Atlanta Jewish Times, XCIV No. 09, March 1, 2019

NEXT WEEK: SPRING SIMCHA CELEBRATIONS

VOL. XCIV NO. 09 | AJMF PREVIEW

ATLANTA JEWISH MUSIC FESTIVAL PREVIEW

Festival Marks a Decade with a New Director & Direction THE TALE: FOX TELLS ALL EXCLUSIVE ONE-ON-ONE WITH DIRECTOR AND WRITER ABOUT HER CHILDHOOD ABUSE.

ISRAELI POLITICS AJT REPORTS ON THE PM AND PARTY OPINIONS FROM LOCALS AND ATLANTA ISRAELIS.

SPOTLIGHT ON BOTNICK PUBLISHER AND EDITOR OF THE JEWISH GEORGIAN STRESSES IMPORTANCE OF REMEMBERING.

MARCH 1, 2019 | 24 ADAR I 5779

2 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

PUBLISHER

MICHAEL A. MORRIS

michael@atljewishtimes.com

MANAGING PUBLISHER & INTERIM EDITOR KAYLENE LADINSKY

kaylene@atljewishtimes.com Executive Assistant

JODI DANIS

jodi@atljewishtimes.com

EDITORIAL Associate Editor

RONI ROBBINS

roni@atljewishtimes.com Staff Writer

EDDIE SAMUELS

eddie@atljewishtimes.com Contributor & Proofreader

LEAH R. HARRISON leah@atljewishtimes.com

Contributors This Week BOB BAHR DAVE SCHECHTER JAN JABEN-EILON KEVIN C. MADIGAN MARCIA CALLER JAFFE MARTINE TARTOUR PATRICE WORTHY RABBI DAVID GEFFEN RABBI JOAB EICHENBERG-EILON RACHEL FAYNE RACHEL STEIN SHAINDLE SCHMUCKLER

Hitting All the Right Notes We experience yet another Jewish festival of the arts next week as the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival celebrates a decade of entertaining the community.

Pianist-composer Joe Alterman brings his musical talents to bear as the new director of a festival with a lineup of events around town in a variety of genres, from jazz and funk to classic rock and Broadway.

As one festival begins, another closes, and we bring you a few film festival highlights: “Chewdiasm: A Taste of Montreal,” a short documentary about “Tuesdays are for Burekas” at Congregation Or VeShalom, and our exclusive interview with the writer-director-subject of “The Tale,” probably one of the most provocative films in this year’s lineup.

Eye-opening and shocking may be how some describe many of the films seen over the past two weeks, as well as the latest news from Israel.

We answer your questions about the investigation of Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu and how it might affect the upcoming elections. Atlanta Jews from across the political spectrum share their views on the election to be held next month and express concerns about the future leadership. And our Israeli correspondent Rabbi David Geffen sets the scene in the Holy Land, laying out the choices Israelis face with the political issues on their minds.

In other world news, a former Parisian tells us about the history and escalating anti-Semitic vandalism of the Yellow Vest movement in France.

It paints an eerily familiar backdrop for the type of violence Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister, witnessed in Nazi Europe and shared at Georgia Tech Monday with a packed audience. Schloss spoke about her Holocaust experiences and her friendship with Frank.

On a brighter note, we take you to Candytopia, the shopping exhibit that’s the product of a Jewish imagination.

When dreams are allowed to blossom,

THIS WEEK there’s no limit to the sweet sensations that can develop.

Whether it’s the magical melodies emanating from the AJMF or the journalistic achievements of our very own Bob Bahr, who we introduce in our new Meet the Press column, we’re hoping you find this week’s paper hits all the right notes. ■

CONTENTS LOCAL NEWS ���������������������������������� 4 WORLD NEWS ��������������������������������� 5 ISRAEL NEWS ��������������������������������� 6 OPINION ����������������������������������������� 12 AJMF PREVIEW ���������������������������� 14 ARTS ������������������������������������������������ 18 DINING �������������������������������������������� 24 CALENDAR ������������������������������������� 26 COMMUNITY ��������������������������������� 28 BRAIN FOOD ���������������������������������� 35 OBITUARIES ���������������������������������� 36 CLOSING THOUGHTS ����������������� 38

ADVERTISING

Senior Account Manager

BRENDA GELFAND

brenda@atljewishtimes.com Senior Account Manager

MICHAL BONELL

michal@atljewishtimes.com Account Manager

LLOYD STARK

lloyd@atljewishtimes.com

CREATIVE & MEDIA DIRECTOR DEBORAH HERR RICHTER deborah@atljewishtimes.com Intern

LILLI JENNISON

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Community Relations Director

JEN EVANS

jen@atljewishtimes.com Community Liaison

SONIA FIELD

sonia@atljewishtimes.com Intern

ELIANA WEISS

CONTACT INFORMATION GENERAL OFFICE 404.883.2130

kaylene@atljewishtimes.com The Atlanta Jewish Times is printed in Georgia and is an equal opportunity employer. The opinions expressed in the Atlanta Jewish Times do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper. Periodicals Postage Paid at Atlanta, Ga. POSTMASTER send address changes to Atlanta Jewish Times 270 Carpenter Drive Suite 320, Atlanta Ga 30328.

Established 1925 as The Southern Israelite www.atlantajewishtimes.com ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES (ISSN# 0892-33451) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY SOUTHERN ISRAELITE, LLC © 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES Printed by Walton Press Inc. MEMBER Conexx: America Israel Business Connector American Jewish Press Association Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce Please send all photos, stories and editorial content to: submissions@atljewishtimes.com

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 3

LOCAL NEWS

Audrey Galex directed the conversation, probing Eva Schloss with questions about her story, her friendship with Anne Frank and her life after liberation.

Eva Schloss speaks to a packed house at Georgia Tech.

The Atlanta Jewish Boys Choir performs heartwarming renditions of Ani Maamin and Am Yisrael Chai.

Schloss Shares Holocaust Story, Anne Frank Friendship

By Eddie Samuels

Eva Schloss, Holocaust survivor, author and stepsister to Anne Frank, shared her Holocaust story, her memories and ultimately her journey out of Auschwitz to a packed Georgia Tech auditorium Monday night.

The event, hosted by Intown Jewish Academy, attracted hundreds of Jewish Atlantans, Tech students, educators and others, filling nearly every seat at Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts.

4 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Rabbi Ari Sollish, founder and director of the school, delivered the opening remarks.

He reminded the crowd that there were two sets of stone tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, one whole and one broken by Moses. He likened those tablets to the struggles of Schloss and Frank.

“We recall not only the lives lived fully and tranquilly, but also those tragically cut short. … Those too are holy. Those too must be remembered,” Sollish said.

Atlanta City Council President Felicia A. Moore was next to speak, reading from a Feb. 25 proclamation recognizing the life and work of Eva Schloss, signed by herself, the 15 other city council members and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Lance Bottoms also sent a letter, which Sollish read aloud.

The Atlanta Jewish Boys Choir shocked the crowd, taking the stage alongside Rabbi Jake, performing “Ani Maamin” and “Am Yisrael Chai.”

Then it was time for the main event.

Schloss took the stage alongside Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters Producer Audrey Galex, who directed the conversation with brief questions, allowing Schloss to share her story.

Schloss began before the war itself, with the story of her parents first meeting — it seemed to be love at first sight — and their flight from Austria to Belgium, where she first met Frank.

“She was so full of stories, ... and by 11 she was already interested in boys.

When I told her I had a brother, she asked, ‘When can I meet him?’” Schloss said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

“I looked up to her because I realized she had no inhibitions and was very free.”

She recounted the Nazi invasion and the increasing danger as people went missing. At that point, her family went into hiding, Schloss with her mother, and her father and brother Heinz, separately, because apartments were small, and it was better to play the odds.

Like many Jewish families, Schloss’s was betrayed in 1942, in their case by a Dutch nurse, ultimately leading to their capture, detention and trip to Auschwitz.

Schloss described the first selection, as infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele chose based on appearance alone who would live and who would die.

