Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year, but some of Maryland's Jewish inmates might not be permitted to observe the holiday today. State corrections policy guarantees the observance of one religious holy day for prisoners. Although many institutions permit two, that practice forces Jewish inmates to choose among Yom Kippur and the religion's other significant holidays. Corrections officials say that consenting to at least one religious observance is the fairest way to respond to a diverse prison population.

One-year-old Daniel Herman isn't a big fan of matzo, said his mother, Ahuva Herman. But any lingering fussiness from the past eight days disappeared Sunday as Daniel got his baby teeth into a piece of egg bagel. He bounced and giggled on his mother's lap as he gnawed away happily at Goldberg's New York Bagels in Pikesville. The Hermans, from Queens, N.Y., were in town to visit family for Passover. They were among the hordes of Jewish families that descended on kosher eateries such as Goldberg's, David Chu's China Bistro and Tov Pizza late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, looking to break their fast on yeast breads after the end of Passover at sundown.

Beginning last night, members of Howard County's six Jewish congregations joined Jews worldwide in observing Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which marks the end 10 days of penitence."

Having just observed Yom Kippur, Zoey Solomon knew what it felt like to be hungry. But, as the 9-year-old walked through an exhibit Sunday depicting the lives of malnourished children from around the world, she still wrinkled her nose at a container of brown paste that smelled like peanut butter, as a doctor explained that children in other countries enjoy it and rely on it to keep them healthy. "We fasted to observe Yom Kippur yesterday, and she was so hungry by noon," said Lorna Solomon, who brought her daughter to the weekend exhibit in Patterson Park, put on by Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian organization that works in 65 poor and blighted developing countries.

Louis L. Kaplan has been holding his Yom Kippur open forums for so many years that they might as well be thought of as a Baltimore institution -- if there could be such a thing as an institution devoted to a passionate and provocative assault on complacency.It was 40 years ago that Dr. Kaplan looked around and decided he was dissatisfied with the way Yom Kippur, the Jewish holy day of fasting and repentance for sins against man and God, was being observed."I thought the prayers were too redundant, and people said them without having to feel meaning.

The Anne Arundel County school system is considering making Yom Kippur a school holiday in response to parent and staff requests, officials said yesterday. Attendance data showing the number of students who take the day off for religious reasons also was a factor considered by officials who presented a tentative calendar for the next academic year. "Although our numbers are still low, they are growing," said Georgiana Maszczenski, an administrator in charge of designing the calendar. Baltimore and Howard County schools have observed Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, both Jewish holidays, for years.

Jews across the county are preparing to celebrate their two holiest days, Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) nextweek."Tradition holds that (at Rosh Hashanah), you are asking tobe inscribed into the Book of Life," said Jamie Wehler, president ofthe Reform B'nai Israel Reform Congregation in Westminster. "You usethe 10-day interval (before Yom Kippur) to get yourself in order, square wrongs you've committed and patch up disagreements."Then at Yom Kippur, your fate for the year is sealed in the Bookof Life.

The Anne Arundel County school system is considering making Yom Kippur a school holiday in response to parent and staff requests, officials said yesterday. Attendance data showing the number of students who take the day off for religious reasons also were a factor considered by officials who presented a tentative calendar for the next academic year. "Although our numbers are still low, they are growing," said Georgiana Maszczenski, an administrator in charge of designing the calendar.

If you thought serving a Thanksgiving dinner was difficult, imagine going without food or water for 24 hours -- then having to feed a whole crowd of people who are just as hungry.That's the plight of the Yom Kippur host, who must go home from the synagogue and serve a groaning board of food.Planning a menu that can be on the table in 20 minutes is the trick. The secret is to mix store-bought foods with some made ahead.Yom Kippur (Saturday) is the last and holiest day of the Jewish High Holy Days that began with Rosh Hashana.

Many Maryland Jews, as they comply with the religious mandate to fast on Yom Kippur, plan to contribute the cost of the meals they won't eat this evening and tomorrow to an organization raising money to feed the hungry.Rabbi Mark G. Loeb of Pikesville's Beth El Congregation said helping less fortunate people on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement which begins at sundown today, "adds meaning to our fast and true holiness to our solemn Day of Awe."It is one of a variety of ways that members of the Jewish community are carrying on an ancient tradition of the HighHolidays.

