Lakewood is a 164-mile ride up the New Jersey Turnpike from Baltimore, but it may be too close for comfort when it comes to guarding ourselves against a measles outbreak in Baltimore and Silver Spring. What are we doing, and what should we do to protect our community?

Dr. Sondra Heiligman, a Baltimore pediatrician, explains the basics of the measles vaccine and the ramifications the current measles outbreak may potentially have, chalila, on our greater local community.

“Boruch Hashem, we have the ability to give immunizations so we can prevent most cases of the measles. The shot is known to give approximately 93% prevention of measles after one dose; after two doses, it is 97%. All day, people call me, asking what they need to do if they are visiting Lakewood. Some parents have asked advice regarding visiting parents if they are taking children who are too young to get their first or second dose of the measles vaccine.

Many community members are well-acquainted with Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, tucked-away on the Sinai-Lifebridge Health campus on Belvedere Avenue. It is a Baltimore icon dating back to 1890 (when it was called Hebrew Friendly Inn). Fewer of us are familiar with one of its programs, which originated in the 1990s, called the Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP). I had the pleasure of speaking to Director of Outpatient Behavioral Health Services, Hannah Kilburg, and PHP Admissions Liaison, Bracha Poliakoff, about the great number of outpatient successe they have witnessed in this program.

“A lot of people get turned off because the word hospitalization in the title, but it is actually an outpatient program,” notes Ms. Kilburg. “Inpatient hospitalization is what we seek to avoid, so it is ideal for folks in the community experiencing some worsening symptoms that interfere with their daily life and put them at risk of inpatient hospitalization.” PHP also takes patients who have been hospitalized and made some progress in the hospital but still have a way to go. The program helps them get back to baseline.

When Dovid Mandel volunteered during the busy pre-Pesach sheimos season, little did he realize that he’d soon be in charge of burying our community’s sheimos on a more permanent basis.

Sheimos – literally, “names” (referring to the name of G-d) – consist of printed Torah materials as well as objects that have innate holiness and thus require a respectful burial. Aside from organizing and arranging for either the burial or selling of the sefarim (Torah books) brought to the shul, the one- to two-hour weekly job includes making sure that the sefarim collected conform to the Agudah’s values.

When longtime sheimos head Bill Lerner “retired” from this voluntary position, after 25 years, many people tried to assume his role but found it overwhelming. “I wasn’t planning to continue after Pesach,” admits Mr. Mandel, who is a Ner Israel Kollel Fellow in addition to being an expert dealer of antique sefarim, “but I tried it and it was fun. The place looked absolutely terrible, and I saw that nobody wanted to do it.” Mr. Mandel, who was asked by Agudah president Michael Fulda to take on the job, mostly worked alone until recently, when two teenaged volunteers, Moshe Cohen and Yaakov Weiskopf, began helping him. Yaakov’s father, Rabbi Mordechai Weiskopf, has managed the actual burial in years past.

Sheimos Logistics

Thousands of bags of sheimos are dropped off annually in the small alcove outside Harav Moshe Heinemann’s office. Since it is impossible to store them there, these bags are pushed through a laundry chute-like opening in the floor to be stored in a sizable room on a lower floor. When the room fills up, which has been every two years, it is time to bury the material in the Agudath Israel Cemetery. Selling and giving away the sheimos has alleviated the need to bury the tightly-packed room more frequently than that.

Despite the plethora of day schools and yeshivos in the Baltimore-Greater Washington area, not every Jewish elementary, middle, and high school student is fortunate enough to attend a school where he or she can connect with other Jewish students and learn about our heritage. But, thanks to a handful of organizations that are successfully reaching out to these students, many Jewish children are now able to appreciate the beauty of Yiddishkeit in a fun way while forming lasting, meaningful friendships.

Hep JEP

JEP Girls of Maryland, a branch of the national Jewish Education Program, is one of these outreach organizations. Started in 2010 with just four participants, over 450 school-aged Jewish girls, as well as volunteers, have participated in JEP to date. They come from over 40 schools, mostly Baltimore County but also from all across Maryland and even Pennsylvania,

Rabbi Nachman Seltzer’s recent rare U.S. speaking tour, including numerous appearances in Baltimore, presented me with the opportunity to meet one of the most accomplished writers and inspirational speakers in the Torah world today. Rabbi Seltzer has impressively authored 28 books in the past 17 years, in addition to other important pursuits. It was a pleasure to chat with a kindred spirit in this exclusive Where What When interview

Where are you from originally and where do you live now?

I’m originally from Brooklyn. My parents made aliya when I was 14. Presently, my wife and I and our four kids, ka”h – two girls and two boys, aged 16, 15, 12, and 9 – live in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

I understand that you had no formal training in writing. When did you start writing and what was your career path?

I wrote in elementary school, but at age 23 – not having gone to high school or studied writing – I decided to write my first book. One motzei Shabbos, in Har Nof, I said to my mother-in-law, ‘I want to write a book.’ She said, “Here’s a pad of paper and a pen,” and I started writing my first book, The Edge. It was based on a story that a friend told me while I was in kollel about a friend of his. I wrote four pages a day, by hand, for the next three or four months, and then I had a book.

 “I grew up in the ’60s, a time when everyone was finding their way,” reminisces Rabbi Sholom Weingot. “Because I was always very individualistic, even as a yeshiva bachur, I learned to also look at other people as unique individuals and try to understand their needs.”

This statement revealed to me where Rabbi Weingot was coming from. The director of Bnainu, a Baltimore-based organization that provides chinuch (Jewish education) services for children and families, Rabbi Weingot held an intimate meeting this July for a core group of women. He hopes to spread his simple yet revolutionary grassroots movement as widely as possible. Its purpose? To reach deeper levels of communications and promote listening on a higher level.