The article calls into question some of the Baltimore scribe’s longtime claims about the provenance of many of his Torah scrolls, which he says he largely unearthed or discovered throughout Central and Eastern Europe—lost, discarded holy remnants of that highly-emotional touchstone we call the Holocaust.

Who would play fast and loose with anything connected to something as sacrosanct as the Shoah? Who would give the chazzers—the deniers—a scintilla of a chance to extend their feast, their orgy of lies?

And yet in our own community and the world at large, we know that even some Holocaust survivors themselves have played fast and loose with the facts about what happened during humanity’s cruelest season. If these souls can do such a thing (intentionally or unintentionally), how can we be shocked if someone who didn’t go through that horrific time possibly exploits it for their own gain and glory?

I have a photo at home of my daughter from a couple of years ago with Rabbi Youlus. He came to her Hebrew school class, where each student received the opportunity to have their picture taken with the rabbi, filling in a letter in a Torah scroll. She was excited about the opportunity, and who can blame her? It was a chance to physically touch the Torah, feel the parchment, and hope that some of its holiness, wisdom and ancient wonder would rub off. And to meet a heroic figure – “the Indiana Jones of Torah scribes” – to boot.

What do I tell my daughter now? That there are questions about this bright, articulate, very likable man, raised by some of the very people who believed in him the most and spent their hard-earned dollars to spread the love of Torah in memory of their loved ones? How do I explain these serious allegations, ones that could horribly damage the reputation of someone that many of us previously held up as a highly moral individual on a very noble mission?

Of course, the jury is still out on Rabbi Youlus. He certainly deserves his day in court. Like you, I pray that he is innocent of the accusations cast in his direction. Time will tell. But I can tell you that I will never again be able to listen to anyone’s claims of having Holocaust-related materials, artifacts or documents with the same lack of inquisitiveness and innocence.

And maybe like my friend Rubin Sztajer, a local Holocaust survivor, has told me in the past, that’s not a bad thing.

Ah, the best laid schemes of mice and men.

We took a once-a-week evening class at Baltimore Hebrew University with the late Dr. Solomon Manischewitz. While we earnestly wanted to understand the language, I think what we really wanted to learn was enough to get by, just when we wanted to chat among ourselves (and maybe for a few good jokes).

As anyone who met him knows, Dr. Manischewitz was a charming, brilliant, gentle and delightful man. For more than 50 years, he was a beloved teacher and individual in Baltimore’s Jewish community, always with a twinkle in his eye and a positive word to say. You couldn’t help but love this man.

But when it came to teaching, Dr. Manischewitz was simply not fooling around. He didn’t view Yiddish as a folksy, schmaltzy little language for occasional schmoozing and joke-telling. He didn’t see it as potentially irrelevant or outdated, like other “lost languages,” or only to be studied for scholarly purposes. He didn’t care if we were simply adult evening students with too much time on our hands. He didn’t know from any of our hankerings of nostalgia.

A Holocaust survivor, Dr. Manischewitz was absolutely serious about teaching his native tongue, the mamaloshen, and he treated it just like any instructor would with French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, whatever. He demanded complete concentration and reverence. He wanted us to conjugate verbs, form coherent sentences, employ various clauses, etc. He used to say, “Now if a stewardess asks you if you want coffee, how do you respond?”

(Tell me, how many stewardesses have you met that speak Yiddish? On Zei Gezunt Airlines?)

Needless to say, most of us in that course weren’t up to the challenge. I have to confess that I cut class quite a few times, something that burned up my wife since she always felt I was Dr. Manischewitz’s “class pet” (most likely because he always had a strong affinity for the Jewish Times and tended to rub my cheek and call me “a good boy.”)

Unfortunately, my wife and I are not Yiddish speakers today, and we are forced to use other means to clandestinely communicate in front of our children (whispers, hand gestures, miming, poor drawings, charades). Our lives would be a lot easier if we just would have paid more attention to Dr. Manischewitz.

Recently, I heard that Israel’s Ben-Gurion University is establishing a center for Yiddish studies. The center will host workshops and colloquia, publish forgotten and obscure Yiddish works, and collaborate with Yiddish research centers around the world.

