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MARTIN O’MALLEY

GOVERNOR STATE HOUSE 100 STATE CIRCLE ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND 21401-1925

(410) 974-3901 (TOLL FREE) 1-800-811-8336 TTY USERS CALL VIA MD RELAY

GOVERNOR.O’MALLE Y@MARYLAND.GOV

STATE OF MARYLAND

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

A MESSAGE FROM GOVERNOR MARTIN O’MALLEY

Dear Friends:

Welcome to the ING New York City Marathon, sponsored since 2009 by The Blue Card, Aiding Destitute Holocaust Survivors.

The Blue Card, founded in 1934 as a Jewish self-help charity, when persecution started in Germany, was reorganized in America in 1939, and since the war, has disbursed over $22 million to destitute Holocaust survivors. Congratulations on helping more than 2,000 survivors with $1.6 million, last year alone.

In Deuteronomy, it is written that God “upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing.” It is written as well, that therefore “you too must befriend the stranger” for we all were “strangers in the land of Egypt.” It is a notion which suggests that the ancient Hebrews’ escape from bondage was an escape into the freedom to participate in the fullness of community.

It is a belief which suggests that in our own times, the greatest of freedom’s privileges is the freedom to choose a better future for ourselves and our posterity. To be willing to work and sacrifice in the present, keeping faith that tomorrow can indeed be better than today and that each of us share a responsibility in our own lives to help make it so.

Shalom.

Sincerely,

Governor