June 19th, 2011 - As you may have been reading, I just finished the 2011 ROI Summit, an eye-opening and inspiring week connecting and learning with 150 Jewish innovators from around the world.  During the closing ceremony Lynn Schusterman asked us why we thought she should continue to support the ROI Community.  We were given many reasons  throughout the week, but for me, that answer was never fully articulated.

Case in point, if it weren’t for Rick Recht and Jewish rock, I’m not sure what role Judaism would have in my life right now.  And that’s despite a ritualistically observant home, day school, camp, and youth group.  I was lucky enough to have been tapped on the shoulder by a high quality and engaging innovator and social entrepreneur. But besides Jewish Rock and a few others I’ve stumbled across in my career, where are the other high caliber and highly attractive opportunities for ours and future generations to be engaged, and to desire to be engaged in the Jewish community.

Enter the ROI Community.  This summit was not only an opportunity for innovators to connect, collaborate, and create.  It wasn’t only a chance for us to learn, be inspired, recharge, refocus, and challenge ourselves to set the bar even higher.  It was about the answer to disaffiliation and assimilation.  ROI, for me, in every way, is about the future of Judaism.
I sometimes feel like my contemporaries and I are out there relatively alone, trying desperately to singlehandedly build an attractive and flourishing Jewish future.  Until this week, I had no idea that there are SO MANY innovative and quality Jewish projects and organizations.  If it weren’t for the ROI conference, I would likely never have known.  And many of them, would likely never have known about Jewish Rock or Jewish Rock Radio.  Thanks to ROI, I am now confident that we are not alone, and if we continue to work together, the future is not just a dream.

Sacha Litman, a fellow ROIer is creating the Jewish Journey Connector, an intelligent database to link Jews to “opportunities and experiences that match their interests and needs.”  During the Open Space sessions (led by Yoni Gordis) David Kramer, Rachel Ishofsky, Shahar Tishkoff, Yoni Sarason, Adam Finkel, and I, along with several other ROIers, sat down to discuss Jewish Unity, and ended up talking about a web-based platform for Jews to learn about all things Jewish, from current events, to activism, Israel, the arts, and more.

Until these projects are finished, for the next several weeks, I would like to share some of the people and projects with my fans, family, and friends.  Each week or so, I will post a link on Facebook and Twitter to a cool new project that I learned about at ROI.  The projects range from causes, to videos, to products, and more.  If you like what I’ve shared, shoot me a message and let me know.
Because of the time sensitivity of the first two projects, I will be sharing two causes this week.
1)  Friendfactor - Fellow St. Louisan and classmate of Flo’s, Brian Elliot, wanted to accelerate the progress of LGBT rights.  Click this link and spend 30 seconds to have a huge impact.  The site will provide you with a script and call your phone to connect you with your state legislator and all you do is read the script and hang up. It’s SO easy.  Please help me reach my goal of 25 calls!

Call your legislator:
http://www.friendfactor.org/fs/104841

Visit my profile, or create your own:
http://www.friendfactor.org/SheldonLow

2)  MeetGilad.Com - Melbournian (is that right?) Andre Oboler created this site to show solidarity for Gilad Shalit and to help put pressure on the international community to demand his release. The five year anniversary of his capture is this June 25th, 2011 and Andre would like you to spend thirty seconds to write Gilad a simple note and help them reach their goal of many more thousands of messages.  Here’s what I wrote:

Gilad - We are thinking of you and praying for you all over the world.  Please know that you have not been forgotten and you continue to be in our hearts and our thoughts.

http://www.meetgilad.com/

ROI Day 4 -
Home.  It’s almost time to go home.  I know this feeling all too well.  Excitement at returning to the people, places, and things we left behind tugging against the anxiety of leaving these new people, places, and things.    In the four days since we erected this sukkah, it has been transformed into a Bayit.

I too have been transformed.  Here, at ROI, I have met some of the most talented, motivated, wise, and inspiring people in my life in just four days.