She then told how she got typhoid from drinking unclean water, and her mother's desire for her to go to the camp’s

hospital, a ruse for Mengele to experiment on girls, and how a cousin stopped them from going and snuck out what she needed in order to recover.

In one of the more heartbreaking moments of her story, Schloss detailed how another selection was made, and she was forced to watch as her mother was assigned to the wrong side. Eva believed her dead, only to find out later that the same cousin, Mimi, who had helped her, had managed to save her mother.

“My mother had said, ‘I’m ready to die, but please let my children survive,’” Schloss said. “She was 40 years old.”

While she and her mother survived, her brother and father were not so lucky, as she would find out later running into Otto Frank, Anne’s father, once again.

“The first question Otto asked me was if I’d seen his wife or his daughter, and I hadn’t, and he told me he’d seen my brother and father, but they’d gone with the Germans,” she said. “At that point I didn’t know about the death marches.”

She also detailed her process of returning to a semi-normal world after the Russian liberation of Auschwitz. She began working as a photographer while still in school and met her late husband, initially rejecting his proposal so she could return home to her mother. But she later accepted it after learning Otto and her mother had also fallen for each other.

She concluded by explaining that, while she is not very religious, she makes an effort to go to synagogue on Saturdays when her busy schedule doesn’t keep her occupied.

“That is what we need: One day of calm and quiet and reflection. We have to be more considerate and think of other people,” Schloss said. “We have become quite rich and yet there are so many people in the street, … We have been given a wonderful planet rich enough to feed everybody, and we should really look around more.” ■

Are Yellow Vests Anti-Semitic?

By Martine Tartour

The Yellow Vest movement of street protests began in France just around the time I left Paris to move to Atlanta. Like many French people, I initially supported the movement. I remember many Christmas parties that I went to where I tried to explain the “Saturday marches.”

At the dawn of this protest, people demonstrated against the rise in fuel prices, but their demands extended quickly to actions to improve their living conditions, and fight poverty and precariousness. Their main motive was to be heard for the first time (90 percent of the yellow vests are non-voting).

But very soon, my sympathy faded away. I began to experience these Saturdays through the comments of my friends who saw the cars burned in front of their homes, the streets blocked, the shops closed.

But beyond that, in the Jewish community, many of us heard the hateful screams and saw graffiti and even banners directed against Jews. Here and there. From time to time. Spreading like poison. But in the media, no words about this. “It is weird that with the yellow vests, we kept silent. No one seems responsible, and there is this idea that everything is acceptable when it comes from a crowd of struggling and poor people,” Joann Sfar, cartoonist, movie director and author of the film, “The Rabbi’s Cat,” wrote Feb. 10 in Tribune Juive.

But one can’t remain silent anymore, at least. On Feb. 9 and Feb. 10, I received a barrage of messages from my friends about a flurry of anti-Semitic acts, and I was in shock. In only two days in Paris, swastikas were drawn on post boxes bearing portraits of Simone Veil, a politician who was a concentration camp survi-

WORLD NEWS

This is a shockvor and who caming reminder that paigned for womanti-Semitism and en’s rights. “JUDEN!” anti-Israel activwas sprayed on the ity are irretrievably window of bagel linked.” bakery Bagelstein in In Atlanta, I the heart of the capiwas very quickly tal. A tree planted asked to answer: in a southern Paris What is happening suburb in memory in France? Is Paris of a Young Jewish Joann Sfar Facebook Page // Anti-Semitic dangerous? Is it man who was torgraffiti like this shows the climate in Paris. better to avoid gotured to death in 2006 only because he was Jewish was also ing there for the time being, especially if you’re Jewish? chopped down.

Let’s try to understand.

Walking on the street, Alain The Yellow Vest movement is not Finkielkraut, a member of France’s most august intellectual body, was called “dirty intrinsically an anti-Semitic movement, Jew” and “Zionist” and told “Go back to of course, but as the philosopher Pierre Birnbaum explained it Feb. 13 in Le Tel Aviv, … France is our land.”

The incident was filmed and showed Monde, “It flourishes in a context conduangry men spewing a torrent of hate cive to the expression of this anti-Semispeech directed at the philosopher, who tism which associates Jews with power was simply accompanying his mother- and power with Jews.”

On Feb. 12, the government anin-law to her Left Bank home. And as if it was never enough, as I write these lines nounced a 74 percent rise in the number on Feb. 18, 80 graves have been desecrat- of anti-Semitic incidents last year. (It ed with swastikas at a Jewish cemetery should be noted that in the United States, 2017 showed a spectacular 60 percent near Strasbourg, in Eastern France.

Echoing the condemnations of these increase in anti-Semitic acts). But the acts by President Macron and his govern- French Commission of Human Rights ment, many demonstrations took place revealed the entrenchment of this antiall over France (20,000 in Paris alone on Semitism in everyday life that we might Feb. 19). In that context, some members have thought had disappeared. This is of the Parliament have proposed new leg- not the case. The commission’s study islation that will classify anti-Zionism as showed that 22 percent of the French bea form of anti-Semitism. In Israel, Presi- lieve that Jews have too much power, 19 dent Reuven Rivlin wrote to President percent that there is too much talk about Macron Feb. 20: “This week, we have the Shoah, 35 percent that Jews have a seen several serious and disturbing acts particular relationship with money.

In that context, it is easy to underof anti-Semitism. They are an affront to the Jewish people, to the French Republic, stand that because the yellow vests movement refutes the legitimacy of the French and to all humanity.”

Rivlin also spoke with Finkielkraut. state, which is perceived as the state of “I want to send you my full support. … the rich, and by extension for some of

them, mostly individuals with left-wing Islamic ideology, the state of the Jews. “If Macron had worked for the credit union, no one would have said anything about it, but the fact that he worked at Rothschild bank fuels rumours,” explained historian Marc Knobel Feb. 12 in Libération.

The yellow vests are in a nauseating spiral. “It is time to see that some people cross the line,” said a Senat member. “It is urgent to clean up.”

The Jews of France are worried.

Many think about leaving. Danny Trom, a sociologist, released a book in June 2018 with the alarming title: “La France Sans Les Juifs?” (Editions Payot).

Thousands of Jews emigrate every year to Israel. Some people keep quiet, even if the internet allows a level of hatred never reached before. “Nothing new,” will be said by some. But this contestation with power by the yellow vests, amalgamated with the power held by the Jews, comes at a time when France’s Jews are being killed because they are Jewish: Ilan Halimi, Mireille Knoll, an old Holocaust survivor murdered, the killings in Toulouse, the tragedy of the Hyper Cacher market.

So to answer the daily question that keeps popping up from my friends in Atlanta: Is it dangerous to go to Paris? I answer: Paris est une fête, (French title of Ernest Hemingway’s novel “A Moveable Feast.” And Paris will always be the city that resists hatred on all sides. It is with joy that I have heard intellectuals, politicians, people, emphatically expressing their support for Jews. Because to attack the Jews, as we know, is to attack humanity. ■ Martine Tartour is a journalist, writer and author of “Portraits d’Atlanta” (2018, Editions Hikari).

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 5

ISRAEL NEWS PM Netanyahu Under Investigation: A Guide for the Perplexed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under investigation in three criminal cases for various alleged offenses, including bribery and breach of trust.

“Case 1000”: The prime minister is suspected of having received gifts (estimated to be worth about $277,000) from businessmen Arnon Milchan and James Packer in return for promoting Milchan’s financial and personal interests.

“Case 2000”: The prime minister is suspected of seeking to promote a quid pro quo relationship with newspaper publisher, Arnon (Noni) Mozes, in which the leading daily — Yedioth Ahronoth — would provide positive coverage of the prime minister in exchange for the advancement of a law that would have curtailed the free distribution of a competing newspaper.

“Case 4000”: The prime minister is suspected of having acted in a conflict of interest and received the equivalent of bribery by promoting regulatory actions that favored businessman Shaul Elovitch. In this case too, Elovitch allegedly compensated the prime minister by ensuring positive coverage on the Walla! website Elovitch owns.