That’s really good news, especially when you hear that funding for other Yiddish programs—like the one at the University of Maryland College Park—is being cut. We’re talking here about the language of our ancestors, a mother tongue that has survived millennia of persecution, pogroms and assimilation (and morons like myself). Yiddish is a lifeline to our past, a world that Hitler and others unsuccessfully attempted to decimate.

Today, an estimated 500,000 people in the world still speak Yiddish. At the start of the 20th century, that figure was at more than 10 million. Besides all of the external forces, I suspect that major, major drop is largely due to embarrassment – among both American Jews and Israelis – toward Yiddish.

Israelis tend to think of Yiddish as the language of victims, while we American Jews consider it (in our heart of hearts) as an outdated immigrants’ tongue. We look at it as cute and kitschy – like the Suburban House restaurant’s amusing glossary placemat of Yiddishisms—but nothing more.

I made that mistake when I took Dr. Manischewitz’s class, and I regret it today. Nothing would give me more nachas than if my children – the very people for whom I was trying to learn Yiddish (to keep secrets from them) – would learn their grandparents’ precious language and use it to keep information from me.

Nu, wouldn’t that be a zetz in the kishkes?

“This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough,” he writes. “And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write `Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t.”

Amusing stuff. I’m sure plenty of curmudgeonly Jewish readers were incensed by Mr. Lake Wobegone’s remarks – one Sun reader even condemned the newspaper for printing the column – but Keillor has a point.

Think about it: some of the most popular (and schlocky) Christmas tunes of all time were penned by Jews. Of course, there’s “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin, Johnny Marks’ “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” by Sammy Cahn and Jules Styne,” “Silver Bells” by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, even “The Christmas Song” by Mel Torme – the list goes on and on.

“Christmas is a Christian holiday,” growls Mr. Keillor. “If you’re not in the club, then buzz off.”

OK, so maybe ol’ Garrison needs to take a chill pill. But really, why do we Jews produce these mawkish tunes that have galvanized the masses to contemplate a holiday scenario – one of tinsel and holly and eggnog swilling – that even by our Christian friends’ standards always seems to fall short?

Let’s not forget that most of these songs tend to have melancholy melodies, or at least inhabit a rather lonesome and longing quality, despite the allegedly cheerful and blissful nature of the holiday. I think that comes from our own yearning for all that this holiday promises, even though we know that we can never really fully participate.

I’ve met Jews who have Christmas trees. “It’s just for fun,” they say, “it has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus or Santa or anything. It’s not a religious thing.” Even in my own family, I must confess, there was some gift-giving to young children on December 25th, a desire by my parents that I “shouldn’t feel left out.”

Perhaps we Jews in the Galut are eternally condemned to wishing that we, too, could share in the Yuletide festivities (and perhaps that’s why we’ve made Chanukah into something that it’s not – the Jewish version of Christmas). We have our collective nose pressed up to the glass doors, watching our friends get to enjoy all of the beautiful lights and revelry and trains and delicious food, and of course, the gifts!

Me, I’ve come to appreciate Christmas on a whole different level as an adult. I enjoy it because, well, it has absolutely nothing to do with me. I get to enjoy all the lights and decorations, the cookies and good cheer and such, and yet be relieved of the family stress, travel headaches, gift-buying frenzy and delusional expectations that accompany the holiday. For me, it’s simply a pleasant time of the year that I can turn on and off at will, like a silly Christmas TV special.

I know that Garrison Keillor is merely joking around when he writes that Jews should leave Christmas alone and stop pushing our musical “dreck.” But if our schools and shuls were doing their jobs right all along, would anyone have written these ditties about chestnuts or sleigh bells in the first place?

Last Saturday morning, Dec. 12, my old friend Sam’s synagogue, Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation, honored him for his decades of service to the Pikesville shul.

Sam got a new title at MMAE – he will become the congregation’s president emeritus, after years of holding many leadership titles with the shul. Sam tells me he is not being put out to pasture and that he will remain active in the leadership and direction of MMAE.

That’s a good thing, particularly at this critical juncture when Rabbi Elan Adler is planning to leave the shul to relocate in Israel. With his strong mind, charisma, work ethic and sense of Yiddishkeit, Sam will continue to be integral to MMAE’s growth.