And tonight, I had the incredible opportunity to really be welcomed home into the ROI community.  Tonight, ROI lifted me up, singing, playing, celebrating, and connecting over “I GiveThanks”.  Tonight, it finally happened…

It happened to Flo over a decade ago, maybe even on her first visit.  When it happened, doesn’t matter.  Only that it did happen.  And so Flo returned again and again, eventually to stay permanently.  By now, it’s nearly impossible to walk down the street with her.  She’s truly home.

It happened to Shaanan Street as well.  Responding to my cookie cutter questions,  Shaanan painted poetry about his beloved city.  And tonight I was able to nod along.

I don’t know when it first happened to me, but I noticed it leaving the J-lem season of culture.  The city was silent as we drove along staring at the beauty of the ancient walls, stoic, quietly resting as they have for thousands of years.   But as I stared, it happened.  I heard it.  Jerusalem whispered to me.

Then again, at Hebrew University, she called, a littler louder this time.  Watching Brian, Heather, Tera, Nili, Michal, Wil, Steve, Rabbi Shoshana, Yosi, Nattan, and Neshama I heard the relevance, rather the crucial role of this place and this people.

And again today, walking her streets, touching and tasting, feeling and breathing, I heard her call out to me.  It is an unmistakable call, a 2000 year old longing for home.

And yet tomorrow I’ll leave…sad, anxious, and excited to leave home in order to go home.

For all the people, places, and things I’ve experienced over the last four days, I give thanks.

ROI Day 1 - A few weeks ago I was asked to complete this sentence with two words.  “Ask Me About…”  I was preparing for my current trip to Israel as part of a humbling group of inspiring leaders at the ROI summit in Jerusalem.  The no-brainer answer to this question for me at the time was “Jewish Rock.”  But I would like to change my answer.

This past Friday my family gathered at the B’nai Abraham Memorial Park in Union, NJ to bury my great Aunt Ada.  Aunt Ada was 91 years old, sharp as a tack, and the matriarch of our family.   If you were to describe Aunt Ada in two words it would be “She lived.”  Flipping through her expired passports alone you would find stamps from Morocco, China, Japan, Spain, and on and on. Nothing ever got in her way of living.  Just a few years ago she took a trip with our Rabbi to Israel (her third visit since 1964).

One of my proudest memories is of finding the picture of Aunt Ada with Golda Meir.  Golda was speaking to the American Jewish Congress and Aunt Ada was able to hear and meet Golda through her deep involvement with the organization.  The picture was physical evidence of my Aunt’s direct involvement in the biggest gift that the Jewish people have given themselves.  But finding that picture unhinged me beyond pride in my aunt. Staring at that picture I realized how powerful we are as individuals, and that the Jewish state and all of the freedoms we enjoy, only exist because the generation before us sowed these seeds.  I had begun telling this story regularly to audiences across the country, and explaining that perhaps even bigger than the gift of the Jewish state itself, the gift bestowed on us by her generation which I feel most fortunate for, is the idea that can take action and create our own future.

It would be impossible to accurately portray her in this space and I don’t wish to regale you with more stories, but suffice it to say, that despite physical distance, she was always a large presence in my life.

And so a few days later,I find myself in Israel, grieving over her loss, and sitting at a table with a Sharpee and a name tag that says “Ask Me About…To life”

It seems appropriate that I’m sitting in Jerusalem, listening to and surrounded by so many innovative thinkers and motivated leaders…people who, in the spirit of Aunt Ada and her generation care to make a difference and to guarantee the future of the Jewish people.  I can’t wait to meet each and every one of them.  L’chayim.

I’m not sure whether the Olympics are more incredible as a kid or as an adult.  I remember sitting hunched over my dad’s portable 2 inch TV in the back seat of his Chevy Astro, aiming and reaming the antenna, with my mom and sister looking over my shoulder as Kristi Yamaguchi took Gold in ‘92.  I remember being amazed at the things these adults could do, literally pushing the limits of the human body, let alone on ice and snow. Today I’m amazed that so many of these people are my peers.

