It’s not uncommon for a candidate who loses an election to cry foul, claiming fraud or voter intimidation as a means to reverse the results in their favor. Generally speaking, a candidate is in a very weak position if his or her only hope for winning the election rests on voter fraud. Most of the time, nothing ever materializes from such accusations. On occasion, the losing candidate will file a lawsuit seeking court intervention to overturn the results. These kinds of cases are difficult to prove and are often unsuccessful.

In November 1994, Ellen Sauerbrey, the Republican candidate for governor, narrowly lost to Paris N. Glendenning by a margin of 5,993 votes. Soon thereafter, Sauerbrey was in court asserting that certain voters, primarily in Baltimore City, listed addresses that were connected to abandoned or razed buildings and that the whereabouts of these voters could not be confirmed. In the end though, Sauerbrey’s lawyers could only prove that 3,600 votes of the entire vote count were fraudulent, which was certainly not enough to sway the election in the other direction.

“Voss fahr ah (what kind of) title is that?” you may ask, Are you suggesting that we have Yidden who are Amalekites!? Chas vesholom – Heaven forbid! Let us therefore define the word “ahmoliker.”

Ahmoliker is the past, as in “a long time ago.” So, the translation of our title would be “The Once-Upon-a-Time Jew.” In our context, it refers to Yidden during the time of your bubbies and zaidies if you are a yunger mentch (young person), or your parents if you are a zoken (elder) or pre-zoken.

While “Jew of the past” is indeed the literal translation of the word ahmoliker, when you say that Yankel is an “ahmoliker Yid,” there are several possible interpretations. Nu, you may say, zog shoin – tell us already what you are talking about!

Each stage in life brings new vistas, if your determination is as strong as your dreams. In the case of Baltimoreans Nisan and Marietta Jaffee, the Holy Land beckoned as Mr. Jaffee reached his retirement. The Jaffees not only agreed to share their aliyah journey with me but also met me one fine afternoon in Yerushalayim and gave me a ride through the countryside leading to their home in Efrat.

We drove through the famous tunnels and over the picturesque mountains of Harei Yehuda, blossoming with the first signs of spring. On the way, Mr. Jaffee stopped at an outlook in the neighboring yishuv, Neve Daniel, to show me the view. From this spot, the highest in Gush Etzion and, after Har Hermon, and one of the highest in the country, you can see much of Eretz Yisrael from the mountains down to the coastal plain and, on a clear day, even the towers of Tel Aviv.

I was recently scanning the front page of a reputable newspaper when I came across this headline: “Brazilian Officials Searching for Stolen Items Find Two Tanks.” Yes, we’re talking about real tanks – you know, the kind that have steel treads and shoot at people. After clearing my head, my first thought was, “This country could really use a good Pesach cleaning.” I mean, I’ve come across some crazy things, but this was tantamount to saying, “I was cleaning the den for Pesach and I stumbled upon an elephant. Correction: make that two elephants.”

But putting elephants and tanks aside, the article did help me to gain perspective. See, most people grumble and groan about the pre-Pesach shenanigans that are called “preparation.” The cleaning, scrubbing, organizing, and rerouting of kitchen items tends to throw many a household into a cyclone-like environment. The dirt swirls around, furniture gets upended, and food is scarce (despite the cauldron-sized pots filled with food that are boiling away day and night). Many an unsuspecting husband has been seen wandering around in a confused state mumbling, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

I read the headlines about the bus crash and felt sad for a few minutes. Why were people still getting killed on the roads, I wondered, even without any Palestinian terrorists around? And then I forgot about it. The news came up again – this time about a kallah being on that bus. I let that go, too….

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I first met Avraham Yitzchak Sperling when we were in second grade in TA. That was back in 1962, when he was called Isaac. We interacted very little in elementary school. Isaac lived in the Park Heights area, and I lived on Milford Mill Road. Isaac was on the quiet side. He was very bright and seemed bored with what was going on in the classroom, and he seemed absorbed in other things – usually out of range of the view of the teacher. One thing we had in common: Neither of us was good at sports; we were not picked during recess to be part of the baseball teams.

Sam Finkel interviewed Marsha Grant in Yerushalayim on Monday, March 28. This is her story.

