Comments (0)October Insider
October 2009
Dear Reader,
What is it about Jewish Baltimore that engenders such passion among many ex-pats? Several months ago, I received an e-mail from Marissa Levin, formerly Marissa Friedman when she was growing up in Pikesville. Now living in Northern Virginia with her husband and two sons, she had just finished reading the iNSIDER and wanted to share her fondness for the rich Jewish community in which she grew up.
Because her parents and brother’s family still live in town, Levin often returns to her former “home” several times a year. In the e-mail she wrote about the impact our Jewish community has made on her children.
She noted how surprised her sons were at how many Jews live in one area; how amazed they were at the size of the Beth Tfiloh Congregation’s Purim carnival. She shares the BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES with them and they enjoy looking at the stories of Jewish kids who live here.
Her letter made me think about our community — how it has changed over the past twenty years and how it has stayed the same. It made me wonder what it is about Baltimore’s Jewish community that makes it unique among other Jewish communities around the world.
This month, iNSIDER spoke with Levin and one of her good friends, Ellen (Gersh) Gottsegan, who now lives in Boca Raton, Fla., about how growing up in Baltimore gave them a unique Jewish perspective and how that experience is different from where they live today.
We also noticed that today’s Jewish community, although still centered primarily in the northwest suburbs of Pikesville, Owings Mills and Reisterstown, has begun to spread out. There are active Jewish families living in downtown Baltimore, to the extent that several institutions have begun programming directed specifically to them.
Beth El Congregation is starting a religious school for five- to nine-year-olds in the Art School on Light Street; the Jewish Community Center is holding holiday parties for downtown families at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, as well as at the Light Street and Canton branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. In “Urbanite…Suburbanite” we profile two families about their Jewish lifestyles.
Although things have changed, there is still a “unique-ness” about the Baltimore Jewish community that one hopes will continue into the next generation.
Sincerely,
Rochelle Eisenberg
Editor
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