As a former Hebrew school student and bar mitzvah at Moses Montefiore Woodmoor Hebrew, I want to wish a hearty yasher koach to Sam and his lovely wife, Sylvia, as well as to the folks at MMAE. Much good luck to this wonderful congregation for a promising future.

Sam, you’re the best.

I know a lot of people who call themselves mentsches, but it’s rare that I see what I consider “mentschlikeit” behavior.

But every now and then, something comes up to remind me that there are some mentsches out there.

Recently, I was at a Judaica shop in town. A friend of mine who lives in a non-Jewish area asked if I could get him a Chanukah cookie cutter set, since I live on the “Jewish side” of town. (By the way, I’m not mentioning this to in any way indicate that I am a mentsch. Believe me, I know better, and my wife can second me on this.)

While I waited in line, there was an elderly Russian lady ahead of me with a thick accent and a radiant smile. “Excuse me,” she said politely to the woman behind the cash register, “I am trying to buy mezuzah for my son. But I don’t know what to get him. Can I get help?”

The woman behind the cash register, in a brusque fashion, replied, “OK, well, do you want a mezuzah case or the actual mezuzah, the parchment?” The Russian woman smiled but did not answer. She obviously didn’t understand the question, presumably because of language barriers as well as never receiving a Jewish education in the former Soviet Union.

The saleswoman sighed, reached beneath the counter and pulled out a mezuzah parchment. “This is what I mean,” she said, sounding quite irritated. “This is what a mezuzah is. Without this, it’s nothing, just a case. Is this what you want?”

The Russian lady hesitated for a moment, smiled at me with embarrassment on her face, and said, “Uh, no, I need the other thing. My son, he not so religious.”

Exasperated, the saleswoman pointed her in the direction of a wall full of mezuzah cases and said, “Look, just go over there and see what’s there. But it doesn’t mean anything without the real mezuzah.” Then, she looked at me and said, “Can I help you?”

Suddenly, a young man with a thick, dark beard and a black hat said to the saleswoman, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it and pay for it,” meaning the parchment. But the saleswoman couldn’t leave it at that.

“OK,” she said, “but you need to explain to her that that [the case] doesn’t meaning anything without this [the parchment]. They all think these [parchments] are just instructions, and they just throw ‘em away after hanging up the cases.”

The young man smiled at her patiently and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all to her. That’s what I do for a living.” He then walked over to the Russian lady and said, “Hello, can I help you, please?” The lady beamed and thanked him.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to this man because, frankly, I was in a bit of a rush. But if I had, I would’ve thanked him for being a mentsch in a world where “un-mentschlikeit” behavior seems to dominate.

It’s nice to know that there are still some mentsches out there. We should all try to emulate their behavior from time to time.

If you haven’t been there, get over to the Sixth & I as soon as you can. It’s something else. Housed in the gorgeous, 101-year-old former home of Adas Israel Congregation, Sixth & I is known throughout the region for its innovative services and programming, ranging from the hottest speakers of the day (from the political, religious, literary and entertainment realms) to a plethora of cutting-edge performers and happenings.

It’s more than a shul. It’s an experience, a decidedly Jewish one, without boundaries, hang-ups or labels.

Sixth & I wouldn’t exist without Abe Pollin, his wife, Irene, and his friends and fellow real estate developers Shelton Zuckerman and Douglas Jemal. Back in 2002, these prominent folks were concerned about the lack of a Jewish house of worship and Jewish cultural center in downtown D.C. They wanted to get a Jewish renaissance going in the nation’s capital.

More importantly, they wanted to get young, urban Jews jazzed about Jewish life and culture, according to their own particular generation’s needs and desires. Many of these young Jews in D.C. come from other areas around the country to work in the most powerful city on Earth, and they barely have time to eat, much less have a Jewish experience or go to shul.

Simply put, Mr. Pollin and company saw a need, and they were willing and able to put their money and muscle behind their dream. They weren’t just schmoozin’.

So they purchased the old Adas Israel—which had been a church and was going to become a nightclub—spent millions on restoring the building to its former glory (and it is glorious), hired some really good people to run the place, and generously spent countless dollars on superb programming that would interest young Jews and others from the city, suburbs and exurbs. And they weren’t afraid to try new stuff, even if it failed.