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My purpose in coming to Israel was to look for an apartment. My husband and I are planning to make aliyah in the summer, and a couple of prospects looked promising. The only way to move forward would be to actually see the apartments. Having never been in Israel over Purim, I decided to book a flight leaving Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. with Brussels Air on Monday, March 21, with a one-and-a-half- hour layover in Brussels, arriving in Israel on Tuesday, March 22 – the day before Taanis Esther. I’d be ready for the fast, enjoy Purim with my grandchildren, and perhaps even close a deal on an apartment.

Shlomo Miller was having a bad day. He played with his pen on the desk and pretended to work, trying hard to forget the events of that morning.The phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID. It was his wife.“Hello?”His wife paused. She could tell from his tone that something was up.“What happened?”He sighed. “The same thing that always happens…It was a blood bath this morning, people right and left being ‘escorted off.’ Remember Chuck?”

“Isn’t he the guy who has been there for something like 30 years?”“They didn’t even let him clean out his office!” Shlomo slammed his hand on the table and shook his head.“But you’ll be okay, right?” She tried to sound supportive, but it was hard to mask her own fear.“Yeah, I should be fine. I am pretty sure I won’t make the list.” He didn’t want to mention that he’d spent the day shaking in his boots, wondering if his turn was next. His constant absences for Yom Tov definitely did not put things in his favor; nor did being caught asleep at his desk during the second week of Selichos. It always irked him when people seemed to feel that he had it made, since he had a degree and a job. Even for him, parnassa was no guarantee. With a job like this, you still needed a high dose of bitachon. Any day at work could be your last.

Since our revitalization this past summer, The Shidduch Center of Baltimore has been diligently working on fulfilling its mission statement: “to create and facilitate dating opportunities for Baltimore singles.” Our goal and hope is that our renewed efforts on behalf of Baltimore’s singles will provide guidance to our community and maximum exposure for its singles. To that end, I would like to share some crucial shidduch-related points that were addressed at our two most recent educational events, allowing these gems to reach a much wider audience.

First, though, I feel it is of the utmost importance that our community fully understand that the topics and issues covered in this article are not specific to our community. We are in no worse a position than any other Jewish community. There isn’t a single community, even in the greater New York/New Jersey area, that does not face almost the same challenges in shidduchim that we do. May Hashem see to it that we are all successful in our endeavors, and that The Shidduch Center of Baltimore accomplish the full spectrum of its goals.

Attending my second-ever AIPAC conference, I was privy to a different view this time around. In 2014, I attended as a delegate; this time, I asked AIPAC for – and received – a Where What When press credential to cover the annual major event. As it turns out, members of the press were somewhat excluded from the off-the-record breakout sessions of the conference, but it was very interesting to speak to members of the press – many of whom were Israeli and many of whom were also Orthodox Jews. Journalism is no longer strictly “old media” but now includes prominent online bloggers, talk-show hosts, even people broadcasting and/or publishing their own media.

This year’s AIPAC Policy Conference brought together 18,700 Israel supporters from varying and diverse backgrounds. Present among the huge crowd at the Verizon Center (the conference continues to outgrow its venues) were many minorities: members of the Christian community, labor union leaders, and many politicians, both Israeli and American. Additionally, AIPAC made note (often, and to rousing applause) of the 4,000 youth leaders in attendance, many of them campus activists fighting the good fight against the terrible, growing, on-campus evil of anti-Israel and, in many ways, anti-Semitic radicalism. There was obvious special interest at this year’s conference because of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections and the in-person attendance and speeches of four of the remaining five candidates, with the very notable exception of democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders.

As I go about my day in this election season, it seems that many of the people I encounter are much surer than I am about voting: “Of course, I am voting for so-and-so,” my friend Rivka says. “I am tired of what so-and-so did, and I want change!”

I don’t voice my thoughts, but I am thinking, what change do you want? Are you sure that the candidate you vote for can bring about that change? Maybe it’s all talk. Do you really understand the issues? Does it even matter who wins?

Our neighborhood is blanketed by colorful signs encouraging us to vote for candidates who are running in the city, state, or federal elections – and I keep reading in local publications, including this one, how important my vote is. Am I am alone in feeling completely inadequate in understanding whom to vote for or why to vote at all?