FEATURED JOBS
The two leading Baltimore mayoral candidates called for meetings with our Jewish leadership. Interim Mayor Sheila Dixon met with a group of Baltimore Jewish leaders last week, and the meeting with Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., who’s currently a city councilman, was postponed due to high demand but too many vacations.
It’s a great sign that Dixon, the front-runner by a large margin, and Mitchell, the #2 candidate, find it important enough to have a dialogue with the Jewish community.
Of course, it’s no surprise that any candidate would say anything to get elected. The important thing is what happens with him or her once in office.
We saw our former mayor (and current governor) make his obligatory rounds in the Jewish community while campaigning for his first term and initially after he was elected.
Then, Martin O’Malley seemed to disappear. He took the Jewish community for granted. While he wasn’t bad for the Jewish community, he seemed to forget where we lived. O’Malley sightings became very infrequent in Upper Park Heights while he was in the later stages of his mayoral administration.
Even as governor, he hasn’t made a lot of outreach to the Jewish community. That may be because his Jewish liaison, Izzy Patoka, is far weaker then his counterparts in the Ehrlich administration and on the teams of Dixon and Mitchell.
Whoever becomes our next mayor, I hope that being part of the Jewish community is high on their agendas. We may be a minority, but we have long been part of the solution to building a great city.
And while our needs may be small in comparison to black-on-black crime, if the Jewish community is neglected, it would create huge problems for Baltimore.
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