Editor’s note: Welcome to the second installment of our new column, “Dating Perspectives.” The column will feature various shadchanim writing about any aspect of shidduchim that they feel strongly about. We also invite others to write – whether parents, singles, rebbeim, or teachers. If you have an opinion or a story – here’s your chance to get it out there. Contact us at adswww@aol.com.

Just this week, a good friend and fellow shadchan was bemoaning the fact that people do not consider paying shadchanus important and that something needs to be done about it. She then shared with me that The Shidduch Center of Baltimore was actually in the midst of addressing this very issue and would be publishing guidelines for the community soon. Honestly, I have always had mixed feelings about this. Don’t get me wrong, I do feel that a shadchan should be paid for his or her services, but I have had many different experiences with this over the last 40 years of people being incredibly, embarrassingly generous and those who simply forgot or didn’t think they had any reason to pay me.

Over the past few years I have had the privilege of writing regularly for What Where When. I appreciate the fact that I have had a lot of latitude in expressing my opinions – which, sometimes, some readers find objectionable. In this month’s letters to the editor, Ken Saks wrote a very reasonable rebuttal to some things I said in last month’s article, contrasting the Reagan administration with the Obama/Biden years.

Ken’s letter [see Letters to the Editor] was carefully crafted and well written. Therefore, I felt that I needed to respond in a similar manner, appreciating the fact that he and I may not agree, but we can engage each other respectfully.

In December 2023, I received an email from the organization DVI (Dental Volunteers for Israel) describing how they were treating the thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes by the attack on October 7^th along with the underserved youth population they usually treat. The email also stated that many volunteers had cancelled their trips due to the war.

I had been agonizing about the war and had made financial contributions but still had a feeling of helplessness. I realized immediately that this was my opportunity to contribute in a personal way to the plight of our brothers and sisters. I set in motion plans to travel to Israel, and two months later, I was blessed to find myself at the Trudi Birger Dental Clinic contributing my skills in a meaningful way.

I would like to comment on the recent article by Malka Weintraub in the Pesach 2024 issue, and the subsequent reaction by Josh Hurewitz and response by Malka Weintraub in the May 2024 issue.

I am uniquely suited to offer commentary on this topic. I graduated from junior college with a certificate in electronics as well as a First Class Radiotelephone Operators license. Subsequently, I went to college and obtained two bachelor’s degrees, one in chemistry and one in biology. I later attended Johns Hopkins and obtained a masters in chemistry. Therefore, I know something about trade school, and I know something about college.

I converted last month. It was a simple process: no fanfare, no studying or preparation. With the click of a button, I went from being a Democrat to a Republican. 

I’d gone to renew my driver’s license. In addition to confirming my weight, height, eyeglasses, and organ donation status, the online form also asked if I wanted to register to vote or change my party affiliation. There it was: the question I’d been asking myself for the last few years. So why did it take so long to do?

This is the third and final installment of a multipart series for which I polled local shul-goers about their favorite shul. The truth is that Baltimore is blessed to have many favorite shuls.

New Home, New Shul

“My husband and I joined Ohel Moshe when we first moved to Baltimore, just a year or two after the shul started,” recalls Yael Friedman. “Like many shuls, it started in a house, and there has been so much change and expansion since then – both in the kehillah and in the building. Our main draw was the same as that of so many of the shul’s early members – Rabbi Teichman! My husband knew him as his principal in TA and loved the idea of joining his kehillah. Rabbi Teichman is still the heart of the shul. He really understands people and knows how to connect, and his drashos are straight from the heart. He even acts as the candy man, because he wants all of the children of the shul to feel comfortable with him.

It was eleven days before my mission to Israel when I walked into Park’s Tailoring on Clarks Lane near Reisterstown Road for the first time. I needed alterations on several pairs of pants, and Park’s Tailoring had showed up in the results of a Google search for “tailors near me.”

From the moment I walked in, the proprietor, a senior Korean gentleman by the name of Mr. Kim seemed less interested in my pants than he was in my yarmulke. He got right to the point: It was terrible what Hamas did to Israel on October 7^th, he said. It’s terrible the way college kids here in America are blaming Israel for what happened, and it’s terrible how Americans, in general, don’t recognize the debt of gratitude we owe Israel for destroying an enemy whose next target would be us.

It’s been over 200 days – 200 days since part of my family was ripped away, 200 days of madness, 200 days of people who have no business siding with Hamas siding with Hamas. It is a mind-boggling, infuriating, scream-inducing madness.

Anyway, it’s a rabbit hole for me. I can’t think too much on it, because it brings me so low that I can’t handle it. When that happens in my life (and let’s face it, we all get low at times), my only weapon is to do something for the good. I desperately want the hostages rescued and returned, whole and happy, and the only way I think I can possibly impact their rescue is in the spiritual world.

My name is Yoni Katz, and I am in the 6^th grade at TA. I recently competed in two robotics competitions with my teammates from TA. It was a very fun experience that I want to share with the readers of the Where What When.

TA competes in two different VEX Robotics competitions, a local competition at TA and a national competition in New York. The New York competition was hosted by Darchei Torah. As soon as I heard about the competition from my friends, I knew it was something I wanted to do. I started by asking my friends who might be interested in competing to sign up. The school places all students on three- or four-person teams to help emphasize teamwork. It helps the students recognize that they can only succeed as a team and not on their own. Mr. Tucker, the robotics instructor, told us that we would have weekly meetings from 5:15 to 6:15 p.m. He also explained the competition rules. First, each team’s robot must be able to pick up a variety of blocks and place the blocks in designated areas. Second, if your robot breaks during a qualification, you can’t fix it. The team earns points and the team with the most points wins.

A benefit of writing articles for the Where What When is the opportunity to meet interesting people. Recently, Rabbi Dovid Katz asked me to interview one such person, Yair Halevy, who was in Baltimore garnering support for Yeshivat Shavei Chevron. When he is not abroad working for the yeshiva, he is doing post-doctoral work on “Chareidim in Israeli Culture.” Yair has a Ph.D. in Jewish history and thought from Hebrew University. This sounded like an unusual and intriguing combination, and I learned a lot from getting to know him.

Yair told me that he has been coming to Baltimore for 10 years, and he spent over a week here. Perhaps it shows how large and diverse Baltimore is that I had never heard of him before. I asked him his impression of our Jewish community. His response was the same as I have heard from others: “People in Baltimore ‘notnim et halev’; they give their heart.” He and others have told me that they are impressed with the kavod and derech eretz shown to them in Baltimore. “Maybe there are some cities where we raise more money, but Baltimore is tops when it comes to ahavat Yisrael,” he said.