Introduction

The investigations into the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have led to a number of constitutional dilemmas regarding the next steps that should be taken if there is an indictment. Many of the questions that have arisen during these investigations result from the unprecedented prospect of a sitting prime minister under indictment and the lack of settled law on this matter. Regardless of the outcome, Israel’s political and legal community should seize the moment and contemplate legislation to regulate this matter, so the system is ready for possible future recurrences of a prime minister under investigation.

The following guide represents the collective wisdom of The Israel Democracy Institute’s scholars and explains the various possibilities and scenarios as Israel enters uncharted political and legal waters.

Q: Is the attorney general obliged to announce whether he intends to indict the prime minister (pending a hearing) before the elections take place?

A: If the attorney general is able to complete his examination of the cases in a reasonable time period ahead of the elections (several weeks), most legal 6 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under investigation in three criminal cases.

experts argue that he is obligated to announce his decision because of the public’s right to know. They argue that the same considerations that led the police earlier in the process to announce both the launch of the investigation and then its results, should apply to the attorney general’s decision. Other legal experts are of the opinion that at this point, with elections weeks away, it would be best for the attorney general to hold off on his decision so as not to provide even a hint of inappropriate influence over the public’s vote. Even then, a decision announced after the election would be susceptible to the criticism that the AG was seeking to overturn the will of the voters through legal means.

Q: What about charges of influencing the elections?

A: Law enforcement agencies must be allowed to work independently and professionally to examine claims that the prime minister, or other officials, have committed crimes, and if so, bring them to justice. The public also has the right to know if candidates for a public position may have committed a criminal offense. Publishing precise information is not considered an attempt to “influence the elections.” At the same time, law enforcement agencies are obligated to do all they can to avoid influencing political processes, especially in the run-up to elections, and to follow the requirements of due process. They must take this into account when deciding to investigate and publicize their findings.

This is why they should avoid announcing their decision at a date too close to the elections.

Q: What is the significance of a decision to indict pending a hearing?

A: A decision by the AG to indict is not a final decision and can be altered after a hearing. During the hearing, the accused is provided the opportunity to point out mistakes in the legal analysis, the evidence, or even raise new arguments in his defense.

Q: What is the significance of the hearing process?

A: Israeli law obligates a written or in-person hearing before a decision to indict for an infringement of criminal law. In practice, exceptions are also made for elected officials, even if they are accused of less severe crimes. The hearing must take place within 30 days of an announcement to issue an indictment, unless an extension is granted. An in-person hearing usually lasts only one session, although, in the case of senior officials, two to three hearing sessions are normally held. In practice, when it comes to complex cases on suspicion of breach of trust, it usually takes several months between the announcement to indict and the hearing. According to 2016 data from the prosecutor’s office, when an inperson hearing was held, 41 percent of the cases were eventually closed (49 out of 129 cases). However, it should be noted that when an assisting attorney from the prosecutor’s office accompanied the police investigators — as was the case with Prime Minister Netanyahu — then the chances of a case being closed after a hearing were greatly reduced.

Q: Can the prime minister stay in office if an indictment is issued, pending a hearing?

A: Since the decision to indict is not final until after the hearing, there is no legal requirement for the prime minister to step down if an indictment is issued.

However, other considerations, such as public opinion or concern for public trust in the rule of law, may lead a public figure to decide to resign. An additional possibility exists in the Basic Law: The Government, in which the PM may declare that he is temporarily incapable of fulfilling his role, and steps aside for 100 days. However, this does not seem to be a practical option in this case. Based on previous cases, more than 100 days usually pass between the announcement of intent to indict and the final decision by the attorney general following the hearing.

Q: Is there any reason why the prime minister could not run for election when a pre-indictment has been issued?

A: Prime Minister Netanyahu is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, and there is no legal barrier preventing him from either running for office or from being elected.

But there is a political question as well. In the Israeli electoral system, following the parliamentary elections, the president chooses a member of Knesset he believes most likely to succeed and tasks him with forming the government.

There is no legal barrier preventing the president from giving this task to Netanyahu after the elections if he feels that he is best situated to form a government.

However, the law does not prevent the president from giving the task to another member of Knesset from Netanyahu’s list, or to a MK from another party who is recommended by the Knesset factions.

Q: What is the significance of Netanyahu continuing as prime minister if a final decision on an indictment is taken?

A: There is no legal precedent requiring a prime minister to resign if he is indicted, and there is also no explicit legal requirement forcing him to resign before the all the legal processes have been completed. However, as in similar cases regarding accused ministers while in office, the public may question whether the decision for him to remain in office is a reasonable one under those circumstances. This question will mostly likely be decided upon by the Supreme Court if Netanyahu is re-elected, indicted and then refuses to resign.

ISRAEL NEWS Nevertheless, IDI’s legal experts believe that according to public norms, it is appropriate for any elected official who is indicted of serious crimes to resign from the government after a hearing. Having an indicted suspect at the top of the political pyramid could gravely harm the public’s trust in the rule of law. It would also create a serious conflict of interest for the prime minister, who is ultimately responsible for the Justice Ministry. Such a situation would also hamper the prime minister’s ability to manage the affairs of state while simultaneously defending himself in court.

Q: Precedents from municipal elections?

A: During the recent municipal elections, the attorney general’s office adopted a policy of speeding up examination of mayors and other officials so as to reach a decision of whether or not to indict them (pending a hearing) several weeks before local elections. It seems logical to apply this same policy to the prime minister’s investigation.

A decision not to issue an indictment against a candidate would remove the cloud of suspicion hanging over him or her, allowing them to run for office unhindered by criminal allegations. A decision that an indictment is necessary may help voters reach an informed decision, taking into account whether the candidate in question is worthy of being elected and the possibility that they may not be able to complete their term in office if elected.

Q: What about amending personal legislation specifically for the prime minister?

A: There should be no place in Israel for personal legislation that protects a specific individual from indictment. Such legislation stands in contradiction to the principles of the rule of law and equality before the law. But even a law that would grant any future prime minister immunity from prosecution for serious crimes that concern his actions as an elected official would cause serious damage to the rule of law.

The “French law,” which is often cited as a precedent in Israel, is an exception in the democratic world. It is a law that may be appropriate for a presidential system, but not in a parliamentary one.

Given the controversy surrounding this case, and the enormous stakes involved, it is vital that we learn lessons from this affair and consider amendments to the existing Basic Laws to allow for the speedy and efficient investigation of future elected officials who face credible allegations of criminal wrongdoing. These amendments might also include the establishment of an appropriate system of suspension or resignation during the investigation process. ■ Information provided from The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), an independent center of research and action dedicated to strengthening the foundations of Israeli democracy. For more information, visit www.en.idi.org.il.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 7

ISRAEL NEWS

Enthusiasm and Isolation in the 2019 Israeli Elections

By Rabbi David Geffen In advance of the April 9 Knesset election, Israelis are reviewing the candidate lists put forward by the parties seeking seats in the parliament. In Israel, voters choose a party, not an individual.

To win seats in the Knesset, a party must receive at least 3.25 percent of the vote.

There are two major parties in this election: Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and the new Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) party, led

by Benjamin “Benny” Gantz, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces.

No single party has ever won an outright majority in the 120-seat Knesset, so whichever party is tasked with forming a government will form a coalition with parties that win a smaller number of seats.

The Blue and White party was created by merging a new party formed by Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, another former chief of staff of the IDF, with Yair Lapid’s existing Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party. The new grouping then added Gabi Ashkenazi, another former IDF chief of staff.

8 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

One columnist, Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev, pointed out the following on Feb. 21: “The prime minister may have reacted to the news of the new partnership with his staple warning against ‘a leftist government beholden to the Arabs,’ but he knows the ludicrous allegation won’t sway anyone outside of his loyal base. Describing a list that includes three former army chiefs with proven battle records in its top four spots as defeatist and disloyal is a bridge too far for anyone but blind admirers of the prime minister.”

Gantz and Netanyahu spoke at televised rallies. The new party has no record to run on. Netanyahu spoke to his followers about the successes of his years in office (1993 to 1996 and 2009 until now).