Baltimore's monthly food truck rally, The Gathering, is holding fast to its first-Friday schedule. The next edition is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 7. UPDATE (Oct. 6, 5:37 p.m.): The Gathering is not changing locations. It will be back again on Wolfe Street, across from the Red Star. The new location for this fourth go-round is the big Fells Point lot bound by Aliceanna on the north, Eden to the east, Lancaster on the south and Central on the west.

Albert A. Adler, former promotions and public relations manager for the Baltimore News American, died Thursday of heart failure at his home in Pikesville. He was 88. Mr. Adler directed public service events and circulation promotion programs and wrote promotional materials for the newspaper, where he worked for 30 years starting about 1950, according to his son, Lawrence Adler, a Columbia psychiatrist. Along with Richard L. Harrison, Mr. Adler co-wrote four lighthearted books published by Simon & Schuster in the late 1960s.

Closing schools on Yom Kippur and exploring a year-round calendar are among several ideas swirling around for the 2008-2009 school calendar, designed by the district's calendar committee. Those ideas, as well as other scheduling recommendations, were part of an effort to plan that school year's start and end, holidays and dates for professional development. "This is a proposed calendar," Superintendent Charles I. Ecker said of the document submitted to board members, who are scheduled to vote on the item in October.

NATIONAL Foley investigation requested House Speaker Dennis Hastert called yesterday for a Justice Department investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley's electronic messages to underage pages, and the FBI said it was "conducting an assessment to see if there's been a violation of federal law." pg 1A New era begins for high court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's two appointees, will have a chance to shift the law to the right on two charged issues - abortion and race - during the Supreme Court term that begins today.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year, but some of Maryland's Jewish inmates might not be permitted to observe the holiday today. State corrections policy guarantees the observance of one religious holy day for prisoners. Although many institutions permit two, that practice forces Jewish inmates to choose among Yom Kippur and the religion's other significant holidays. Corrections officials say that consenting to at least one religious observance is the fairest way to respond to a diverse prison population.

.. For Sam Chester, a Jewish student at the Johns Hopkins University, the holiest time of his spiritual year begins tonight at sundown. His Muslim classmate, Nadia Khan, will also start observing the most important season of her faith this weekend. Because Judaism and Islam both rely on a lunar calendar, approximately every three decades the month of Ramadan coincides with the Jewish month of Tishri, which includes the high holy days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. For Muslim and Jewish groups on college campuses and elsewhere across the nation, the overlap offers an opportunity this year to learn about each other's faith practices and similarities, particularly important given the tensions from Iran to Lebanon to the Vatican.

Dr. Louis L. Kaplan clearly loves to talk, to be engaged in conversation. And he's a man who never confuses serious with dull. He's always serious, never dull.He's the sort of talker who, when you ask about a house, he gives you a street. Ask about a street, you get a city. Talk about a city and you hear about a culture.Kaplan will hold forth tomorrow on the afternoon of Yom Kippur as the rebbe of a kind of court of discourse that has become a tradition in the Baltimore Jewish community.He'll stand on the bima of Beth Am Synagogue for about two hours and talk.

Students arriving for classes at the Beth El synagogue in Pikesville yesterday morning knew immediately when they walked through the door that something unusual was brewing. The pungent odor of boiling rams' horns was in the air, a rather unpleasant smell that resembled burning rubber.The horns were soon to be transformed into shofars -- the ceremonial horn that is blown to summon the faithful to the synagogue during the high holy days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur -- by a class of seventh-graders studying for their bar mitzvahs later this year.

Lecture series to honor Martin The Columbia Cooperative Ministry will inaugurate an annual memorial lecture series honoring the late George W. Martin, a longtime leader in ecumenical and community activities. Martin, a Columbia pioneer and deacon at St. John Roman Catholic Church, died March 9. The George Martin Memorial Lecture will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, 10431 Twin Rivers Road, Columbia. Grace Adolphsen Brame, a faculty member in the graduate program in Theology and Ministry at La Salle University, will speak about "The Integration of Theology and Spirituality - Call, Cost and Joy."

The feast with which Muslims will celebrate the end of Ramadan will be bittersweet once again for Dr. Bash Pharoan. The president of the Baltimore County Muslim Council has campaigned for years to have the county public schools close in recognition of Eid al-Fitr, as they did last month for the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so that Muslim children can observe one of the most important holidays in Islam without missing class. But despite his regular attendance at school board meetings, his repeated pleas to officials and his membership in the committee that worked to develop next year's calendar, the schools are scheduled to open this morning for business as usual.