Greatness, in all it’s forms is really something fantastic to watch.  I really can’t get enough of it.  (Speaking of greatness, I want to add and check off another line item on my Stuff To Do list.  Huge thanks to Lori for the tix to see Placido Domingo conduct the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for Verdi’s Stiffelio.  It’s been a while since my last opera, and this one delivered.)

In a sense, these individuals devote their entire lives to their country.  Admittedly, it’s not an altruistic type of commitment, but if I had to spend only a couple of the most miserable months of my life waking up at 5 AM to do conditioning before school, followed by 2.5 hours of practice after the same day of school just to become an embarrassingly bad wrestler, I can only imagine what the top athletes in the world must go through.  They give everything just for the opportunity to represent their country and take their shot at gold.  (Not real gold, mind you…apparently it’s mostly silver with gold plating. Even the bronze is made of copper…one giant penny you could say…but still, no real monetary value.)  And most of them seem to be fairly stand up people (excluding Johnny Weir perhaps), and a large number of them use their fame to continue to give back to the sport and people around the world.

Which is just more proof to me that national service would do a lot of good in this country. Now hear me out.

We had another senator retire yesterday because, according to him, congress is broken.  I feel the same.  Frankly the only person who seems genuinely concerned about my life and my future is Obama himself.  Watching the State of the Union only solidified that feeling.  Even the most obviously necessary or beneficial bills stand no chance against huge corporate lobbying campaigns.

And what ever happened to accountability?  It seems to have been replaced by more bonuses and “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Look, the system works great so long as people have integrity and take responsibility and pride in their work, and their country.  I just think we’ve lost that in our quest for another type of gold.  The prosperity that our ancestors sewed for us seems to have led many of us to seek only more and more prosperity no matter the cost.

Maybe, just maybe, if all of us were required to do a little national service, we might reverse this trend and start operating like the best country in the world.  Now national service doesn’t mean military service, although it could. What I mean is a year or two, that each of us are required to give to our country.  I mean a chance to be exposed to environments totally foreign to you, and work intimately alongside people and who are completely different than you all on a level playing field.  I mean learning the rewarding feeling of helping others and acting selfless.  I mean providing the basic services to our citizens that the #1 country in the world should provide, and which are often neglected because they aren’t profitable.  I mean making national pride and camaraderie, generosity, and volunteerism a part of our culture.

I mean actually earning what our parents and grandparents have provided for us through their sacrifice to this country.

I’m reminded of a story my Dad used to tell.  A man was traveling alongside a field when he came upon an old man planting a carob tree.  The traveler asked the old man how long it would take to bear fruit and the old man replied “seventy years.”   The traveler then asked the old man if he thought he would live another seventy years to be able to eat from the carob tree.  The old man replied that all his life he tasted the fruit of the carob trees planted by his grandfather and father.  So, too, would he plant for his children, and his children’s children.

Think about it.

Last thought…why do all the speed skaters wear glasses?

Happy birthday Aunt Ada.

Movie:  Gran Turino
TV:  Olympics 2010
Opera:  Stiffelio, Verdi
Album:  Absolution, Muse

After leaving Solomon Schechter Day School, and before I met Rick Recht and was introduced to this whole Jewish Rock thing, my Jewish and secular identities had little to do with one another, save for when I was forced, full of embarrassment, to admit to my teachers and coaches that I would be absent for holidays.  I’m not sure if that embarrassment I felt as I approached my teachers was a product of the anti-semitic remark that my sister and I fell victim to at our day camp in Kansas City, or if it was just part of the usual desire to fit in.  Either way, Rick was a great example to me of being proud of who you are and of wearing your heart on your sleeve.  Rick was, and is, a great example of a cool American Jew, not an American and a Jew.  So while it may well work more cleanly in my previous “isolated identity” incarnation to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and the “civil” new year, it makes more perfect sense now.

Like most people, and E! or whatever other similar media, before looking forward to 2010 (which I am) it’s important to look back on 2009.  Despite a complete pileup at the finish line, including close friends and family falling ill, losing jobs, etc …there were some highlights.

