Local News
May 9, 2008
New Orthodox Singles Group
Baltimore group offers young adults a social outlet.
Maayan Jaffe
Staff Reporter
It’s a place to socialize for Orthodox graduate students and other young adults. It’s not Hillel, and it’s not Chabad. It’s called the Baltimore Chevra, and it’s run by peers for their peers.
The group was started with 20 members in 2005 by Gary Kasper, a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. He said he was looking for a social outlet with like-minded people and couldn’t find it at his school. He and acquaintance Ben Pick, who no longer lives in Baltimore, set up a Yahoo! listserv and contacted their friends. People began e-mailing back and forth, offering/asking for services or advice.
Soon, Mr. Kasper realized he could make the group into something more. He opened up his Pickwick apartment to the members, hosting a Shlomo Carlebach-style festive prayer service one Friday night and a potluck dinner. It was a success, and folks were interested in more. The dinners became semi-monthly, then monthly, and now they host as many as 70 people and take place at Ner Tamid Greenspring Valley Synagogue. And the meals are catered.
“That a group like this can exist shows that there is a Jewish social life in Baltimore. Orthodox graduates can go elsewhere besides New York,” Mr. Kasper said.
The group eventually offered holiday parties and even hosted a cholent cook-off.
Last October, when Mr. Kasper got married, he passed the ever- growing project to dental student Yehuda Delshad. Mr. Kasper said that there are now 170 twenty-somethings on the listserv, and that Mr. Delshad is expanding the program to include more variety.
Tonight, May 9, for example, the Chevra will host former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. at one of its dinners. His 8 p.m. talk, according to Mr. Delshad, will focus on his visit to Israel with the Baltimore Jewish Council in November 2003.
Israel is something all the members of the Chevra are interested in, Mr. Delshad said, because it’s Israel’s 60th birthday and also because the group is largely modern Orthodox and Zionistic. Men and women do participate in the activities and there is mixed seating, he said, but all food is kosher, and Shabbat and prayer laws are observed.
“The Baltimore Chevra creates a sense of community, brings people together,” Mr. Delshad said.
(There haven’t been any marriages through the Chevra, but Mr. Delshad said he is waiting for the first one.)
“Even though we might only be in Baltimore for a short time, [the Chevra] helps plant the seeds for our wanting to continue to belong to a Jewish community once we settle down,” Mr. Kasper said.