Netanyahu enumerated his achievements in his opening address. The startups in Israel continue to blossom because it is here, in Israel, where the “Jewish” brains are hard at work. Every major sale of a startup brings millions of shekels in

taxes to Israel.

Transportation in Israel is a problem because Israelis now can buy a new or used car by just putting down a small amount of money and paying out the rest over the years.

This has been the case in America for years, but here you had to put down almost 70 percent of the price of the car. With so many more cars on the roads, you can only imagine how terrible the traffic jams are, but everyone who wants can have a car. To facilitate traffic, highways have been widened under Netanyahu’s various governments. The best known, Highway 1, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, was widened to three lanes by putting in several tunnels. The highway has a bridge for animals to cross over. I have no idea how the animals know it is there, but Israeli animals are very smart.

The Netanyahu government has spent enormous sums to develop rail transportation, both city to city, and light railways in the larger cities. Ridership is higher than what was predicted. What the current government has done is impressive because it demonstrates what earlier government could have done and did not.

Two other points: Netanyahu certainly influenced President Donald Trump to halt the agreement with Iran. I cannot judge an American president but, sadly, former President Barack Obama did not understand Iran’s intentions. The European countries want to make money from Iran, so they continue to deal with that country. Iran wants to destroy Israel – there is no doubt about it. So, efforts must be made by a major power, the United States, since Russia and China will not, to halt Iran’s atomic weapon development.

Another triumph is that Trump, as the American president, recognized Jerusalem as the present and eternal capital of Israel and of the Jewish people.

The Blue and White party, according to one of its new leaders, came into existence after all previous attempts, because Netanyahu promised extreme rightist and racist Member of Knesset Bezalel Smotrich of the Jewish Home party, that he would be the next minister of education. Netanyahu also added a small Kahanist party as a partner in this race for the Knesset. That was the straw breaking the camel’s back, bringing together the parties creating the Blue and White entity.

The fundamentals of the Blue and

White party’s platform are still in final formation, but certain ones are clear.

First and foremost, in order to avoid Israel becoming a binational state, creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel – two states for two peoples. Second, repeal of the nation-state law passed that says national rights belong only to the Jewish people. The stranglehold of the ultra-religious on religious practices, military policies, and hospital-health policies must be broken. The transportation building program must be placed under professional leadership because of problems springing up based on policies that the cheapest bids be accepted.

In the view of the Blue and White party, under the leadership of the Netanyahu government, the secular education system has been riddled with religious studies created by Chabad and other ritualistic religious entities. Textbooks on a variety of subjects have been rewritten so students in public education system do not hear about the theories of Darwin and others who have followed him. Other scientific developments, which supposedly are against the Jewish religion, have been removed from the textbooks.

The ultra-religious are beginning to enter the army in units segregated from those in which women soldiers serve.

Ultra-religious and religious soldiers in the army refuse to be in classes taught by women or exercises led by women. The leaders of the Army are trying to figure out how to deal with these issues after much foot-dragging in recent years. The Blue and White party plans to increase the draft of these individuals.

The Blue and White party’s most important goal is to diminish, in some way, the hatred in Israel which has grown up between the right and the left. For those who have lived here for a lengthy period, we are saddened by the deepening fissure extended across Israel. Certainly, individuals are entitled to their opinions, but democracies, we all believe, make it possible to argue in a civil fashion, but not to physically harm your opponent or destroy his or her property. This will be the most difficult nut to crack, but a large percentage of Israelis fear that this hatred could split the country wide open.

Little attention has been given to this issue, and it can poison the country.

And because of the intransigence of the Palestinian leaders and Hamas, little has been done to increase the possibilities of peace. ■ Rabbi David Geffen is a native Atlantan and Conservative rabbi who lives in Jerusalem.

ISRAEL NEWS

Atlantans Concerned About Potential for Kahanist in Israel Government

By Jan Jaben-Eilon

to the Associated Press. “What we have to deal with is how it is perceived and unAtlanta Jews reacted strongly to the derstood in the United States,” Hoenlein announcement that Prime Minister Ben- said. “And we have to be very careful bejamin “Bibi” Netanyahu had engineered cause it feeds certain tendencies that are the merger of two small political parties, very concerning to us.”

Netanyahu’s acone of which includes foltion was endorsed as lowers of the late Rabbi necessary to preserve a Meir Kahane. right-wing government That Netanyahu needby the National Council ed the right-wing Jewish of Young Israel, an assoHome party to combine ciation of 175 Orthodox with the ultra-nationalist synagogues. “We underJewish Power party restand what Prime Minflects the challenge to his ister Netanyahu did, and ruling Likud coalition by he did it to have ministers the newly created Blue and of the national religious White party, whose leadand national union parers include three former ties in his coalition,” said chiefs of staff of the Israel Mario Karpuj a statement given to the Defense Forces.

Israelis will vote April 9 on a new Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Kahane founded the Jewish Defense 120-seat Knesset. To maintain a majority coalition, Netanyahu will need to com- League in the United States in 1968. After bine the seats won by Likud with those moving to Israel in 1971, he created the of other parties. Israelis vote for political Kach party and served in the Knesset, until Kach was banned parties rather than indifor violating an Israeli viduals. To secure seats in law against incitement to the Knesset, an individual violence. party must win at least Kach also was de3.25 percent of the vote, clared a terrorist organia feat that neither Jewish zation by the U.S. State Home nor Jewish Power Department after the might have achieved on its Feb. 25, 1994, massacre own. of 29 Palestinians at the Bringing the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs in Power party into the elecHebron, by Baruch Goldtoral equation prompted a stein, an American-born range of negative reactions Mitchell Kaye doctor and Kach memfrom major American Jewish organizations. They ranged from J ber. Kahane was assassinated in 1990 in Street to AIPAC (the American Israel Pub- New York.

Jewish Power, known as Otzma Yelic Affairs Committee), and included the Union for Reform Judaism, Torat Chayim hudit in Hebrew, is led by Kahane disci(an association of progressive Orthodox ples. The party favors requiring Palestinrabbis), the American Jewish Commit- ian and Israeli Arabs to declare loyalty to tee, the Anti-Defamation Israel and accept a lesser League, and notably, the status in a Jewish nation Conference of Presidents that would include the of Major American Jewish West Bank territories Organizations. (also known as Judea and During a visit to IsSamaria), or face expulrael, Malcolm Hoenlein, sion. executive vice chairman Rabbi Mario Karpuj of the Conference, said of Congregation Or Hathat Netanyahu’s dalliance dash, said that Netanyawith the Jewish Power parhu “can’t pretend” that he ty created a “very disturbwas bringing Jewish Powing” image that Israel’s ener into his fold “for the Dov Wilker emies could exploit. well-being of the country.

“For those who follow this, there’s a He’s doing it for his own career.” lot of concern,” Hoenlein said, according Mitchell Kaye, who served East Cobb

Shai Robkin, who made aliyah and as a Republican for five terms in the Georgia House of Representatives, cautioned lived in Israel for many years before reagainst discounting Netanyahu’s politi- turning to Atlanta, is a self-described cal prowess. “Netanyahu is a whole lot “Bibi hater for a long time.”

Robkin said that he would not be smarter and savvy than me and most politicians and pundits. The graveyard is surprised to see Netanyahu “pull some rabbit out of his hat,” littered with those who and continue his tenure, second-guess his moves. It which is on the verge of will take ‘magic’ to unseat surpassing that of David a prime minister who has Ben-Gurion as Israel’s kept Israel safe while forglongest-serving prime ing unprecedented alliancminister. “We’ve been dises and opened doors with appointed so many times many Arab and other nain other elections,” Robtions and has built a large kin said. coalition to counter Iran’s Whether or not nuclear and hegemonic Netanyahu succeeds in ambitions,” Kaye said. forming another governDov Wilker, who ment after the election, made aliyah and is now Shai Robkin “Diaspora Jews who truly regional director of AJC Atlanta, doubts that Israelis will vote for support Israel should not care which a political party list that might send mem- coalition is in power and who the prime bers of the Jewish Power party to the Knes- minister is. AIPAC and AJC’s criticism of set. “The Israeli electorate will vote along the center-right coalition is inappropriate and self-serving,” Kaye said. ■ democratic and Jewish values,” he said.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 9

ISRAEL PRIDE

News From Our Jewish Home

An Augmedics xvision system gives surgeons a road map without ever having to look away from a patient.

