An ancient, God-centered way of life is thriving in Baltimore beyond anyone's expectations. Or prayers.
As old as Moses and as fresh as the kosher pizza sold on Reisterstown Road, Orthodox Judaism is booming here.
"We talk about it every day," said Rabbi Herman Neuberger, president of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, the cornerstone of local Orthodoxy.
Of the 100,000 or so Jews in the metro area, about 20,000 are Orthodox: followers of the 613 laws and attendant rituals derived from God's covenant on Mount Sinai with the children of Israel.
The fruit of such fidelity is a community in which the ills plaguing the rest of American society are nearly absent.
"Crime as it exists in the general public does not exist with us," said Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, one of the most powerful figures in local Orthodoxy. "There may be some white-collar crime, but there are no murders among us. Drug abuse is so unusual, the news spreads like wildfire. Divorce is rising, but it's still much lower, maybe 2 percent. There is no illiteracy, and I haven't heard of an unwed pregnancy."
Jews have lived in Baltimore since Colonial days, long before the advent of Conservative and Reform movements, which relaxed many strictures still held sacrosanct by movements, which relaxed many strictures still held sacrosanct by the Orthodox.
In 1845, Baltimore Jews built the first synagogue in Maryland, a still-functioning prayer house on Lloyd Street.
On tides of prosperity, persecution and assimilation, succeeding generations moved farther and farther from original neighborhoods near the harbor. The pickle-and-herring bustle of Lloyd and Lombard streets was abandoned for the great townhouses of Eutaw Place and Druid Hill Park, which in turn were left behind for the promise of suburbia in Park Circle, Park Heights, Liberty Heights and Randallstown.
Northwest corridor
Today, as Reform and Conservative Jews push deeper into Owings Mills and other areas beyond the Beltway, the Orthodox have dug in along the city's northwest corridor. The population is particularly dense between Greenspring Avenue and Reisterstown Road.
"This area is a ghetto where you can get all of your needs met," said Marilyn Fox, a New Yorker who moved to Baltimore after marrying a local man.
Passing motorists may see only waves of black hats and beards in the weekly Sabbath parade, but Baltimore Orthodoxy is not homogenous.