-Katie, who so many of you helped through Be The Match, is healthy and well!!!
You should still join the donor list at Join.marrow.org!!!
-Light up Shabbat, my third album was released
-In My Shoes, Hadar’s debut album was also released (see Hadar below…looks like we need to take out the trash!!!)
-We bought our first apartment
-I met my Father’s Mother’s family for the first time in my life
-Sang the National Anthem and G-d Bless America for the Trenton Thunder

Harking back almost 10 years, I remember my senior year of high school, sitting in Dennis Lane’s marketing class and reviewing Danny’s “Stuff To Do” list…what most people would call a bucket list (bucket being less syllables and a better option than his resulting acronym).  As I recall, Danny carried his list wherever he went for at least a couple weeks, making certain edits, or crossing certain things off the list.  I only remember some of the items that made the final cut, some of which I’m not willing to share, and some of which are still on my personal list.  But seeing as I’ve never put my list down on paper, and in celebration of the earth making yet another complete revolution around the sun, I give you my “Stuff To Do for 2010 and Beyond” list.  Some are short term goals, some are more long term, and they are in no particular order.

Jump out of an airplane
Scuba
Meet Paul McCartney
Meet Eric Clapton
Successfully strut leather pants
Visit my Grandfather’s childhood home and neighborhood in Vienna
Travel to Ipanema, India, China, Japan, Galapagos, Chile, Korea, Egypt
Win the Lottery
Ride in a fighter jet
Watch the last season of Lost, then watch them all over again!
Find the perfect Cab Sav
Learn Piano
Learn Hebrew and Spanish fluently
Land a backflip
Enter space
Make my Toyota commercial
Hang out with Seth Rogan, Will Ferrell, and Jack Black at the same time
Start an organization as impactful as Greg Mortenson’s CAI
Be in a scripted film
Do the luge (or bobsled as a close second)
Hang up the picture frames in our apartment
Run a marathon
Get a reservation at Rao’s
Meet Barack Obama
Find the cures for cancer and AIDS

Looking back on this list, it seems pretty lame…I feel like making excuses like, I’m forgetting some big ones, or I thought of a lot of others but they either go without saying (ie eating lunch at Dakshin today), or didn’t seem epic enough to actually write down (ie immortality).  Let’s just say I’ll try to add and hopefully check things off of this list…In the meantime, here’s to a happy and healthy 2010!

Numbers

I like numbers.  It’s why I became an engineer.  Take three for example.  I just released my third album, Light up Shabbat. The number of full years I’ve lived in New York.  The number of acoustic guitars I own.

1:  The month of January coming up. The number staring at me from my printer.  The loneliest number

How about 5?   The number of Mattathias’s sons.  Today is the 5th day of the week.  The members of my immediate family.  The amount of time I lived in Boston.

27:  My new age.  I think when you get older you ponder a lot more. It’s hard to believe but I’ve actually been living in New York almost as long as I lived in Boston.

I have to say that among other ruminations of my older and hopefully wiser mind is the thought that I had a relatively normal family.  I remember watching the dramatic daytime television talk shows and thinking how bizarre it was that people could actually lose track of family for decades and then reunite on such a stage.

I kept on thinking this until last spring when I found an email from the “Solomon’s” talking about a family reunion.  My Dad to this day will swear that two of his children have ended up on the east coast because we grew up in a culturally east coast home.  His mother, Florence, was born in Malden and passed away a few years before I was born, but all I had known, or perhaps cared to know was that there was some family still there, and that Grandpa Hans kept in some touch with them, but that was all.  By some miracle, I wasn’t booked, and Mom, Dad, and my two sisters were all willing and able to drop everything and get to Malden.  Amazingly, it had been years since the 5 of us had been in the same place, and had it been the car ride from Newark to Malden alone, it would have been worth it.