Superman in the Operating Room Augmedics, an Israeli medical augmented reality company, is carrying out clinical trials of its xvision system, which incorporates three-dimensional scans of a patient’s body into a headset. This gives surgeons more information to navigate through an operation without taking their eyes off the patient.

A surgeon places a reference marker on a patient, which is used to fit the images to the body, and then through a constantly updating AR view, can see a generated view inside the patient, according to Bloomberg.

Surgeons certainly already seem like

Today in Israeli History

Yitzhak Rabin served as Israel’s prime minister in the 1970s and 1990s, and was assassinated in Tel Aviv in November 1995.

March 1, 1922: Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s fifth prime minister and the first born in the Land of Israel, is born in Jerusalem to parents who came to Palestine during the Third Aliyah. Rabin serves in the Palmach in the pre-state era, leads the defense of Jerusalem during the War of Independence, is the military chief of staff during the 1967 Six-Day War, spends five years as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, becomes prime minister for the first time in 1974 and signs the Oslo Accords during his second stint leading the government.

10 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

superheroes, but these goggles give them a visualization akin to Superman’s X-ray vision. The technology is designed to be most useful in spinal and pelvic surgeries, where a reference is important because of the rigid anatomy.

Augmedics is located in the northern Israeli city of Yokneam, Atlanta’s sister city, and has raised $9 million since its genesis in 2014. Founder and CEO Nissan Elimelech says that he expects the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to clear the device for spinal surgeries in early 2019, Bloomberg reported.

mystery, the library reported.

“The name of the scribe who wrote [the manuscript] in beautiful square letters, and even took the trouble to add vowel markings for every word, is unknown,” according to a statement from the library.

National Library Gets 180-Year-Old Indian Jewish Book The National Library of Israel received a unique manuscript from the Bene Israel community — India’s historic Jewish population. The 94-page book contains numerous prayers and blessings transliterated from Urdu to Hebrew.

The blessings cover a wide range of topics, from bris to burial, and even include some that are completely unfamiliar. Based on a ketubah (marriage contract) in the book, it is dated to 1838 and is from the city of Panvel, not far from Mumbai. It’s author, however, remains a

March 2, 1977: Israeli President Ephraim Katzir appoints Miriam BenPorat and Shimon Asher to the Supreme Court. Ben-Porat becomes the first woman to serve not only on Israel’s highest court, but also on the highest judicial authority of any nation with a common law system. A native of what is now Belarus, she made aliyah in 1936; her parents and a brother were killed in the Holocaust.

She became a lawyer in 1945 and first served as a judge on the Jerusalem District Court in 1958.

March 3, 1939: The mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, rejects a British proposal to severely limit Jewish immigration while working toward the establishment of a single state of Palestine with an Arab majority and a Jewish minority within a decade. Even though the proposal has the support of the entire Arab Higher Committee, the mufti refuses to accept any plan that results in a continuing Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.

March 4, 1987: Jonathan Pollard, who pleaded guilty to espionage charges in June 1986, is sentenced to serve life in prison for spying on the United States for Israel in 1984 and 1985 while serving as a Naval Intelligence Service analyst. The U.S. government argues that Pollard’s

Photo courtesy of Colel Chabad // Participants in a recent workshop learn to use fresh, healthy ingredients to prepare delicious food.

Israeli Food Security Initiative to Change Eating Perceptions The National Food Security Initiative has its sights on combatting growing poverty and hunger in Israel. The organization was launched in 2016 as a collaboration between Israel’s Ministry

of Welfare and Colel Chabad, the nation’s longest running social services organization.

The program consists of monthly workshops, which aim to cultivate financial independence and build useful food-related skills for those in need of assistance.

A recent workshop held in the northern Israeli town of Migdal HaEmek consisted of two components: a hands-on food preparation course that teaches budgeting, good dietary habits, food safety and hygiene, and a parenting skills workshop covering techniques for having children contribute to household chores and develop healthy habits.

“What separates this program from just being about charity is that it is designed to change how the people think,” said Dafna Chasan, Colel Chabad’s regional coordinator in the town. “This program proves that these people want to find a way to change. They want to learn more and build themselves better family lives.”

Chasan and her husband, who is a chef, organized cooking workshops to teach participants how to use healthy, fresh ingredients in an affordable way. ■

spying has done tremendous harm to U.S.-Arab relations and diminished U.S. influence over Israel, and he receives the maximum sentence. He is paroled in November 2015 but is not allowed to leave the United States.

March 5, 1891: William Blackstone, a Methodist lay leader, evangelist and wealthy real estate investor, submits a petition to President Benjamin Harrison and Secretary of State James Blaine that calls for creating “a home for these wandering millions of Israel” in Palestine. What is known as the Blackstone Memorial Petition follows a conference of Christians and Jews in Chicago in November 1890 and Blackstone’s visit to Palestine with his wife in 1888. Little comes of this petition.

March 6, 1948: Clark Clifford, a trusted adviser to President Harry Truman, writes two detailed memorandums in which he argues for U.S. support of the partition of Palestine and the lifting of an arms embargo imposed on Jewish forces there. By standing in direct opposition to policy staff and leadership of the State Department, including Secretary of State George Marshall, Clifford helps ensure Truman’s support of the November 1947 U.N. partition resolution and of Israeli independence in May.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, months from leaving office, and President Jimmy Carter, only months into office, meet at the White House on March 7, 1977.

March 7, 1977: Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Jimmy Carter meet in Washington. Rabin suggested that Israel could move forward with a peace treaty with Egypt and perhaps Jordan, while Carter expressed the preference for interim steps toward a comprehensive Middle East peace on terms dictated by the United States. Carter said Rabin was like a “cold fish,” resistant to negotiations with the PLO. Before Rabin left Washington, Carter announced that the PLO should be part of peace talks. ■ Items are provided by the Center for Israel Education (www.israeled.org), where you can find more details.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 11

OPINION Honest, I Tried to Learn Hebrew

directions. At least I looked I write this with apolothe part. gies to the late Meyer Shisler, My journalistic abilities a Polish immigrant who made up for my linguistic devoted his life to Jewish shortcomings, and for the education, primarily in the better part of two years, I Chicago suburbs. For several worked as the Jerusalem years, he attempted to teach bureau producer alongside me Hebrew, in classes after a correspondent who had public school twice a week made aliyah from America and during Sunday school.

Dave a dozen years earlier and Despite his efforts, I Schechter Israeli camera crews and arrived in Israel years later From Where I Sit editors whose English was with a vocabulary pretty superior to my Hebrew. much limited to three Still, I wish I could have sung along words: ima, abba, and kelev, which, for non-Hebrew speakers, are the words for with the Hebrew songs on the radio and not needed the translation of jokes told in mother, father, and dog.

After a couple of months in an ulpan – my presence or been able to read a newsan intensive Hebrew program – which I left paper other than The Jerusalem Post.

(I’m writing this while listening to after hiring on with an American television network, I could speak the minimum Kaveret, a major band in the history of Israeli rock ’n roll, picking out every sixth necessary to stumble through daily life.

As for reading, ponderous is a gen- or seventh word, if I’m lucky.)

I interviewed government officials, erous description of the pace at which I translated the “easy Hebrew” newspaper. including a couple of prime ministers, One night in Jerusalem, an Ameri- and numerous Israelis of lesser renown can couple stopped me on the street and, in English (and even then, was left feeling mistaking me for an Israeli, apologized inadequate by the mellifluous Abba Eban).

Today, email, Twitter and Facebook for not speaking Hebrew and asked for

12 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

bring me more than two dozen sources of news from Israel, from the political left to the right – in English.

All of this is to note a complaint made by Daniel Gordis, an AmericanIsraeli who writes and speaks on Israeli affairs, often about relations between Israel and American Jews.

