Rabbi

Ensemble to perform at interfaith center The Prometheus Chamber Ensemble will perform at Owen Brown Interfaith Center at 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Tickets are $20; $10 for youths to age 18. Proceeds will benefit the mission and outreach programs of Christ United Methodist Church, an interfaith center congregation. The ensemble will perform during worship services Sunday at the interfaith center. Services begin at 10 a.m. Information: the Rev. Marilyn Newhouse, 410-381-6329 or www.gbgm-umc.org/christcolumbia.

Choir to perform at interfaith center The adult choir of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church will perform That You May Have Life, by Marty Haugen, at 8 p.m. Sunday at Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, 10431 Twin Rivers Road, Columbia. Admission to the concert is free, but donations will be accepted in honor of the late George W. Martin, a longtime leader in ecumenical and community activities. Martin, a Columbia pioneer and deacon at St. John's, died March 9 last year. The money will be used to establish a Columbia Interfaith History Fund to defray the costs of documenting the development of the interfaith concept in Columbia.

A penny seems like such an insignificant sum that many wouldn't bother to bend over and pick one up off the floor, but a Baltimore rabbi sees it as a powerful tool for a Hanukkah lesson.Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, after reading a newspaper article about the $7.7 billion worth of pennies squirreled away by the American public, saw in the lowly coin an opportunity to teach about the riches that people possess and overlook.And what better time to teach that lesson than the Hanukkah season, which begins tonight at sundown?

Congregation Beit Tikvah, Baltimore's only Reconstructionist synagogue, has come of age.The congregation was started 15 years ago by four women sharing an affinity for science fiction. It has grown to a point where it will celebrate the High Holidays, which begin at sundown tonight, with its first full-time rabbi.Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton, a native of Canada and former opera singer, will lead the service for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year celebration that commences 10 days of prayer and introspection culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

The High Holidays are a stressful time of year for any rabbi, but in the days leading up to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Rabbi George B. Driesen was more nervous than most.A newly minted rabbi at age 66, Driesen stood before the 300 or so families at the Columbia Jewish Congregation and lead his first Rosh Hashana service.He worried that something would go wrong or that he would offend somebody, or he wouldn't fit in. He worried that some congregants -- the ones who usually come only during the High Holidays -- would turn from religion once and for all.But then the service began, and everything went more or less smoothly, and Driesen became more and more convinced that he had made the right decision in becoming a rabbi.

Thousands of Orthodox Jews, many arriving from as far as the West Coast, gathered yesterday at Pikesville's Ner Israel Rabbinical College to mourn "the rabbi's rabbi."Rabbi Yaakov S. Weinberg, dean of Ner Israel and a world-renowned Torah and Talmudic scholar, died of cancer early yesterday at Sinai Hospital. He was 76.By yesterday afternoon, his family, friends, colleagues and former students crowded into Ner Israel's study hall, where on a typical school day rabbinical students would sit in pairs discussing or arguing points of Jewish law.This time, they gathered before the body of Rabbi Weinberg, laid to rest in a simple coffin draped in a black cloth with a white Star of David, to say farewell to the man who taught them to love learning.

JERUSALEM -- In the early days of the Jewish state, the pioneers settling the promised land often wore a funny-looking, beige hat, a little like Pinocchio's conical cap, as imagined by Walt Disney.An Israeli cartoonist recognized the symbolic possibilities of the "kova tembel," as the hat was known, and began featuring it in newspaper sketches. The headgear became synonymous with the new Jew, a Zionist in shorts, sandals and open-collared shirt living in a kibbutz, working the land, building the state of Israel.

Have you heard the one about the Orthodox rabbi, the Mormon and the Latino cattle rancher?It's no joke, says the rabbi, Baltimore's Mayer Kurcfeld.It's the cast of characters in "Kosher Valley," a film chronicling Kurcfeld's journey to southern Colorado's San Luis Valley to teach kosher butchering to a group of mostly Latino ranchers who were looking for new markets for their meat.The film has its Baltimore premiere at 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Park Heights Jewish Community Center. Admission is $4."

JERUSALEM -- Israeli politician Aryeh Deri, a street-savvy rabbi who marshaled the country's ultra-Orthodox Jews of Arabic and North African ancestry into a political force, was convicted yesterday in a bribery scandal that has plagued him for nine years.Deri's black-coated followers, who danced and sang his praises outside the court, vowed to take their revenge in the May 17 elections. Deri, a 40-year-old father of eight who was born in Morocco, heads the Sephardic Torah Guardians party, known as Shas.