Having heard only bits and pieces I didn’t know what to expect from the reunion itself.  Truth be told, I’m still processing it.  A few things to be sure of, though.  First, I saw an incredibly amount of pictures.  My grandmother was beautiful.  I also met my grandmother’s sister and might have gotten a glimpse of what my own grandmother was like.  My dad reunited with the cousins he used to regularly visit as a kid and seeing and hearing him tell stories is always a treat.  And apparently we have a huge family, in personality, warmth, and in numbers!

Huge thanks to all my newfound family, and to all of my other mishpocha in Boston who I got to see this past weekend.  It was great seeing you after all this time and I hope to see you soon!

Happy Hannukah and Happy New Year!

Movie:  Funny People
TV:  It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Book:  Three Cups of Tea, Greg
Album:  Battle Studies, John Mayer

So it’s been a while…and right now it’s 5:47 AM on the LaGuardia Tarmac, on my way from NYC to Phoenix.  It goes without saying I’m not great at keeping any type of journal…never have been.  In fact, the only time in my life I’ve ever keep up with a journal was Mrs. Bahn’s 5th grade class where we were required to keep a journal, and we used class time every week to write in our journal.  I’m pretty sure most of my pages were filled with large handwritten sentences about how I had nothing to say but needed to fill the entire page.

I want to say part of it stems from growing up between two awesomely outspoken sisters…makes a person a good listener.  But I think it’d be more honest to say that I’m not sure how interesting the average reader would find my daily life.  For example, I’m working on some new music right now and I just got a new Axiom 25 MIDI controller.  (Read this next sentence excitedly) I’m psyched because it’s got 8 pads, and I’m working with Max/MSP and Propellerhead Reason to work out a key map with various banks…well, you can see where this is going.  In my defense, I do have a BS in Mechanical Engineering. At any rate, I just don’t know if my blogs can be all that interesting.
———-
Ok, so now it’s 5:55 and I’m sitting across the aisle from Paul Teutul Sr. ….you know, the father from American Chopper.  Did this just get interesting?

Let me rewind real quick.  It’s about 5:15 AM, I just checked in, but now I’ve been standing in line for 15 minutes just trying to check my baggage.  I’ve already been up since 4 AM just to make it this far.  Don’t I deserve to not have to stand here like this.  I glance over at the security line.  Looks like I’ll be in line all morning.

“Next.”

I look down the mile of ticketing agents.  Where exactly am I supposed to go?  I give the woman a confused look.

“Just walk down there and wait behind that woman.”  She points to the woman walking to the furthest possible agent.

“Oh,” I think.  You mean the woman who I was just standing behind?  The woman who is just making it to the counter now?  And the agent that is a quarter mile from this spot?  The spot that will take longer than any other?  Do you also see that I’m carrying 3 suitcases by myself?

Dragging my suitcases behind and panting, I arrive at the next line of my day.

“Sir, you can put your bag up here.”  I start strapping my 3 suitcases on my body to move the four feet forward to the counter.

“Sir, you can put your bag up here.”  I heard you the first time.

“Sir, you didn’t pay for your suitcase.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You didn’t pay for your suitcase.”

“I’m a Worldperks Elite,” I say somewhat blankly.  As I say it, the agent stops for a half second.  Nothing major, but enough that I make a mental note of it.  She seems caught off guard or something.  Did something just happen?

“Oh, sorry,” she replies.  “It didn’t say so on your reservation.  Here you are sir.  Have a nice flight.”

“Thank you very much,” I say with extra emotion and a way too large smile.

Hmm.  Seriously, what just happened?  I make my way to security trying to figure it out.  Did I say something?  Did I say that forcefully or something?  Was I just rude to this stranger?  I mean it IS 5 in the morning, my eyes are probably bloodshot and I’m probably not doing a great job hiding my desire to be back in bed, but I wasn’t trying to pass that off to her.  I’m sure she doesn’t want to be there at this hour any more than me.  Maybe it’s nothing.  I replay the situation over and over again in my head as I walk to the gate, board the plane, and make my way to seat 18F.  I chose the window exit row for the extra legroom at the cost of not having an outer armrest, a mistake I only realize as I sit down.  I depend on those armrests to help me sleep.  Bummer.  I sit down and think of what to do for the next 8 hours.  I replay the morning again.

