TO MEET THE founder of the notorious motorcycle gang known as Semites on Bikes, I pick the busy parking lot of an elementary school, just in case there's any trouble.
My thinking here is: The guy tries any rough stuff, I can throw some little kid in his path, slow him up, make a break for it.
Then again, the gang's Web site, which I had visited earlier in the day, sounded more funny than ominous:
"Semites on Bikes is a group of Jewish bikers riding in the Baltimore and Baltimore County areas. ... Members are non-stereotypical Jews who should have at least one of the following traits (though we accept anyone foolish enough to ride with us):
"Work with hands.
"Been arrested at least once.
"Mostly only go to schul for weddings and bar mitzvahs.
"Married a non-Jew.
"Ride a v-Twin cruiser.
"Bowl, hunt or fish.
"Have a tattoo.
"Do their own home improvement."
Anyway, at the appointed hour of our meeting, the boss Semite, Ken Shapiro, roars up on his Harley-Davidson Roadster.
With his ready smile, clean-cut features and total lack of tattoos, Shapiro does not exactly put you in mind of Sonny Barger, the greasy head case who used to rule over the Hell's Angels.
And it turns out the other Semites on Bikes - or SOB's, as Shapiro likes to call them - won't be getting in any rumbles anytime soon, either.
What the SOB's are is a fledgling motorcycle club with 12 members - the demographic breakdown is nine Jews, three non-Jews, 11 guys, one woman - that is more into taking long, leisurely rides through the countryside than busting heads.
Shapiro himself is 52, lives in Parkville and has been a teacher in Baltimore County for 28 years - as vice president of the teacher's union in the early '90s, he used to regularly torment vilified school Superintendent Stuart Berger.
He patterned the Semites on Bikes after other Jewish motorcycle clubs like the Hillel's Angels in Washington and the Star of Davidson, which he thinks is out of New Jersey and which has an absolutely splendid motto: "Our hogs are kosher."
Shapiro has been riding since he was 17, and says he just got back into it after a 20-year hiatus.
But part of his motivation for forming a Jewish motorcycle club runs all the way back to his childhood.
"I always had this thing growing up, this feeling that Jewish guys were timid, passive and weak," he said. "So I was always trying to find non-stereotypical Jewish males.
