It’s a cold day in January as Sol Davis, director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, walks through the newly renovated building just days before it reopens to the public. Sunshine pours into the renovated lobby. Printed signs are taped to the walls. The new podcast studio is stuffed with boxes waiting to be unpacked. One of the galleries hums with construction as sawdust fills the air.

Davis is unhurried—he knows everything will get finished and he’s eager for the empty spaces to be filled with community again: “There’s been a lot of anticipation.”

For centuries, Baltimore has been home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the United States, and to this day, it remains incredibly diverse and active. The museum, the successor to the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, which was established in 1960, is nestled between two historic synagogues—Lloyd Street, housed in a Greek Revival-style building and the third-oldest synagogue in the United States, and the nearly-as-old B’nai Israel, with its more Gothic look—in historic Jonestown.

The first iteration of the museum came about in the 1980s, when the society opened the Jewish Heritage Center, which officially became a museum in the late ’90s. Over the past two decades, it has hosted countless exhibits, programming for families, and a bris or two, but the building has stayed the same. Meaning this newest makeover—one that finally brings it into the 21st century—is long overdue.

“We’ve been talking about the project as really a big step in our evolution into the museum field,” says Davis, who was director of the Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center in Arizona before coming to Baltimore in 2021. “And also, a once-in-a-generation kind of capital investment in Jewish culture in Baltimore City.”

The space, once dark and dated, now feels fresh and modern. Every inch has been reconfigured and reconstructed—down to the gallery floors, which have transformed into a comfortable terrazzo to encourage lingering. And all throughout, there is an emphasis on participation and engagement, moving away from the model where visitors are passive observers who strictly read placards next to photographs.

“What participatory means to us is really an invitation to Jewish Marylanders to co-narrate the story of the Jewish Maryland experience together,” says Davis.

That will be done through changing exhibits and even a new campaign to collect photographs from Jewish Marylanders of their generational families. And the centerpiece? A state-of-the-art production studio to record as many Jewish oral histories as possible.

“The charge we gave to the architects was, how can we move out of a spectator paradigm and really [offer this space] as an experience and as a partnership between the museum and the community,” says Davis.

For him, that also includes opening the door to those who aren’t part of the Jewish community—especially their neighbors from Jonestown, a predominantly African-American community.

“It’s a huge opportunity for us to think about Jewish and African-American relations historically and how we can nourish those relationships in the present.”

The renovations have been helped along by Baltimore Orioles owner David M. Rubenstein, who announced a gift of $1.5 million to the museum last September. The lobby—now named the David M. Rubenstein Exhibition Arcade—is very orange, something Davis says is mere coincidence.

Its design is inspired by 19th-century Parisian arcades, aka passageways, featuring an arched ceiling lined with skylights. There are display cases for artifacts from the museum’s archives, interactive stations, and a large video screen. The museum refers to them as portals.

Which all goes back to one simple purpose, says Davis: “We want to connect Jewish Marylanders with their roots.”

Everyman Theatre’s latest production, The Book of Joseph, explores themes of love, war, survival, and decades-long family secrets. The play, by Karen Hartman and directed by Noah Himmelstein, is making its East Coast premiere in Baltimore this week, which marks a homecoming of sorts. It’s adapted from the nonfiction book Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family’s Correspondence From Poland, edited by Baltimore-based Richard Hollander after he discovered a suitcase of Swastika-stamped letters in his parents’ home after they’d died, revealing a piece of his family’s history he hadn’t ever known about.

Opening night is May 11, and the play continues its run through June 10. Additional events coincide with the production, including the Giving Voice to the Hollander Family Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, which displays original Hollander family letters and artifacts.

Because the play deals with some pretty heavy-hitting subject matter, we thought we’d take this moment to lighten the mood a bit and show another side of the actors and the real-life people they portray by asking them each the same five questions. Consider this your comic relief.

(Note: The actors were not in character when responding to the following questions.)

How do you decompress after a long day?

Bruce Randolph Nelson (who plays Richard Hollander): At the beginning of the year, I started meditating—after a long time avoiding sitting in silence. Now it’s become routine, and is a great way to calm an anxious mind.

The Actual Richard Hollander: Actually, I decompress at the very beginning of the day, at the gym. That way, I can face the day knowing that I at least accomplished something.