What happened at that counter?  Am I reading too much into this?  Maybe I’m concocting this whole subtle interaction.  Maybe nothing happened.  I can’t figure it out.  Maybe it did happen.  Why is this bugging me so much?  And suddenly, I think I understand.  I reach down and grab my computer and start typing…”So it’s been a while…”  You see, this blog, these words, our ability to communicate, what we say and how we say it, they all matter very much.  Maybe I still won’t write in fear that the stories aren’t interesting, but our ability and our right to express ourselves with words is so important…so powerful.  I mean, how profound that it’s our very first amendment. And we take it for granted!  But it also makes us responsible to ourselves.  I wish I could redo that interaction at the counter, just to make sure nothing happened.

I try to wedge my coat and pillow against the wall of the plane for a makeshift armrest and I start to close my eyes.

“Sir, are you Mr. Low?”  Oh no.  What now?  “We have one seat in First Class if you’d like.”

Hmm, interesting…

I’m sitting on the Manhattan bound F Train from Brooklyn.  In the winter, the tunnels are a warm  welcome from the cold wintery wind, but in the summer, they exaggerate the heat and I half expect to walk out of the tunnels into a Florida swamp.  Needless to say, I celebrate when I can see the lights of the approaching train with its wonderful air conditioning …Wait, the Roosevelt Island stop. I’ve been meaning to get here for years now!  And there it goes…well, anyway, just to give you an idea of how much I appreciate the A/C right now, choose whichever one of these is most gratifying to you:

1) The first taste of food after the Yom Kippur fast
2) The first taste of food after the Passover fast (I don’t care what you say,…for us poor American Ashkenazim it IS a fast)
3) The first few breaths when your nose clears up after a cold
4) Waking up halfway through the night and realizing you still have many more hours to sleep before you have to get up
5) First waterbreak when two-a-day training starts in St. Louis August heat

Anyway, you get the idea.  Oh great!  My “e” key just broke on my laptop.  I better get to the point.

The point is that I’m sitting on the F-train going into Manhattan. I’m on my way home from Capital Camps in Waynesboro, PA where I spent three days with a really incredible group of future songleaders, and their awesome songleader Shimon Smith.  Together we spent three intense days working on songleader skills culminating in a song session led entirely by the songleaders.  If it wasn’t impressive enough that everyone in the group was giving up menucha to work, after just three days (albeit intense work days), they had the whole camp on their feet, dancing and singing along.  It was fantastic.

(By the way, you have no idea how many e’s you use until your “e” key breaks.  I type all of the letters in a regular fashion but every time I want to type an “e”, I have to slam the spot on my keyboard where the “e” used to be with my middle finger. It’s like juggling with 2 feathers and one bowling ball…)

At any rate, Capital Camps is set in the mountains of Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The camp literally takes up a significant part of a mountain and the scenery is breathtaking.  In fact, this whole summer tour hasn’t had any shortages of scenic views.  On our way to the Apache Day Camps a few weeks ago we passed through a storm that ended with a double rainbow that lasted over 15 minutes.  I watched the lake during dusk sitting in the tayatron at Kutz. I’m a sucker for this type of natural beauty.

Now I’m back in the city of cities which I call home.  It’s such a rapid dichotomy but I love it.  Manhattan is all about instant gratification and it can be easy to get caught up in the hassles of everyday life.  At camp, there’s little or no phone service, personal computers, or anything else that can bother you.  At camp, the only concern is that you spend as much time as humanly possible with your best friends ever.  Camp, for me, helps me regain some perspective, remember what’s important, or as Adam Duritz says “Get right to the heart of matters, It’s the heart that matters more.” At camp you can literally stop and smell the roses.  Living in the city makes you appreciate all of these things so much.
There is one thing, though, that camp doesn’t have, or at least that camp didn’t have when I was a camper.  Something that camp helps me appreciate about living in civilization.  One tiny little miracle that I will miss more than ever as I leave again tomorrow…my air conditioner.