Today, more than 125,000 people every year have a positive Jewish experience of some sort at Sixth & I, whether it’s a concert, a literary discussion, a class, a Shabbat service or otherwise. And no one’s talking at them about membership dues, building campaigns, Hebrew school tuition or continuity concerns.

I know some people here in Baltimore might not be wild about Abe Pollin. After all, he is the man who moved our Bullets to Landover back in ’73, more than a decade before that Irsay guy famously ran the Colts out of town. (We’re pretty good with grudges here in Charm City.)

But after spending some time at Sixth & I and witnessing the wonders there, I can honestly say that Pollin was a true visionary and mentsch. Our community could use a few more Abe Pollins.

For nearly two decades (including during World War II), my late father was a Merchant Marine. Only God knows how many ports my dad stopped in during his years as a Merchant Marine, but one of them was Baltimore, on many occasions.

My father told me a story that when he came to Baltimore once in the late ‘50s, he went to the old Greyhound bus station near Mount Vernon Square. He happened to be using the restroom there when he heard the screams of a man coming out of another stall. My father ran out to see what all the commotion was about, to find a cop beating the living hell out of a man. What was the man’s crime? He had the audacity to be African-American and use a “Whites Only” public bathroom in “Charm City.”

My father, a native New Yorker unaccustomed to the harsh ways of segregation, protested, and the cop and his victim piped down and moved on. But my dad never forgot the incident and it stayed with him long after he quit the Merchant Marines, married my mother, relocated in Baltimore and worked closely for years with the African-American community.

Like I said, we’ve come a long way, in barely 50 years.

The journey is not over, not by a long shot, but the stalemate between African-Americans and Jews, in my opinion, has let up a bit in recent years. One piece of evidence of that is the spirit of cooperation that exists between Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the First Mount Olive Freewill Baptist Church. For the past two-and-a-half years, BHC has provided worship space for First Mount Olive because of a fire that seriously damaged the church at Freemont Avenue and Saratoga Street.

The arrangement has been mutually beneficial, of course, and the two congregations have enjoyed working with and learning from each other. Their spiritual leaders have even exchanged pulpits on occasion.

Next Tuesday night, Dec. 8 (which happens to be my dad’s birthday), the Black-Jewish Forum of Baltimore – the BLEWS – will honor the two congregations at its annual meeting. In a statement, the BLEWS hailed BHC and First Mount Olive as “exemplary models of interfaith and interracial cooperation.”

I couldn’t agree more. We shouldn’t wait for fires or other tragedies to come together as friends.

“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai about 3,300 years ago, he couldn’t have seen these Jews coming,” charges Ms. Ravitz.

The article chronicles the unbridled and unfettered manner in which many young Jews today are observing and celebrating their faith and heritage, and it generally doesn’t have anything to do with shul, Israel, continuity concerns or paralyzing fears about anti-Semitism.

A few unconventional examples – Gen-X and Gen-Y Jews with tattoos featuring Stars of David and other Jewish icons and themes; women exchanging vows in a Jewish wedding ceremony; guys guzzling bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer; a PhD candidate who writes a letter condemning Israeli policies against Palestinians; a punk rock Jew who incorporates his religion into his music; and Roseanne Barr (who’s even older than me!) dressing up as Hitler, standing by an oven and serving burnt-Jew cookies in a Heeb magazine layout.

These “New Jews” tend to be sick and tired of the shuls and schools and the organizational alphabet games and the Holocaust/everything-Israel-does-is-great shtick, and all of the trappings of institutional Jewish life. They prefer an alternative, irreverent, sometimes even offensive take on their Jewishness, one that eschews the albatrosses of affiliation, tradition and rootedness.

I must admit, I certainly admire their impulse and desire for innovation and free-spiritedness. I, too, get tired of the vapid formality, endless rigidity and pervasive myopia of American Jewish life. I especially like the alternatives sprouting up – particularly in New York – where independent prayer groups for the spiritually hungry and adventurous are giving the mega-shuls a good run for their money (and yes, those mega-shuls sure like their money).