Elliott Kashner (who plays Craig Hollander): My absolute favorite thing to do at the end of a long day is to cook dinner with my wife. We’ve been experimenting with all kinds of different recipes, so it has been a lot of fun trying to cook new things that we normally would never try and to make a list of our tried-and-true favorites.

The Actual Craig Hollander: I scour my DVR for something mind-numbing. Depending on how long the day, I might also scour my liquor cabinet for the same thing.

What’s your favorite pizza topping?

Bruce Randolph Nelson: Anything but pineapple. If forced to go there I would probably eat it anyway. Love to eat just about anything.

Richard Hollander: I enjoy pizza without toppings. That is probably a reflection of my personality: pedestrian.

Elliott Kashner: Bacon and banana peppers. It sounds really bizarre, but the saltiness of the bacon with the tanginess of the peppers . . . You’ve gotta try it.

Craig Hollander: Pepperoni. And anyone who answers “cheese” or “plain” doesn’t understand the definition of “topping.”

If you could travel back to any time of your life, where would you go and why?

Bruce Randolph Nelson: Early Rome, to see how it all started. Although, a close second would be Renaissance Florence—for the culture.

Richard Hollander: I would probably go back to age 8 or 9, when I still believed I could play in the major leagues.

Elliott Kashner: Our honeymoon. My wife and I went to St. Croix in April 2013. It was off-season there, but the weather was still perfect. We enjoyed personal tours of the rum distilleries, had the beaches to ourselves, and the complex where we stayed bumped us up to a cabin right on the beach (since no one else was there). We went kayaking at night, and the kayaks were clear and had lights on the bottom, so you could paddle around and look at all the fish (and octopi!) swimming under you. I’d love to go back and do all of that again.

Craig Hollander: I would travel back to the early 1980s because I don’t remember those years from the first time around.

Do you collect anything?

Bruce Randolph Nelson: The tears of my regrets. Seriously, love the occasional well-placed antique.

Richard Hollander: To the great dismay of my wife, I collect everything and rarely throw out anything.

Elliott Kashner: Not anymore. We live in a small studio, so we just don’t have room to collect much, other than a library of plays. I used to play tabletop strategy games when I was younger, and I loved collecting the miniatures and painting them. They are still sitting in my parents’ basement, I think. If we ever move into an apartment with more space, I think that’s something I might like to start collecting again.

Craig Hollander: I always seem to have a lot of near-empty pens on my desk.

Who—real or fictional—made the greatest impression on you growing up?

Bruce Randolph Nelson: The whole psychological-horror genre of books. Lot’s of Stephen King. I like it dark.

Richard Hollander: As a kid, Hank Aaron made the greatest impression. Is there anything else worth achieving if one can hit for average, hit for power, run, field, and throw? From a kid’s perspective, that is about as perfect as it gets.

Elliott Kashner: Atticus Finch. My mom was an English teacher, and her favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee had even signed and personalized a copy for her. In high school, I really wanted to be a lawyer, and Atticus was the model of what I thought a lawyer should be: someone who always stood up for what was right. He was decent, modest, and resolute, and I used to imagine that when I became a lawyer, I would be like him. I ended up not studying law, but I still think of the character from time to time, and ask myself what Atticus might do in a given situation.

Craig Hollander: Homer Simpson.

Star Fighters

December 11, 2016
Lloyd Street

“How many people know who Benny Leonard was?” Mike Silver asks the crowd gathered at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. “Benny Leonard was the most famous Jewish person in America in the 1920s. Not Albert Einstein. Not Justice Louis Brandeis.”

Leonard, explains Silver, author of Stars in the Ring: Jewish Champions in the Golden Age of Boxing, fought his way out of Manhattan’s East Side ghetto to become one of the great boxers of all time during the Roaring ’20s, holding the lightweight title for nearly seven years. “He quit to take care of his sick mother. How Jewish is that?”

In his book, Silver chronicles 29 Jewish world champion boxers and more than 160 contenders from the 1890s-1950s, including a half-dozen Baltimore brawlers—welterweights Jacob “Jack” Portney and Benny Goldstein, flyweight Benny Schwartz, middleweight Sylvan Bass, and lightweights Charley Gomer and Isadore “Izzy” Rainess. Silver also gives a shout-out to legendary trainer Heine Blaustein. “Baltimore was a great fight town,” Silver says.

