Saltzman: 'A great man'
Over at The Baltimore Jewish Times, executive editor Phil Jacobs has written a nice remembrance of Rabbi Murray Saltzman.
The longtime senior rabbi of Baltimore Hebrew Congregation, a civil rights marcher alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who became a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, died last week at 80.
Jacobs writes:
For Jewish Times staff, he was more often than not our go to rabbi when questions came up of ethics, social justice or even for perspective on how government sometimes interacts with of Judaism.He was on our speed dial for spiritual, social and ethical direction and comment.
There was always time to stop in his Park Heights Avenue office, take a break from the craziness of a day, and go away with knowledge and perspective.
They just don’t make many Rabbi Saltzmans any longer.President Gerald R. Ford appointed him to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 1983, he was fired from that commission for speaking out against President Ronald Reagan’s administration’s civil rights policies.
It is no irony that Baltimore Hebrew Congregation is the place where in recent memory, Orthodox and Reform teens have come together to discuss their differences and similarities. It’s no irony that Baltimore Hebrew opened itself up to people of color to worship, to congregants of diversity to worship.
It’s all no coincidence.
It is the legacy of a great man, Rabbi Murray Saltzman.