In a Times of Israel blog, Gordis took a shot at a Reform rabbi in Washington, D.C., who had “implored his congregation to act before it is too late, to save Israel from itself.”

Gordis asked: “Who are these people who are being urged to save Israel? Can they read the op-ed page of a Hebrew newspaper? Since they cannot, and since the vast majority of the Hebrew press is not translated into English, why do they imagine that they know what’s best for Israel without being exposed to what millions of Israelis think, without access to Israeli discourse on the subject? (Not speaking Hebrew is no crime, of course, but should it not engender at least some humility when it comes to speaking about Israel?)”

Perhaps Gordis would prefer that American Jews not fluent in Hebrew –

even those who visit and stay informed – remain silent partners in the Israeli enterprise. Send your money, lobby your congressmen, but keep to yourself any suggestions about how we should conduct our affairs, even when those actions affect American Jewry. (I can think of several Israeli government and religious figures who might consider a little humility of their own when it comes to judging the life of American Jews.)

“The stubborn American Jewish refusal – even by many Jews who are active in Jewish life and who mouth Hebrew words as sounds week after week in synagogue – to treat Hebrew as a language that can be learned, spoken and used, is nothing short of bizarre,” Michael Weingrad, a professor of Jewish studies at Portland State University, wrote a few years ago.

Perhaps that refusal is not so bizarre when you consider that Hebrew is spoken in just one country, a country that most American Jews have not visited and that – notably – many do not hold at the center of their Judaism.

Of course, it would be good if more American Jews who talk about Israel visited, but that’s a subject for another day. ■

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 13

AJMF PREVIEW Music Festival Marks Decade with New Director, Direction

By Dave Schechter The Atlanta Jewish Music Festival enters its 10th season with a new director and a lineup that appears designed to attract a more “adult” audience, one better positioned to financially help sustain its growth.

Jazz pianist Joe Alterman has succeeded Russell Gottschalk, who conceived the idea of a Jewish music festival and established its place in the local cultural landscape.

Through its first nine years, AJMF presented an eclectic mix of genres, reflecting Gottschalk’s belief that “There are infinite ways to live Jewishly and, by extension, ways to celebrate Jewish culture.”

Alterman views Jewish music as “a cultural phenomenon that touches on every genre of music.” In some cases, “it’s more the story behind the music that makes it Jewish,” he told the Atlanta Jewish Times.

“When I think of why I’m proud to be Jewish, it’s because of the contributions Jews have made to music, and especially

14 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Joe Alterman brings his musical talents to the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival as its director.

in America,” Alterman said, restating the festival’s theme, “Celebrating Jewish Contributions to Music.”

“The fact that this year’s theme may

have specific appeal to one particular age demographic wasn’t necessarily intentional, but we are delighted with the response and the chance to extend our name recognition to new audiences,” AJMF board chair Rich Walter said.

An example of that appeal might be the festival’s opening act on March 7 at the Atlanta History Center, the Bill Charlap Trio performing jazz arrangements of music composed by Leonard Bernstein.

The festival operates with a budget of $180,000. To enhance fundraising, Alterman wants to attract people who may support such institutions as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, The Woodruff Arts Center, and the Rialto Center for the Arts at Georgia State University.

Walter said that “a commitment to quality” topped the goals in planning the 2019 festival.

“This is not to say that we weren’t focused on quality in past years, but in the past, if any musical act that was coming to town had any connection to Judaism, then we would often add it to the lineup without taking into account whether it was the right fit or even good,” he said.

In Alterman’s first year at the helm, AJMF presents a lineup of six events, roughly one-third the number of the previous year.

“Over the past few years, the festival had grown a little unwieldy, and we were offering shows that were often competing against ourselves. Our preference was to have fewer, higher quality shows that would sell out as opposed to too many shows with smaller audiences,” Walter said.

An estimated 6,300 people attended concerts during the 2018 spring event.

“Obviously with fewer events, we are expecting fewer attendees. That being said, one of our goals for this year is that each program during the festival will come as close to being a sellout as possible. We are predicting about 1,700 during the festival and that we will reach 8,000 during the year with our ongoing events and partnership programs,” Walter said.

Ticketing has been centralized on the AJMF website, alleviating the necessity of buying tickets from the individual venues. As for Alterman, the 30-year-old Sandy Springs native may be celebrated for his work at the black-and-white keys, but he knows the business side of the ledger. He functions as his own manager, agent and marketing team, using skills learned away from the piano.

Alterman put his fingers to a computer keyboard at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York for seven years, including three years in which he also performed.

As a marketing associate, Alterman created social media content for the club and for then-Blue Note artists McCoy Tyner and Jon Batiste.

Alterman also interned with recording producers, learning the business from inside the control room. His writing ranges from blog posts to assisting piano great Ramsey Lewis with his autobiography.

“Our strategy was to hire someone with a passion for contributing to the Atlanta Jewish community. We saw this as a priority. The fact that Joe brought an extensive and accomplished music background as both a performer and disseminator of content was certainly a plus. But it was his vision for expanding our reach and audience to ultimately add something of value to the community that was most important for the board,” Walter said.

Alterman envisions AJMF becoming a Jewish heritage festival with music at its heart.

Future festivals might explore such topics as the Jewish-black relationship through music as well as the Jewish fascination with “jam band” music. Alterman would like to pair music with panel discussions, annually honor a musician and continue to highlight a record label. This year’s closing event at Venkman’s March 16 features the ATL Collective performing music associated with Chess Records.

Oh, and perhaps add comedy, which has its own rich tradition of Jewish performers. ■

AJMF PREVIEW

Joe Alterman Right at Home at Helm of Music Festival

By Dave Schechter My senior year in college, back when you put a needle on vinyl, a friend turned me on to “Swiss Movement,” a 1969 album featuring pianist Les McCann and saxophonist Eddie Harris.

That recording remains a personal favorite, so when I met pianist and composer Joe Alterman a couple of years ago, I was disposed to like him, just for the reverence with which he discussed McCann as a friend and mentor.

I’ve heard Alterman at the keyboard in a few settings since and found myself either leaning in and tapping my feet or leaning back and nodding my head, and sometimes both.

This also applies to his fifth album, “More Cornbread,” recorded live at The Jazz Corner in Hilton Head, S.C., and released last November. He is backed up by bassist Kevin Smith and drummer Justin Chesarek, Atlanta musicians with whom he often performs.

“I’ve never felt totally comfortable in the studio. I love the live thing. I feed off the audience,” Alterman, the new executive director of the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival, said over coffee near his home in Virginia-Highland.

The album’s title stems from the way Alterman felt about his music when he returned to Atlanta after nine years in New York, where he studied music in college and launched his professional career. “‘More Cornbread’ is to me the way of saying Southern jazz without it being called Southern jazz,” he said.

The album includes a live recording of “Georgia Sunset,” an Alterman composition and the title track of his third album, released in 2015.

The ninth and final cut, “Les is More,” is an homage by the 30-year-old Alterman to the 83-year-old McCann.

Alterman is a proponent of making jazz accessible to people (including some of his friends, he jokes) who say they don’t like jazz but may not know when they’re listening to it.

For that segment of the audience, Alterman works modern and pop tunes into his performances, to supplement jazz standards and his own compositions.

“More Cornbread” includes his arrangements of such well-known songs as “Blue Moon,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise,” and “Over the Rainbow.”

It was not the genre’s “crazy improvisations,” as much as the way other musicians interpreted familiar tunes that drew Alterman to jazz as an art form. “So,

Pianist and composer Joe Alterman is the new director of the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival.

when people can hear a melody that they know, and hear what I do to the melody, hopefully they can relate to the music in a similar way to what turned me on to the music,” he said.

“I think that if people just didn’t have such strong preconceived notions about the word ‘jazz,’ that anyone would like it. … I enjoy fighting preconceived notions, whether it’s jazz or Jewish music,” Alterman said.

That is one of the challenges he faces as the new AJMF director. Alterman was named last August to succeed AJMF founder Russell Gottschalk.

“My whole goal growing up was just to move to New York and play piano. It happened, but what I realized after six years of doing that, like every night, was that I was enjoying only two or three out of the six nights,” Alterman said.

