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Jewish World Review July 13, 2000 / 10 Tamuz, 5760
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http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THURMONT, MD. | Sitting on the porch of his 200-year-old house, Gary Megee tapped an ash
from his diminishing cigarette and expressed little interest in the
action down the road.
It don’t impress me too much," the Vietnam War veteran and small
business owner said of the nearby Mideast peace talks. "It’s just a
waste of the taxpayers’ money. Besides those people over there have been
fighting for thousands and thousands of years."
Of course, many others do care – even in this 5,000 resident Catoctin
mountains town.
A few doors down on East Main Street, Holly’s Country Florist offers a
"peace process special -- $12.99 for a dozen roses" and a window sign
read: "Bill, Ehud and Yassir, Think Peace." Owner Holly Bailey said
she’d give the leaders free roses if they stop by, "’cause that’s what
everybody likes."
A sporting goods store at the town’s main intersection had this in the
window: Peace for Jerusalem, Lower Gas Prices.
Emotions were expectedly more intense one-third a mile away at Thurmont
Elementary School, where world media representatives split the parking
lot with summer school teachers. Volunteers from the Apples United
Church of Christ sold lunch inside while small contingents of pro and
anti-peace groups – including a number of Baltimoreans – peacefully
occupied a corner of the parking lot.
Then the bus from New York City arrived. It brought some Women in Green
members who casually joined their Baltimore colleagues. But members of
Kahane Chai, the radical right-wing group, also got off. Instantly
playing to the media, their members began chanting, "Barak is a traitor,
no retreat from Jewish land." One member almost got into a fistfight
with a pro-peace demonstrator who ate a sandwich in front of a "The
Majority Chose Peace" sign.
Baltimore Women In Green representative Barbara Bloom quickly moved her
group away. "That’s a little too much for us," she said.
She spoke of Palestinians recently tossing a molotov cocktail attack
into an Israeli car near Jericho, leaving a two-year-old child in
Hadassah Hospital’s intensive care unity. Her sign read, "Israeli flags,
books, cars, trees and babies they burn, but Clinton and Hillary are not
concerned."
Mrs. Clinton, she explained, has been honored by Hadassah for
humanitarian work and should go to the hospital to see the badly burned
child, known as "baby Shalev."
Fourteen-year-old Yaacov Freedman, a Talmudical Academy of Baltimore student, arrived
with his mother because "Israel is our homeland and they keep giving
away our land. And it’s not real peace. Peace means no more murder,
burning and no more terrorism."
An hour earlier, 36 high school students from the Reform movement’s Camp
Joseph and Betty Harlam Camp waved signs supporting the peace talks, but
didn’t seem enamored with the "land for peace" formula.
"We’re supporting the process," said 16-year-old Lauren Schlanger, an
Owings Mills High School student. "We don’t support every action, but we
support that the leaders have come to the U.S. to try and work out an
agreement."
Seth Jablon, a studen at Western School of Technology and Environmental
Science added, "We’re also here to show that American Jews, especially
Reform Jews, are concerned about the homeland, to show that we have a
voice and that we’re not stereotypical adolescents letting everything
happen and not paying attention."
Peace hopes aside, war had been heard in the nearby mountains of late –
Color War, that is. Camp Airy, the Jewish boys facility, sits "two miles
as the crow flies" from Camp David; it’s sister institution, Camp
Louise, is a few more miles away.
"You know what we notice up at camp? Whatever people who come tell us,"
said director Mike Schneider. "On Monday we saw the president’s
helicopter fly overhead, which we see all the time. But this time we
wondered who was inside."
And the U.S. Park Service has closed much of the nearby national park,
limiting the camps’ hiking plans.
Camp Greentop, however, has bigger problems. It’s literally across the
street from Camp David, so the Secret Service has forced it to cancel
this Sunday’s visitors day, now rescheduled for Sunday, August 15th. "We
just want to get the word out," said Janice Frey-Angel of the facility
for developmentally and physically disabled children and adults.
Twenty minutes away, Rabbi Moshe Kosman has led the area’s closest
synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, since 1961. "We serve all variants
of Judaism," explained the Orthodox rabbi. "No one’s happy."
He recalled how regular Shabbat services were not being held during the
Egyptian-Israeli summit at Camp David in 1978. Congregants suggested
they do so in case then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin showed up.
They gathered to pray, but Begin stayed at the presidential retreat.
In a sermon last Friday night, the rabbi noted the Jewish tradition of
returning to a place where one had success and of saying a blessing when
passing by a place where one escaped hardship.
Back in the press center, a group of Arab journalists munched on bagels
with cream cheese while four children played on the floor in front of
them. A nearby television offered CNN Headline News reports from the
summit, which everyone ignored.
The room’s bulletin board held perhaps the most telling announcement:
Tip of the day: Look both ways before crossing.
Not far away, no doubt, Yassir Arafat and Ehud Barak took the message to
JWR contributor Neil Rubin is a senior editor at The Baltimore Jewish Times. Comment by clicking here.
By Neil Rubin
