Bizrizut

First off, you want to go to Baltimore Jewish Life for all things Minyanim. Will give you times and addresses. As far as things to see: You have Downtown which has the inner Harbour and the Aquarium. There is Discovery Zone and also the Baltimore Zoo. There are plenty of restaurants. There is Dougies, Accents, Kosher Bite, Knish Shop David Chus and Umamis for meat. For milchigs you have Goldbergs Bagels, Caramels, Tov Pizza, Mama Leahs, Eden Cafe, Cocoachinos and a few others I cant think of right now. Star K is a good Hechser and there are other Hechsherim which I personally Use but you need to inform yourself on those.

Hope this helps.

I saw this bumper sticker in a really old junky car (or a Jalopy for those Old Archie Fans) “0-60 in 5 miles!”

Ok folks, here I come!!! We usually do not do a theme. Too time consuming and too much money. However, where there is a compelling reason to do so, we will do one. For example, I recently lost my job and B’H was able to find one, a month later (a better one I might add). So we decided to do the whole “Bad Economy” theme. We are getting burlap material from the fabric store, rope from home depot and a challah roll and a small bottle of water. Both items can and will be used in the seudah, which is important for us when making the mishloach manot and its super cheap. According to my calculations we will be spending under $0.60 a package, and we will be sending our kids a good and healthy message. On a lighter note, when we were living in an apt complex with other young couples, many of them learning, many of them (including ourselves) received government help in many forms including WIC. WIC stands for Women, infants and Children and the program helps you obtain important food products for pregnant women and kids. Anyways the running joke was that they are specific as to what food you can buy (milk, apple juice, formula eggs and cereals) and what kind of those foods you can get (no sugar cereals, it had to be healthful). We considered giving out WIC mishloach manot with the following message “Have and WICked Purim”. After laughing our heads off and realizing it will probably hurt some feelings, we scratched it, but we always thought it would be funny. Anyways that’s my rant, take it or leave it. HAPPY PURIM!!!!!

“If you live in a glass house, you should change in the basement.”

“You can bring the horse to the water but you can’t make it put on a bathing suit”

A highschool friend of mine who thought himself to be Yogi Berra

Gavra At work,

My kids are 4 and 2. I think seminaries are the last thought on my mind right now. Honestly, its not about breaking the trend. Its about using this forum to open peoples eyes and FOR ONCE, ASK PEOPLE TO USE THEIR BRAINS AND NOT THEIR HEARTS AND EGOS WHEN MAKING AN IMPORTANT DECISION. Michlala is a good place as well, another sister of mine went there, but that too can be considered a waste. I think that now that Touro is out there, many parents will demand that their daughters get some college credits and go to school at night, going to seminary will come with responsibility and only for a serious girl who is goal oriented will comply with seminary during the day and college at night (with the work that comes with it). Honestly, its about time we ask from our youth (i include myself in that) to show some gumption, show a sense of goal and responsibility. This “MAGIAH LI (I DESERVE IT)” attitude, is poisenous to the kids and causes more hurt in the long run. Teach them what it means to have ownnership of their work and lives and when they will get married and have children they will be more prepared to face those challenges. Should’nt that be what post highscool programs be? We trust them to be in a different country being independent and making choices. That trust does not come by itself, it must be earned! The whole seminary concept and how they it is run, is completly against that idea. Makes me a little upset. Hopefully when its my kids turn (another 15 years) the landscape will change a little and people will grow some brains.

I would like to add my two cents to this discussion for all its worth (probably two cents). My wife went to a seminary and she has nothing but bad memories of the actual seminary. The seminary she went to, and many others (from the discussions she has had with other women, now 5-10 years out of seminary) they try to brainwash you and make you feel guilty if you dont choose the lifestyle they deem to be the right one. One of her rebbeim told a class full of impressionable girls “would you rather your husband come home from a day of working with goyim all day, or would you rather him come home from learning in an out of town kollel”. He said this statement and many worse statements to a group of 30 girls. At no point did he take into consideration that one choice does not apply to all people. All seminary did for my wife, was throw guilt, guilt and more guilt with a little brainwashing on the side. The worst thing is, that after robbing the girls parents of $20,000 for the year, so they can toil in “avodas hakodesh bikdusah vetahara (yea, after stuffing their fat pockets)” they tell all the girls to marry kollel guys (without knowing them, their backgrounds and their abilities to handle that life) and putting the parents further in debt. This issue is a major problem, not only in Seminay but in yeshivas as well. The same seminary rabbi, who tells these girls to live a life of simplicity and hardship turns around an hour later and asks parents for a check of $20,000. Aint that the biggest hypocricy in the world? One of these brainwashing rabbis from my wife’s seminary was in America (not fundraising, as they have endless supply of cash, rather recruiting girls/ATM machines) and my wife and I approached him and confronted him about his approach and his face turned red. He said over the years he has realized his mistake and has stopped saying many of those things, instead talking to each girl specifically about her goals and aspirations. Who do you think is teaching these girls in the seminaries? Gedolim? Rabbonim Chashuvim? They are guys who need money and just two years ago were playing in the Israel Football League and now is a frum kollel yungerliet who is well equipped to give seminary girls life lessons. ITS RIDICULOUS AND NONSENSE. Talk about the worst ROI you could make. My sister was in seminary last year and is going back as a madricha. The only things she has gained are 1.Weight 2.contacts in her cell phone 3. A further amount of cluelessness about the world and being a responsible, good jew 4.an appreciation for every restaurant in Israel and she has generally has had a great time. Wonderful, I am glad my parents wasted $20,000 on that!!! I welcome your responses and know I will get some blasts on this. I stand by my post.

I live in Baltimore and it is no secret of the atrocity which occurred in our community a week and a half ago. Having said that, I was hoping one of the small good thing to come out of this would be the community waking up and acting on this on a major scale. Maybe it will still happen, but talking to some highschool kids, I get the impression that nothing substantive is being done. The kids still feel rejected by their community, their school and some even by their families. Children who do not get enough love, attention and validation as important, look for other ways to fill the void. They turn to drugs, they turn to alcohol and many many other things. There needs to be an all out war against these things, and yes even at the expense of exposing some real good kids who come from very frum homes and don’t know much from these things. I keep hearing the same excuse, “we can’s expose the other kids who aren’t exposed”. I strongly disagree, there is a way to expose them to the dangers and the concepts without getting too specific. We must expose all the children to the dangers so they know that their rebbeim, teachers and community are aware that its a problem and when they are faced with these issues they feel comfortable talking to people about it. A few of the kids I have spoken to since the tragedy happened feel that the issue is not being tackled and that there is only finger pointing and not enough action is being done. We must help our children, they need to know that making mistakes is part of life, they wont be excommunicated for it. They need to feel loves, wanted and needed, by their community, their school and their families above all. Its a scary world out there for the kids but we need to make them feel that there is fight is not theirs alone and that we, the adults, the rebbeim, the community is there to guide them through the rough waters. I can only say that with the situation the way it is, may mashiach come soon and end all of the troubles in the Jewish Community at large.