It wasn’t unusual in those days, Silver continues, for Jewish boxers to change their name. Not because of anti-Semitism, but family (read: mother’s) disapproval of the sport. Leonard was really Leiner, for example. Often, Jewish fighters switched ethnic identities altogether, killing two birds with one stone by trying to appeal to the sport’s huge Irish fan base.

“My uncle was Baltimore welterweight Patsy Lewis—that’s pretty Irish. His real name was Julius Rosenbloom,” volunteers Jerry Russ, 81, who went to the fights with his father at the old Baltimore Coliseum. Carlin’s Park was another popular venue.

At a time when boxing and baseball were the country’s biggest draws, fighting wasn’t just a means to make money for working-class immigrants—a four-round bout could pull in the same pay as a week in a sweatshop—it was also a means of assimilation and pride for Jews.

“Einstein, brilliant scientist, but who understands the theory of relativity? Brandeis, brilliant justice, but how many people read Supreme Court decisions?” Silver asks. “A punch in the nose? That, everybody understands.”

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Beer Run

December 3, 2016
North Belnord Avenue

Former University of Maryland, Baltimore County cross country star Eric Shuler won this morning’s 5K through Patterson Park in convincing fashion, posting a time of 16:39—more than two minutes faster than his closest rival. But now the real competition is underway as more than 400 runners quench their thirst in the schoolyard behind Patterson Park Public Charter School. Here, 21 home-brewers are chatting about hops and recipes, pitting their kitchen, basement, and garage-brewed ales against one another while vying for today’s biggest title: Best Homebrew.

The Patterson Park 5K, Fun Run, and Homebrew Tasting—this is the beer-making competition’s third year—supports the school’s effort to send students to Spanish-speaking countries where they can practice the language they’ve been studying.

Most of the beer makers acknowledge their brewing evolved pretty quickly from hobby to near-obsession. “I liked to drink beer, that’s how I got started,” laughs (the aptly named) Stephen Porr, who eventually opened The Grain Bill, a family-run, home-brew supply store in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. “It went downhill from there.”

In the end, Darren Stimpfle, a surgical physician’s assistant by profession, sweeps both the Crowd Favorite and Brewer’s Choice awards with his dry-hopped, golden sour ale with apricot. Stimpfle, who spends eight hours each Friday brewing at home, is developing a business plan to sell his beer commercially. “I’m the runner and he’s the brewer and I support him—I really do,” says his wife, Shannon Gibbons, who took third place in the 5K’s 30-34 age group. “We went to Belgium on vacation and visited the Cantillon Brewery in Brussels three times. Naturally, I wanted to go to Paris and we did,” she adds with wry cheerfulness. “For two days.”

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Christmas Stories

December 17, 2016
Eastern Avenue

“The year after my grandmother died I went looking for the spirit of Christmas on Eastern Avenue,” Rafael Alvarez says, reciting the first sentence from his 1999 book, Hometown Boy, at the 10th Annual Highlandtown Literary Extravaganza at the Enoch Pratt Southeast Anchor Library.

“Eastern Avenue,” Alvarez, an occasional contributor to Baltimore, explains, “was where you bought your first communion clothes before the Eastpoint Mall. It was where you shopped for everything.”

Alvarez launched his holiday storytelling, music, deviled egg, and pizelle festival after returning from Hollywood, where he wrote for TV following a stint penning episodes of The Wire. The crowd over the years has been a mix of friends, family, musicians, writers—including Afaa Michael Weaver, a former Procter and Gamble factory worker who has become one of the country’s foremost poets—and Highlandtowners who come to hear “real Baltimore” tales. Before intermission, Alvarez asks audience members to share their own Christmas stories, which mostly yields sagas of sibling rivalry and poor decisions.

David Ettlin, a retired Baltimore Sun editor, jokes his parents never bothered with a Christmas tree during the holidays while he was growing up. “We’re Jewish,” Ettlin deadpans. Determined to get a tree after marrying a Methodist, but not wanting to shell out big bucks, Ettlin hatched a plan with his wife—against the advice of their teenage daughter—to sneak into the woods together and cut down a live pine.

“All of a sudden, there’s a patch of mud and Bonnie does a flip and fractures her wrist horribly,” Ettlin continues. At the emergency room, he learns there will be a $50 copay for the orthopedic surgeon and then an additional $10 for a generic painkiller, or $35 for the brand name. “I feel guilty and go with the brand name,” Ettlin says. “But what I’m thinking is, ‘I’m out $85 and still don’t have a damn tree.’”