Baltimore, MD – The Maryland Commission on Human Relations last week served an order to the board of directors at Strathmore Tower in Upper Park Heights to refrain from removing programming features for the condominium building’s Sabbath elevator until the completion of an investigation, according to residents there.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The order was issued after the board, which was elected in late 2009, voted Jan. 19 to remove the software and hardware of the Shabbat elevator, according to residents Yosef Kaner and Paula Weinstein.
The elevator, which was retrofitted last year to accommodate Sabbath-observant residents, has been a major source of contention for the past three years at Strathmore Tower, particularly between Orthodox residents and some of their elderly African-American neighbors.
Here we go again – Yiddin making friends all over
The State should and hopefully will be able to enforce a non-discrimination decision.
Two persons are involved 1 Afro=American and the other Jewish. The cause for obstructing is the Jew probably dislikes religious observant Jews and so does the other party . These two individuals are the condomnium committee.
They could have a “temporarily disable Shabbos restrictions” button that the residents of the building who are not observant Yidden could press.
It would temporarily disable the stop at every floor until it reached the floor of the button pressed after pressing the “disabling” button.
Seems like an easy solution for everyone
i thought the latest psak said ‘shabbes elevators’ are usser anyways?
I use the Shabbos elevator on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Mondays.
If only us Jewish people would join together and once and for all USE THE STAIRS some more, we would be a little healthier! We are for the most part, fat, lazy and totally not health conscious. Pizza, falafel, chulent, kugel, lukshen, kishke, galle, etc. Its terrible that we huff and puff trying to walk up even one lousy flight of stairs! C’omon meinna teyere Yiddishe Breeder – get off your lazy behind and you have all week to practice on the StairClimber in the gym. By Shabbos you won’t even think of using an elevator!
to #4 and #5 they reversed the psak that said it was ossur and said it was muter.
I have read the article 4 times now and it only just makes sense to me – all of the previous comments dont really address the article and probably did not understand it – like I didnt the first 3 times.
It seems to me that previous Jewish board installed the shabbos elevator but now the recent new board – presumably the unhappy “elderly African-American residents” have decided to take it out. Now the Jewish residents – Yosef Kaner and Paula Weinstein.
This building is a well known issue here in Baltimore. Not really anti-frum, at least not mainly, just your run-of-the-mill racial hatred. By pure coincidence, I suspect, this argument reignited when the blacks managed to elect one or two more of theirs to the board. Look, they already spent $50K (that’s $1000 per apartment!), on legal fees to fight a non-existent increase in the cost of operating the single Shabbos elevator, and are poised to spend much more. They don’t much like any white people, but most of their venom seems to be reserved for us. Just tune in to any one of the numerous black radio stations in Baltimore, you will get an idea. Most blacks here are just deplorable, even worse than in Lakewood. The ones in Philadelphia seemed more or less ok when I lived there.