Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley will travel to Israel—for the third time in office. The Democrat is planning on making a trade mission in November, he announced this week. The news came at the opening for a new radar company, ELTA North America, which partially inspired the decision. “In Maryland, we’re able to attract businesses like ELTA because we believe in innovating, educating, and rebuilding our infrastructure,” O’Malley said. “That’s why we’re …More

Beth Zalcman is the projects coordinator at nonprofit Yavneh Olami and a freelance writer for several Jewish publications. Rachel Minkove is her first cousin. The name Rachel Tova bat Yehudit Esther was a mainstay for four years on countless “refuah” lists throughout the US, Israel and probably other parts of the world. People didn’t always know who Rachel Tova bat Yehudit Esther was, or where she was from, but from what I’ve been told in the time since her passing, many people developed a …More

Kim Drapkin says she has gunpowder in her blood. She loves to shoot, but you won’t find her on a range with goggles and a pistol, or out in a forest with a hunting rifle and a camouflage vest. A reproduction of an 1861 model Springfield, muzzle-loading rifled musket is more her style. And you can find her on an open field wearing the gray woolen uniform of the Confederate States army. Drapkin, 50, is one of a minority of Jews among the many thousands of men and women who each year don the blue and gray for …More

A campaign flyer connected to a US Senate candidate in Maryland notes the number of Jewish senators now serving. A flyer for C. Anthony Muse, a Democratic state senator and an African American, points out that there are no African Americans serving in the US Senate while highlighting the 12 Jewish senators in office. According to the Muse campaign, the flyer was “misleading and inaccurate,” but when pressed by the Baltimore Sun about who was responsible for sending it out, the campaign’s …More

A Jewish student at a Maryland high school was asked to prove that he wore a yarmulke for religious reasons. Caleb Tanenbaum, 17, was asked by the administration of Northwood High School in Silver Spring to provide a letter from a rabbi explaining why he wore the plain, off-white knitted kippah, Patch in Wheaton, Md., reported. Caleb, an Israeli by birth, decided recently to wear a kippah, according to the news website. “All students are allowed to wear headwear according to their designated …More