Over the last few months, I have had a front-row seat to history.

Last May, I spoke at a public hearing of Manhattan’s Community Board No. 1 in support of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan, the husband-and-wife team who initiated plans to build a 13-story Islamic community center two blocks north of Ground Zero.

I admire my colleagues and friends who have shown themselves to be courageous enough to speak out against the anti-Islam hysteria that tends to surround conversations about the Islamic center that is being planned for a property that for many is uncomfortably close to Ground Zero. They have shown themselves to be paragons of religious tolerance, and for this I commend them.

Reports of a fire at Majdanek that damaged the barracks housing hundreds of thousands of shoes of the Jews murdered in the death camp should cause us to shudder. Something monumental has been lost.

A word about Majdanek: The camp is situated in a valley just outside the major town of Lublin, in proximity to Little Majdan, from which it derived its name. It was situated in the Polish territory annexed to the Third Reich. During the war, it was part of Germany proper.

How embarrassing.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about extravagant Jewish Iranian weddings in California that exposes our community as a bunch of shallow, boastful, materialists who think the purpose of a marriage ceremony is to tell your friends how much money you have. Some of the details quoted in the article, confirmed to me by people who actually attended, included a bride placed in a glass coffin to be opened by her half-masked “Phantom of the Opera” bridegroom. The coffin did not open for an hour, and the wedding was nearly ruined by a shaken and tearful bride gasping for breath. But the coffin, on that occasion, was a telling symbol of the utter death of Jewish values that such ridiculous extravagances betray.

So much need, so few resources.

How can we in the Jewish community — which has such a wonderful track record of reaching out to worthy causes, Jewish and non-Jewish — even begin the process of tikkun olam in a world where so much is broken?

How can we support needy families in our own community while reaching out to the hurting population of the Gulf Coast, which has suffered so many calamities, from Katrina to BP? How can we keep our synagogues and other communal institutions, here and in Israel, solvent while helping the people of Pakistan, where thousands have died in flooding of near biblical proportions? How can we help replenish local food banks and still have the funds we need to pay our mortgages, food bills, and health-care costs?

The Jewish Standard held its first-ever — but planned to be annual — teen rap session earlier this month. Enlightening and energizing, it gave us confidence that the next generation is informed and thoughtful. You’ll find an account of the session beginning on page 18, under the headline “Listen and learn.”

It worries me greatly to see how the bigots and the haters have succeeded in creating a national issue over the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque. Jewish people and Jewish spokespersons need to speak out firmly in defense of tolerance.

I oppose the building of a mosque and cultural center near the World Trade Center site. I do not trust the motives of the project leaders. The imam of the proposed mosque has made several disturbing statements. The site of the mosque is an obvious affront to all Americans. We were all victims of Sept. 11, 2001.

And yet, it is important that the prevention of this project be accomplished in a legal manner. Despite my mistrust of the project leaders, none of us can look into the hearts and minds of others and determine their motives. I am not a lawyer, but I don’t believe that we can use alleged evil motivation as a reason to prevent the building of a mosque.