The night Alterman made the decision to leave New York, he wrote “Comin’ Home to You” – a tune you swear you’ve heard elsewhere but haven’t – the title track of his fourth album, released in December 2016.

Alterman self-produced “More Cornbread,” “Comin’ Home to You,” and “Piano Tracks,” his 2009 debut. “Give Me the Simple Life” (2012) was produced by Todd Barkan, with whom Alterman interned.

“Georgia Sunset” (2015) was produced by saxophonist Houston Person, who Alterman counts as among his professional mentors.

The Sandy Springs native began playing piano as a 5-year-old. At 12, when he wanted to give it up for the guitar, his parents made him a deal. He could study guitar so long as he kept up his piano lessons. Alterman’s father brought home recordings by such artists as Oscar Peterson, Ramsey Lewis and Jimmy Smith, enticing his son back to the keyboard full-time.

Alterman attended The Epstein School and Riverwood High School, and then New York University, where he earned undergraduate and graduate de-

grees in jazz piano.

He has performed at Lincoln Center, Birdland Jazz Club, and the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; Preservation Hall in New Orleans, and, particularly in the past couple of years, Winter’s Jazz Club in Chicago and The Jazz Corner in Hilton Head.

Alterman is an inveterate storyteller, particularly about musicians who have become friends and provided him with valuable musical and life lessons.

McCann suggested that Alterman practice less (six hours a day at the time, half that much most days now) and get out and live more. Asked if that advice inspired the song title “Les is More,” Alterman said no, but chuckled at the suggestion.

In a December 2017 TEDx talk at Riverwood High School, Alterman told students how, “The great pianist, Ramsey Lewis, gave me the confidence to be me.

I was nervous before a gig once and I asked him if he ever gets nervous. And he said, ‘No, I only knew that I could do what I could do the best that I could do it, so I did it.’”

On the personal side, when Alterman was having girlfriend trouble a few years ago, the pianist Ahmad Jamal asked him: Is she a muse or a distraction?

They broke up the next day. (For those inclined to ask, Alterman is single).

Alterman will need a young man’s stamina. In addition to his AJMF duties, his 2019 performing schedule takes him to New York, Chicago and other venues.

He also plays at private events, sometimes two or three times in a week. ■

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 15

AJMF PREVIEW

AJMF Puts Focus on Jewish Influence

By Kevin C. Madigan The latest installment of the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival, its 10th season, kicks off March 7 with a weighty lineup of artists playing in venues around town. This one marks the debut of the fest’s new director, jazz musician Joe Alterman, who says he wants to highlight not just Jewish performers, but composers and lyricists as well.

“I came into this job trying to figure out what Jewish music is, and it occurred to me there is no one definition of it, so I’m choosing to define it as the cultural phenomenon that touches on every genre of music,” Alterman told the AJT. “If you look at our lineup this year, it’s for music fans, but it’s really for people who are interested in American history; it covers the whole range of 20th century music and how Jews are involved in it.”

The Bill Charlap Trio “Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein,” Atlanta History Center on March 7, 7:30 p.m.

First up on the schedule is the Bill Charlap Trio – with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington – playing music from Leonard Bernstein’s vast repertoire. A jazz pianist from New York, Charlap began tickling the ivories at the tender age of 3, and he has been going strong ever since. His 2004 album of songs by Bernstein received a Grammy nomination and forms the basis of his AJMF appearance.

Charlap’s collaboration with Tony Bennett, “The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern,” won a Grammy Award in 2016 for best traditional pop album. A Time magazine reviewer wrote that Charlap “approaches a song the way a lover approaches his beloved … he invariably zeroes in on its essence.”

Charlap, now 52, is married to Renee Rosnes, a well-known jazz pianist herself as well as composer, and the pair often works together. For the past 15 years he has been artistic director of New York City’s Jazz in July Festival and is currently the director of jazz studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. In a conversation with Alterman about Bernstein, Charlap said, “There’s a sense of prayer. There’s a sense of expansiveness. There’s a talmudic type of knowledge, and a wit to anoint and lift and educate. He was, in a way, as famous an educator as he was a conductor or a composer or a pianist or a theater writer. I think he may have been maybe the greatest professor of music that we’ve ever had, and at the same time, one of the most charismatic performers all across the board.”

Lawrence Vinyl at Center Stage, March 9 at 9 p.m.

A funky young band from New York called Lawrence will take the stage at Vinyl for a show that has been described as an extravaganza of soul, sound and sweet joy. Fronted by a pair of siblings, Clyde and Gracie Lawrence, the band includes a full horn section and uses “rich, ninepiece arrangements (that) pay tribute to Motown, Muscle Shoals, and everything in between,” according to Relix magazine. Asked about their upbringing, Clyde said, “We were listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder growing up, plus Motown, Beatles, Beach Boys and Randy Newman.”

The band is made up of old pals. “None of them was hired from professional relationships; they are all people from various points in our lives,” Clyde said. “One is a 16 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

friend from childhood, another from middle school, the other four I met in college.”

The pair is also involved in films, with Clyde composing scores and Gracie as an actress. Both worked last year on the movie “Noelle,” filmed here in Georgia and starring Anna Kendrick and Shirley MacLaine, scheduled for release next Christmas.

Their new album “Living Room” has been well received at current gigs. “A great reaction,” Gracie said. “We put it out and immediately went on tour. That’s a pretty quick way to find out how people are responding to it, and the crowds were double the usual size in some places and seemed to be actively singing along. They knew the lyrics, but the album had only been out three days. … It was really crazy.”

An NPR review stated that “sonically, the album combines elements of Lawrence’s old and new influences by mixing live with electronic, analog with digital, and meticulousness with spontaneity.”

Bob Spiotto Salute To Hollywood: Jewish Contributions to Academy Awards Best Original Songs, The Breman Museum on March 10, 5 p.m.

Bob Spiotto has spent a lifetime in the arts in a variety of creative ways – singer, actor, performer, producer, administrator – but he seems to be ready for more. “I’ve worn so many unique hats over the years, and my head is still not tired out,” he told the AJT. Spiotto is known for his one-man shows on Danny Kaye, Joel Grey, P.T. Barnum, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Primo Levi, Michelangelo, and Sholem Aleichem. In 2011, he directed the off-Broadway production of “Harry and Eddie: The Birth of Israel,” to good reviews. For 12 years he was program director at Hofstra University, and now holds a similar position at New York’s Friars Club.

“I’m always looking to expand those horizons and reinvent myself as often as I can.”

Case in point: Spiotto is putting together a show for AJMF that pays tribute to songs that won an Academy Award for best song, all with a Jewish connection. He will be accompanied by singer Deb Bowman and, on piano, AJMF director Joe Alterman, both Atlanta natives.

“We’re serving up approximately 30 songs, which is quite an undertaking. Obviously we are not doing every verse of every song, but the piece will evolve and develop chronologically from 1934 onwards,” Spiotto said. “There will be some wonderful narrative, Hollywood insight and anecdotes of how these songs came to be and what songs they were up against, with solos, duets, and instrumentals thrown in as well.”

He added, “So many have been by composers and lyricists of Jewish-American descent, which is an incredible musical heritage. Without them, there wouldn’t be too many songs left in that category.”

Ben Sidran “There Was A Fire: Jews, Music and The American Dream,” Ahavath Achim Synagogue on March 14, 7:30 p.m.

“Ben Sidran is not only one of the most accomplished jazz and rock musicians/ producers of our time. He is also one of the foremost experts on Jews and their contributions to popular American music – a subject that is deeply personal to him.” That’s according to Pamela Morton, director of the MJCCA Book Festival. Sidran appeared at her event in 2014 promoting his book on the topic which was nominated for a National Jewish Book Award after taking him a whole decade to write.

Sidran, 75, described that process in a statement to the AJMF: “Along the way I learned a lot, and in the end, I think I was able to unravel the mystery that is the interaction of popular music in America and the Jewish penchant for social justice, and also answer some key questions, like who is a Jew in America? What is Jewish about popular music in America? And what is the prognosis for the future?”