You know that feeling when the bus pulls into the synagogue parking lot after the 12 hour drive home from convention?  When you haven’t showered since you woke up 21 hours ago and the condition of your voice is proof that you had a blast, but you can’t quite figure out where the last 48 hours have gone?   That sad, still, quiet feeling when the beautiful sunrise you’re watching signals the end of the experience, and not the beginning?

If I focus I think I can piece together yesterdays events:

3:15 AM CST - Wake up
3:36 AM CST - Arrive at United Hebrew, St. Louis, MO
3:41 AM CST - Sheldon behind the wheel, Logan at copilot
8:04 AM EST - Gas light dings somewhere in Indiana
8:14 AM EST - Fuel gauge plummets, Sheldon attempts drafting behind 18-wheeler
8:24 AM EST - sweating, coast into gas station, $124.78 in gas, Mike behind the wheel, Abbie at copilot
1:10 PM EST - Pit stop,  $111.02 in gas, Shift change, Logan behind wheel, Sheldon at copilot
3:42 PM EST - Avoid head on collision with renegade 1978 Vista Cruiser
4:08 PM EST - Arrive Emma Kaufmann Camp, Morgantown, WV
7:44 PM EST - Finish stage setup and soundcheck
7:45 PM EST - Begin Havdallah and concert
10:31 PM EST - Sweaty, exhausted, and covered in dirt we depart EKC
12:56 AM EST - Lights out
It’s about 9:30 AM now and we’ve been on the road for a half hour. We’ll be driving up through West Virginia, and Maryland, to Stroudsburg, PA for Pinemere Camp.  It’s about 6 hours away. I just want to send a huge thank you to Mike, Denny, Logan, Abbie, and Joe for working their tails off to make this stuff happen.

My name is Sheldon Low.  Yes, it’s really my name.  Yes, it’s really on my birth certificate.  I’m also Jewish.  I’m really proud of who I am and where I come from, even if it took some time for me to be so sure of it.  I grew up in St. Louis, MO by way of Overland Park, KS and spent most of my childhood either in the small towns of Southern Illinois or on a campground in one of our country’s various State or National Parks.  If you were to ask me, I’d say 2% is a very generous figure…

Now I live in a city where there’s a 50/50 chance that someone on the street can even point to Missouri on a map, let alone St. Louis.  Some people would call me a small town guy.  I guess it’s all relative.

Anyway, I just got back from Oklahoma City, OK for the first time.  Up until this weekend, all I knew about OKC was based around the bombing of the Federal Building.

I can remember sitting in my 5th grade social studies class at Solomon Schechter, while Mrs. Bahn read the article she had copied from the newspaper.  I remember then as now, how horrified I was that so many of the victims were children, even babies.  Still, as with all sacred places, the feeling doesn’t resonate quite as clearly until you visit.  Marcy and Louis, who were hosting me, took me on a tour of the area late Monday night so I could see the memorial all lit up.  There are two arches on either side of where the building once stood, and in between, there’s a reflecting pool and an illuminated chair for each of the victims.  It’s really beautiful.

It also turns out that the total Jewish population in OKC is probably equal to the total Jewish population of a few of my blocks.  Ok, maybe it’s not fair to compare number of Okie Jews to number of Upper East Side Jews, but hear me out.  This community had so much, er, uh..community.  It really brought me back to see literally everyone in the community pitching in to help prepare the concert and then dancing together, old, young, friends, strangers, Jews and non-Jews.  Yes, Camp Chaverim is such a great camp that a significant number of campers and staff aren’t even Jewish.  That really says something to me about the community, and about Jewish pride.

If you’re ever in OKC, make sure to stop by Camp Chaverim or at least look up directors Marcy and Pamela for some good old southern hospitality.  You could just take my word for it, but the feeling doesn’t resonate quite as clearly until you visit.

SL