But with all due respect to Ms. Ravitz, I must also take it all in with a great big yawn. Because frankly, there’s not much “new” here, despite some catchy, newly-minted phrases like “Emergent Jews” and “the New Jews.”

Obviously, the old model isn’t working very well. There’s no argument about that. Young folks are bored, and so are most of the rest of us. We all seem to be going through the motions, and that’s across the denominational board. The stats back this up.

OK, yes, Hebrew school was dreadfully tedious. But let’s stop whining about it and try to make it better for our kids. Did our Jewish lives basically stop at 13 or 14?

I’m all for making Jewish life accessible, fun, creative and meaningful. I think we have to, simply for survival. And I don’t think that historical miscarriages of justice and continuity fears are going to inspire the troops. In addition, as important as it is, I don’t think a Judaism inspired and executed solely by social justice programming will do the trick (the Reform movement learned that lesson years ago).

Obviously, we need to employ the wonders of technology (the Internet, Facebook, Twitter and such) to reach out and really connect with the new and upcoming generations.

But I don’t think joking around about the horrors of the Holocaust, castigating Israel on a frequent basis or wearing T-shirts with amusing, caustic messages (“Kiss me, I’m A Christ Killer”) will make anyone feel more Jewish. It’s just something to laugh about, not anything with a profound meaning to help anyone figure out what being Jewish is all about.

Granted, all this stuff might make you feel hip. Tattoos do look cool, and seeing Roseanne with a Hitler mustache might be comical or cutting edge in some people’s eyes. But in the long run, it won’t make you really feel Jewish or understand Judaism. There needs to be some substance involved, too, and I strongly suspect that the “New Jews” will learn that eventually as well.

I must admit, I didn’t see too many “black hats” in the crowd—not a shocker since Rabbi Loeb always wore his liberal views on his sleeve, thus becoming the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with left-of-center Judaism to some frum folks.

But I did see people there from across the denominational and congregational divides, demonstrating how well-respected Rabbi Loeb was among his fellow Jews (and non-Jews, since I noticed a number of Christian clergy there as well).

Among those in attendance was Rabbi Jacob A. Max, the former rabbi emeritus of Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah (MMAE) Hebrew Congregation, a shul still known fondly in some circles as Liberty Jewish Center. As you likely know, Rabbi Max, 85, was convicted last April of molesting an employee at the Sol Levinson & Bros. funeral home. In subsequent BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES articles, other women came forward with their stories of inappropriate and indecent behavior toward them allegedly exhibited by Rabbi Max over the years. (No need to go into the gory details again.)

Since then, Rabbi Max has resigned from the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, shortly before they voted to discontinue his membership, and MMAE decided to suspend his title as rabbi emeritus and remove a polished stone bearing his name and proclaiming their campus in his honor.

All in all, it’s quite a fall from grace.

But there he was, at Rabbi Loeb’s funeral, looking well and smiling broadly. It’s a smile I know well. Rabbi Max officiated at my wedding and the wedding of parents in 1961, back when Liberty Jewish Center was located on Marmon Avenue in Howard Park. He was there for all of our family life-cycle events (save for my bar mitzvah), and he was always a source of great comfort and warmth to us.

Now, of course, I view this cordial, gregarious man with admittedly mixed feelings. At Beth El, to my surprise, Rabbi Max was greeted quite warmly by others in the audience. He was sitting only a few rows ahead of me, so I watched closely. (Couldn’t help it.)

At one point during the funeral, Rabbi Max got up and walked out of the sanctuary for a few minutes. While he walked up the aisle, one man arose, offered a handshake and hugged the rabbi. Others smiled, nodded and waved at him.

Is all forgiven? Has the community moved on and granted teshuvah for this man who, according to the American legal system, did something wrongful to a woman, something I think most of us would agree is not terribly rabbinical?

I couldn’t help but notice that most of those people who were pleasant to Rabbi Max at the funeral were older. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe senior citizens don’t get all the fuss about sexual molestation, or are a little more forgiving and understanding than the younger set.

Maybe we just don’t want to deal with the whole odious matter anymore, so we say, “Let’s go forward, he made a mistake.” Or maybe people wanted to just let him mourn his friend, Rabbi Loeb, without bringing anything ugly into the equation – “It’s not the proper place.”

