Top Stories - September 14, 2006

Religious ruminations

If you didn’t know it was there, the existence and location of Temple Emmanuel may be a mystery to some Wakefield residents. But in fact the former Yuell family estate at 120 Chestnut Street has been the Conservative synagogue’s permanent home since 1951, and a number of rabbis have served as Emmanuel’s spiritual leader since the temple received its official charter in 1947 with 22 original family members.
Extensive renovations were made to the Yuell estate to accommodate the needs of the now warm and welcoming house of worship. During this time and toward these efforts, Protestant churches in town donated money to the building fund and offered space in their churches for services. In 1964, Temple Emmanuel became an official member of the Wakefield Council of Churches.
After the retirement of Rabbi Baruch Goldstein - its first and only full-time leader - in the 1970s, Emmanuel has seen a number of part-time rabbis come and go. But because the roots of the temple go back to 1895 when the first Jewish family settled in Wakefield - and was the first to be part of Congregation Agudus Achim, "a company of brothers" organized in 1915 - the modern-day congregation is almost sure to continue growing and worshipping at this site.
To that end, Rabbi Mark Newton has led the congregation for the past year. A full-time genealogist and graduate of Georgetown University and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical School in Philadelphia, Newton, 49, has lived in Dorchester’s Ashmont Hill since 1993. However, he can trace his family’s Irish Catholic roots 350 years back to this diverse Boston neighborhood.
Not Jewish by birth, Newton was struck by the content of a class on Judaism he took in his freshman year at Georgetown in 1975 and has chosen to continue along this spiritual path ever since.
"I was always a maverick," he said from the temple library last Shabbat (Saturday) afternoon. Fluent in five languages including Hebrew, German, French, Dutch and Aramaic, the religious scholar said while he benefited from the structure and discipline of Catholicism, especially its role in inspiring him to appreciate the importance of religion in general, he didn’t believe in it and came to Georgetown looking for a spiritual home.
"I was thunderstruck by the Judaism 101 course I took," he said. And while he said he still feels fully Irish, and a smattering of other ethnicities to which he is heir, Newton said he has long felt more at home with the rituals, history, traditions and critical thinking he encountered in the study and practice of Judaism.

Health agent draws selectmen’s ire

Wakefield’s Health Agent Peter Gray came under fire at this week’s selectmen’s meeting as board members criticized Gray’s response to two separate requests for assistance from local citizens.
In the first complaint, the board received a three-page letter from Marisa Courtois of Evergreen Estates at 252 Albion St. Courtois states in her letter that a sewer pipe that flows out to Albion Street broke in February, 2006 and was repaired by the DPW. “On May 15, 2006,” Courtois wrote, “with the heavy rains this pipe burst, sending a fountain of raw sewerage into the air filling the brook, then overflowing the detention pond behind 252 Albion Street.”
In a matter of hours, Courtois claims in her letter, she was looking at one big pond. “The worst part was,” Courtois wrote, “as the water subsided the toilet paper and black sludge that had surfaced onto the rocks and driveway dried and the smell got stronger.”

AG: Boston-area firm to be searched in HP pretexting probe

SAN FRANCISCO --Investigators plan to search the Boston-area offices of a private investigation firm involved in the Hewlett-Packard Co. spying scandal, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Thursday.
Lockyer told The Associated Press that he is working with Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly in the investigation of Security Outsourcing Solutions, a small firm believed to have aided HP in its possibly illegal probe to root out media leaks in its ranks.
"He's assisting in getting our search warrants served on that firm so that we can fully examine their records," Lockyer said.
He said the firm's Needham, Mass., offices will likely be searched early next week, but he has not decided whether the firm broke any laws.
"I would like to see the results of the search warrant before having a settled opinion on that," Lockyer said.

Down the drain -- Turmoil takes toll on Brady

FOXBORO -- As long as Tom Brady plays, he’ll probably never share an on-field bond as strong as the one that linked him to Deion Branch.
That’s what makes the following so strange: Perhaps no one benefits more from Branch’s departure than Brady himself.
The Patriots quarterback yesterday made his first public comments on Monday’s trade that sent Branch to the Seattle Seahawks for a 2007 first-round draft pick. He readily admitted the uncertainty surrounding his friend had become a distraction that now - for better or worse - is lifted.
“I think everyone wanted Deion here. Certainly myself, knowing what kind of person and player he is,” Brady said. “I speak for myself when I say that I’m a very emotional person and over the last four or five months, it’s been draining. At least now I feel like I can move on.”
That drain took its toll on the field, particularly earlier this week, when Brady had one of the least-productive games of his career, completing just 11-of-23 passes for 163 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in a 19-17 comeback victory over the Buffalo Bills.

(Sources: Wakefield Daily Item, Wakefield Observer, Boston Globe, Boston Herald)