Congregation Kol Ami to introduce new rabbiCongregation Kol Ami will have an Oneg Shabbat and "Meet the New Rabbi" at 8 p.m. today at the synagogue, 1909 Hidden Meadow Lane in Annapolis.Rabbi Liebe "Pamela" Hoffman, the new full-time spiritual leader, will conduct the service, which will be followed by an Oneg Shabbat with desserts and other refreshments.Hoffman comes from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she led the Conservative synagogue.Information: 410-266-6006.Pub Date: 10/30/98

For more than half a century, Rabbi Jacob A. Max was a dominant figure in Baltimore's Jewish community, founder of one of its most important synagogues, an influential leader who officiated at countless cycle-of-life rituals of the faith. A man, it seemed from afar, above reproach. But Max's reputation disintegrated earlier this year after he was convicted of sexually molesting a woman half his age in a Reisterstown funeral home. It marked the only time a woman had sought a legal remedy against the rabbi, even though murmurs had long rippled through Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation that his behavior toward some of the females in his flock was anything but appropriate.

An 85-year-old rabbi well-known in the Baltimore area's Jewish community has been found guilty of sexually molesting a woman. Rabbi Jacob Aaron Max, who turned 85 Tuesday, is rabbi emeritus and founder of Pikesville's Liberty Jewish Center, also known as the Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation. He had pleaded not guilty in Baltimore County District Court to the two counts on which he was convicted, a fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault. The rabbi fondled the 44-year-old woman's breasts on two occasions minutes apart and murmured that he was "being bad" and was a "bad rabbi" for doing so, according to court documents.

On Wednesday, Jews will observe Passover, remembering the escape of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. But well before their Seders, many will mark a rare event: The sun's return to the position it held on the fourth day of creation, at the time that God made a light to rule the day, according to Genesis. "It's a recognition of the creation of the world, and it's kind of a marker and a remembrance of that event," said Rabbi Dovid Heber of Khal Ahavas Yisrael Tzemach Tzedek in Northwest Baltimore.

On behalf of the Officers, Board of Trustees, Staff and Families of Beth El Congregation, we sorrowfully acknowledge the passing of our esteemed CANTOR EMERITUS, SAUL Z. HAMMERMAN, whose relationship with our synagogue extended for more than 56 years. In his active service as our Hazzan for 45 years, he elevated the quality of our worship with his magnificent voice and profound sense of spirituality. Throughout that time he ministered faithfully as a pastor to our families, whether at times of joy or sadness, adding the uplift and the comfort of the riches of the Jewish Cantorial tradition.

Today, a fledgling Jewish congregation in Baltimore County will rededicate sacred Torah scrolls, originally inscribed in czarist Russia and rescued decades later from the communist Soviet Union by a rabbi persecuted for his faith. The rabbi stored the scrolls at his home in London for nearly 40 years. Now his 29-year-old son, Rabbi Nochum Katsenelenbogen, leader of the Chabad Center in Owings Mills, has brought what is considered the most precious article of Jewish life to America to the congregation he founded nearly four years ago. Until today, the center has relied on a borrowed Torah.

Kosher food just isn't kosher anymore for some members of the Jewish faith. Concerns about worker abuse at kosher slaughterhouses have led Conservative Jews to develop standards to ensure that producers pay fair wages and benefits and are sensitive to animals and the environment. A proposed certificate of righteousness, called hekhsher tzedek (pronounced HECK-shur ZED-ick) and an identifying seal, are likened to fair trade coffee. The idea is producing a rift between Conservative and Orthodox Jews.

As he prepared to preside over his last Passover services at Beth El synagogue in Pikesville, Rabbi Mark Loeb allowed himself to consider the opportunities and the responsibilities that come with freedom - his own and the human family's. "Most people think the story is the Haggadah, where we say God gets the people out of bondage. We celebrate it, and happy days are here again. That's not it," Loeb said, referring to Passover. "Liberation from bondage only takes you away from oppression, but it doesn't liberate your soul to dream about how to live your life."

Rabbi Elizabeth Bolton was always vexed by the notion that despite the country's traditional separation of church and state, Maryland gave her - a religious leader - the power to change people's legal status by signing their marriage licenses. At the same time, the Reconstructionist rabbi from Baltimore was troubled by the state's laws prohibiting same-sex marriage. Finally, after contending with her conflicted feelings for years, she decided she had had enough: She told couples she would happily conduct religious wedding ceremonies, but to find someone else to sign their civil documents.

Ensemble to perform at interfaith center The Prometheus Chamber Ensemble will perform at Owen Brown Interfaith Center at 8 p.m. Nov. 3. Tickets are $20; $10 for youths to age 18. Proceeds will benefit the mission and outreach programs of Christ United Methodist Church, an interfaith center congregation. The ensemble will perform during worship services Sunday at the interfaith center. Services begin at 10 a.m. Information: the Rev. Marilyn Newhouse, 410-381-6329 or www.gbgm-umc.org/christcolumbia.

JUDAH NADICH, 95 Military chaplain Rabbi Judah Nadich, a military chaplain who advised Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower on Jewish affairs after the discovery of Nazi concentration camps in the last months of World War II, died of a heart attack at his Manhattan home Aug. 26. Rabbi Nadich was an early supporter of the civil rights movement and as an advocate of equality for women in Jewish religious ceremony, including their ordination as rabbis. Born in Baltimore, Rabbi Nadich was the eldest of four children of Russian immigrants.