A day after the funeral, I chatted with a friend who works at a local synagogue about this subject. My main feeling was that I felt a sense of shock and maybe a grudging admiration for Rabbi Max’s (there’s no other word for it) chutzpah about showing his face in public, no less at a mega-shul holding a major communal event.

Me, I’d be in Nome, Alaska, where no one knows me. (Seals don’t know from molestation convictions.)

My friend explained that Rabbi Max ain’t the type to run off to Nome and hide. After all, he does come from the generation that kicked Hitler’s and Mussolini’s butts.

“He’s got a point to make,” said my pal. “He wants to show his face and be out there. He feels he has nothing to hide, did nothing wrong, and wants the world to see him smiling. He’s in denial about his problem, so he goes out there and does his thing. That’s just the way guys like him are, that’s how they’re built.”

I’m not sure whether that’s true or not, but when you see such stubborn chutzpah in action, it does take your breath away. And I couldn’t help but think of those women who say their lives have been greatly marred by Rabbi Max’s alleged behavior over the past decades and the community leaders and members who turned their eyes away and made excuses for him. I wonder how these women would feel about seeing him there, smiling and laughing and schmoozing.

But then again, he has been punished, in a court of law and, worse yet, in the public eye. And my guess is that in his most private of moments, he beats himself up pretty good as well.

Everyone has a favorite Rabbi Loeb story or two. Let me share two of mine.

When I first came to the Jewish Times, my old boss, Gary Rosenblatt, suggested that I make appointments with local rabbis and learn about their congregations. One of the first rabbis I touched base with was Mark Loeb. I remember meeting him at his office at Beth El. We schmoozed for a little while, and then I asked him if I could take him to lunch. He said sure.

We got into his big, shiny car – which had a car phone, the first time I’d ever seen one of those – and started driving. “Where do you want to go?” he asked me. I suggested a couple of kosher establishments, since I figured he was a rabbi and kept kashrut.

Rabbi Loeb studied me for a moment and asked if I keep kosher. “No sir,” I replied. In not terribly gentle language, he chided me for assuming that he kept kosher and insisted that we would dine that afternoon at Linwood’s, and that “it’s on me.” We proceeded to have a great meal, and all of the staff at one point or another dropped by to say hello to the rabbi.

That was my initiation.

My other story: my mother had an old friend who passed away suddenly about a dozen years ago. The woman had a fleeting, peripheral relationship with Beth El.

While sitting with my mother at Sol Levinson & Bros. shortly before the funeral service, I heard someone going, “Psssst, psssst!” Looking around, I spotted a frantic Rabbi Loeb, who was gesturing for me to come over to the doorway where he was standing. I said hello to him, shook his hand and asked how he was doing, but he simply waved off all pleasantries.

“Look,” he said, staring hard into my eyes, “did you know this woman – the deceased—at all?!” I responded that I did know her a little bit, that she was a family friend, and he explained that getting the woman’s family to give him biographical and personal information about her for the eulogy was like extracting molars. He didn’t know her at all, and they didn’t seem to either, he said, exasperated.

I offered a few pieces of general, seemingly worthless information – that she liked to shop, she loved her grandkids, she was a bit of an eccentric, she enjoyed playing the slots in Atlantic City – and then the good rabbi said, “OK, OK,” and basically told me to beat it. I couldn’t imagine what kind of eulogy he could proffer from my scant tidbits.

Of course, he gave an absolutely stunning eulogy in which you felt that he knew the deceased quite well and made you feel the loss of this unique human being. It was a mesmerizing performance, one that made my jaw drop, and you felt you were in the presence of a master rabbi, one who could always rise to the occasion and comfort those in need. That’s a gift.

Rabbi Loeb was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t suffer fools or foolish behavior and thinking well, but he always had a smile and a kind word for me (unless I was being foolish, of course). He said what he thought, in his own inimitable style, and didn’t worry about how he would be judged by others.

There aren’t many like Mark Loeb, and I know there will be many of us who will miss him a great deal. As my friend Gilbert Sandler said to me today, after learning of Rabbi Loeb’s passing, “He was a commanding presence.”

I think we can all say Amen to that.