B Nai B Rith

A longtime B'nai B'rith official has been appointed executive director of the Jewish Federation of Howard County, which serves as an umbrella group for Jewish organizations in the county.Neil C. Rosen, who was selected from several candidates, started work July 1. He will work part time for the federation. His predecessor, Steve Shaw, was full time. The federation's president, Jacques Fein, said the change was a cost-cutting measure.For the last five years, Mr. Rosen was national director of field services for B'nai B'rith in Washington.

Cardinal William H. Keeler demonstrated his diplomatic skills as well as his concern for amicable interfaith discussion in his March 13 meeting with a group of American Jews, invited to his Baltimore home after their explosive reaction to a statement he had signed the week before.The climate for discussion was improved, but core disagreements remain unresolved.The criticized statement was issued March 6 by the cardinal and seven other Christian leaders as a public appeal to President Clinton.

Several national Jewish leaders said yesterday that a clarifying letter from Cardinal William H. Keeler has defused a controversy over a recent ecumenical statement on Christian rights in Jerusalem.A draft of the letter was being circulated among leaders of Jewry in New York, Chicago, Washington and Baltimore. The draft was prepared by the cardinal and his advisers after a hastily called meeting with the Jewish leaders Monday at his Baltimore residence.The American Jewish Committee had attacked the March 6 statement, which sought a greater Christian role in determining the future of Jerusalem, as "seriously flawed and incomplete."

Six clergymen -- representing five Protestant traditions -- and a Roman Catholic sister will preach tomorrow during a three-hour Good Friday service at Trinity Episcopal Church in Towson.The public is invited to participate in all or any part of the ecumenical Holy Week worship, beginning at noon at the church at 120 Allegheny Ave.The time will be divided into seven segments, each based on a portion of the Passion narrative of St. Luke. In addition to seven brief sermons, there will be hymns, prayers, silent meditations and anthems by the Trinity Choir, directed by Sally Tarr.

Early in the evening, the participants split up -- parents went upstairs in the Randallstown split-level, teens and young adults stayed down.Then the serious game began. The subject was hate.Each group was asked to study a list of eight narratives, all examples of anti-Semitism. Would they select the same three as the most offensive or the most dangerous? If so, would everyone agree on which was the most abhorrent example?What happened was a surprise to Ofra Fisher, director of the B'nai B'rith Department of Jewish Family Life.

WASHINGTON -- The NAACP, whose unwillingness to break relations with black Muslim leader Louis T. Farrakhan has upset some Jewish groups, moved yesterday to rebuild bridges by calling for a meeting next week with Jewish leaders."

B'nai B'rith marks 150 years of effort for human rightsThe 150th anniversary of B'nai B'rith, the world's oldest and largest Jewish service organization, will be celebrated with a religious service, speech-making, awards presentations and reception at 8:15 p.m. tomorrow at Baltimore's Temple Oheb Shalom, 7310 Park Heights Ave.It will be an evening of proud history and symbolism. Since its founding in New York City in 1843, B'nai B'rith, also known as Sons of the Covenant, has promoted interfaith tolerance and human rights, supported philanthropies such as hospitals and sponsored a host of educational and welfare projects in this country and around the world.

BERLIN -- A delegation of young Jewish Americans from B'nai B'rith leaves Germany today after finding the neo-Nazi chaos they expected exaggerated, the small Jewish community surprisingly vital and the chief of staff of the German army fascinating.They come away from a "snapshot" fact-finding mission of five days cautiously positive about German democracy, but stressing the need for continued vigilance."The reports of chaos in Germany are greatly exaggerated," said Steve Gutow, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Kent E. Schiner, a Pikesville insurance underwriter serving his second two-year term as president of B'nai B'rith International, plans to spend part of the Sukkot holiday, which begins Sunday, with the Jewish community of Cuba.Sukkot, a joyous nine-day festival, comes four days after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.In Cuba, Mr. Schiner will be the guest of the B'nai B'rith Maimonides Lodge, which was founded in 1943. He will be the first B'nai B'rith president to visit Cuba on behalf of the 149-year-old international Jewish organization.

Christian Scientists are celebrating the first 100 years of 0) their denominationChristian Scientists in Maryland are celebrating the first 100 years of their denomination this week.On Sept. 23, 1892, a dozen students of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, organized what is now known as the Mother Church in Boston and placed its leadership in a five-person board of directors.The following year, the first Christian Science congregation in Baltimore was formed. There are 25 congregations in Maryland today, three of them in Baltimore and six more in the metropolitan area.