resident, living in the Cross Country area, for zoning approval for a day care center in her home.
The home owner had self-limiting conditions on the zoning change. Knowing that there were concerns by neighbors over the center, she proposed conditions. For example, one condition would limit the day care center’s tenure to one school year in her home, from September through June, 2010. This would give her time to find a bigger space, and if she couldn’t locate one within the school year, she would have to start the zoning approval process over again.
Another condition made it clear that the hours of drop-off and pick-up of the center’s 15 children would be staggered and limited. Parents would be prohibited from leaving their cars. Only staffers would be able to unbuckle or buckle children into car seats.
The zoning hearing was preceded by a parlor meeting a week earlier in a neighbor’s home.
Some saw this as an Orthodox vs. non-Orthodox issue.
Yet at the hearing, it was clear that this was more about two generations with different outlooks on their environments.
A couple of the long-time neighbors articulated it very well. When they moved in to the neighborhood, perhaps they were the first owners of a home, or once or twice removed from the original owner. But the community was typically residential and only residential. There weren’t basement businesses, day care centers or even home-based minyans.
One long-time resident, who happens to be Orthodox, was opposed to the day care center, not because he has anything against children at all. He just saw this as yet another form of chipping away of the sanctity of a quiet, residential neighborhood. Standing on its own, the day care center isn’t the challenge for some of the neighbors. But when added to everything else that pulls away from a residential area, it’s just one thing more.
After the meeting was over, a friend who was at the meeting came over to me, and said that maybe the best thing for he and his wife to do is find another place to live. His reasoning had nothing to do with being against the day care center at all. He just felt that change happens and for neighborhoods to survive, there should be a natural turnover to younger families and their needs.
Still, there is a very definite feeing of resentment among some concerning the basement businesses. There is a concern that perhaps there are some lacking appropriate zoning and licensing.
There is a feeling that they impact the privacy of the home owner, the value of the home and even the sanctity of the neighborhood.
And if they believe this, then it must really be hurting them.
In some respects, it could be more a validation of their standing as neighbors. In other words, “Hey, I’ve lived here for 30 years, don’t you think that merits some sort of level of respect? Or doesn’t that merit some sort of input?”
And I think it does. I think it behooves the newer generation of homeowners to at least try to understand why the more long-term neighbors might feel slighted or not validated.
The basement business zoning and licensing issue and any violations is of genuine concern.
But that aside for now, nobody should ever feel compelled to move from their home, especially if they love their house and have invested in it.
So I disagree a little bit with my friend. A neighborhood should be about young families, families with teens, empty nest couples, single residents and others learning to live respectfully among one another.
Reaching out and working hard to understand a neighbor’s needs and motives would be positive.
The home owner who asked for a zoning approval for her day care center?
She was approved by the city.
None of the conditions she introduced to self-limit her day care center were implemented by the panel.
She has to provide a parking space for an employee. She has a driveway.
Now we’ll see how the community reacts.
It is after all a living civics lesson.