AJMF PREVIEW

Born in Chicago, Sidran earned a doctorate in American Studies from Sussex University in England, his dissertation being a study of African-American music that was published in the book “Black Talk.” He calls himself a musician, author, scholar and producer. He has worked with Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Diana Ross, and Mose Allison, and for a time played keyboards in the Steve Miller Band.

His AJMF show, based on his book, will include songs, stories, history and philosophy, with references to Irving Berlin, Emma Lazarus, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Richard Rodgers, among others. He will also endeavor to explain how a group that rarely exceeds 2 percent of the U.S. population managed to contribute 80 percent of the American songbook.

Friday Night with Alan Light Jewish Contributions to American Music: Bob Dylan, Beastie Boys & Beyond, Temple Sinai on March 15, 6:30 p.m. service; 8:15 p.m. conversation Continuing the AJMF theme of Jewish clout in contemporary American sound, journalist Alan Light will appear at Temple Sinai to discuss the role that Jewish artists and behind-thescenes figures such as producers and executives have played in the development of pop music.

Light has had an extensive career in music journalism, having written for Rolling Stone magazine starting in 1990, and then as editor of Vibe, and later, Spin magazines. He served as a music correspondent on NPR, is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and is the author of half a dozen books on famous musicians.

“We’ll be talking about people I’ve written about extensively, like the Beastie Boys. I wrote a book on them and spent a lot of time with them,” Light said, “and I’ll be opening up the lens on (producer) Rick Rubin. At the other extreme, I wrote this book about Leonard Cohen (“The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of ‘Hallelujah,’” 2012) so that’s another angle. I imagine we will be bridging across different styles and disciplines because there’s a lot of stuff I can talk about.”

The presentation will include plenty of songs, of course, and the presence of moderator Billy Planer. “He runs a summer program in Georgia for teenagers (Etgar 36) that my son went on a couple of years ago,” Light explained. “We spent a lot of time talking about music; we’ll have the advantage of hitting the ground running with a friendship in place that will let us get deeper into it.”

legendary Chess Records label, known for releasing time-honored songs in blues, soul, gospel and early rock.

Chess Records was founded by two brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess, in Chicago in the late 40s. They were Jewish immigrants from Poland who changed their last name, Czyż, on arrival in the U.S. The pair opened a liquor store on the south side of the city and, with the money they made, opened a small club with live acts. At the time, black musicians were seldom signed by record companies, so the Chess brothers decided to fill that void, and thus their label was born.

A then-unknown Muddy Waters scored the label’s first hit in 1948 with “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” a raw Southern blues number. Etta James, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, Bo Didley, and Howlin’ Wolf all eventually became part of Chess Records and vastly influenced much of subsequent rock and roll. The 1951 song “Rocket 88” by Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm and released by Chess is widely considered to be the first true rock and roll record.

“The Chess Records show is going to be cool,” said AJMF director Joe Alterman.

“It’s the story that makes it Jewish, not the music necessarily. There’s a Jewish story to weave into it, and we will.” ■

ATL Collective Relives the Sounds of Chess Records, Venkman’s on March 16, 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

ATL Collective is a local enterprise that puts on live shows of classic songs and albums played by an array of regional musicians, “recreating and celebrating the greats of the past,” according to an official statement.

The group is showing up once again at AJMF, this time covering music from the ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 17

ARTS Rebeca Robles Makes Moves in ‘The Wolves’

By Rachel Fayne

we’re playing soccer almost constantly. There’s no intermission. We’re kicking; we’re doing stretches. It’s a flurry of movement and dialogue. The dialogue is also very true to how teenage girls talk. There are so many conversations happening at once, and many of those conversations can get a little raunchy. It’s crazy for the actors in the show.

The Horizon Theater’s “The Wolves” is receiving attention for its unconventional style and real-life dialogue between its teen characters. An all-girls soccer team is surprised by a new team member as they practice on the field for their upcoming championship, and the Rebeca Robles, 25, stars in teens deal with some “The Wolves,” about a young all-female soccer team. challenges along the way.

AJT: Tell me about your character Jewish star Rebeca Robles, 25, disRobles: None of the characters have cusses everything from the sometimesnames – only numbers. It goes back to raunchy dialogue of the ensemble cast the playwright Sarah DeLappe’s interest to the fact that she’s in almost constant in war movies, I think. In many ways, she movement on the ‘soccer field’ throughuses the group of teen girls like a group of out the show and plays a character alwarriors. I play number seven, the striker most 10 years younger than herself. in the group. The team relies on me to AJT: What’s your background? How score a lot of the goals, so my character is the star player in a lot of ways. She’s long have you been acting?

Robles: I acted in college and gradu- also more mature and more experienced ated from a small school called Asbury when it comes to boys and sex. It feels University [Christian liberal arts school like she’s more adult. She’s too cool for in Kentucky] with a double major in Eng- school. She also curses quite a bit. lish and theater. I grew up in South CaroAJT: Have there been any surprises lina, but there was better training up along the way?

North, so that’s where I went. I went back Robles: It’s been great. I haven’t done and forth between Atlanta and New York this long of a run with a show before, and City for a few years, but I’ve been here in we’ve all grown so much from our openAtlanta now for about 2 1/2 years. I don’t ing until now. There’s a lot being hidden know that I’ll stay forever, but Atlanta in the dialogue and so much underneath feels like home now. it all. Also, most of us aren’t trained socAJT: What’s your Jewish back- cer players. I learned a whole new sport, ground? Have you attended synagogue and we all worked our butts off. Rehearsing typically included 2 ½ hours of soccer here in Atlanta?

Robles: I do not attend synagogue practice before we even got to the show. currently, although everyone on my fa- It’s a very different kind of play in that ther’s side of the family are Jewish and it’s so real. It even takes the audience a practice where they live in Panama. minute to adjust to the way these girls I grew up observing the Sabbath and talk and everything happening all at Jewish holidays. My family migrated to once. It’s really different and exciting, Central America from Spain as early as and I hope people continue to come out during the Inquisition. Our original fam- to see it. ■ ily name is Athias, but was changed to “The Wolves” ends its month-long run Robles somewhere along the way.

Sunday at the Horizon Theatre Company, AJT: “The Wolves” is about a girls’ 1083 Austin Ave., Atlanta. Performances indoor soccer team and has some un- are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday conventional elements. What about the with matinees at 3 p.m. Saturday and 5 script appealed to you? p.m. Sunday. Tickets start at $30 during the Robles: Well, it’s an all-female play week, $35 for weekends, and $20 for teens of nine women; one is a surprise char- and full-time students younger than 25 with acter at the end. We’re also mostly all in a valid student ID. Tickets and information our mid-20s and play teenagers, which are available at www.horizontheatre.com, is pretty funny. In the 90-minute show, or 404-584-7450.

18 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

ARTS

Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman explore the Jewish food delights of their native Montreal in “Chewdaism.”

Pastrami on rye is also one of the stars of “Chewdaism: A Taste of Jewish Montreal.”

Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion introduce their film, the closing presentation of the 2019 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival

Chewdiasm Comedy Closes Out AJFF

By Bob Bahr The Stage Door Deli on Broadway in New York is long gone; the Carnegie Deli closed its doors across the street from Carnegie Hall over a year ago. Traditional America Jewish deli food is in retreat and the temples of overstuffed corned beef and pastrami sandwiches that once dotted big city Jewish communities in America are dropping right and left.

But in Canada, in Montreal, particularly, Jewish delis and bakeries with names like Cheskies, Schwartz’s, St-Viateur Bagel and Wilensky are thriving.

The Montreal bagel with its crispy exterior and its chewy and slightly sweet interior is admired all over the world for the unique classic that it is.

So, it is not surprising that two natives of the French-speaking city, who grew up on great Jewish food, would consider it only proper that they bring the joys of the Jewish deli, Canadian style, to the lower 48.

The result is “Chewdaism: A Taste of Jewish Montreal,” that closed out the 19th annual Atlanta Jewish Film Festival with two screenings last Tuesday at the Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs.

The documentary is a 24-hour food fest that follows the film’s two stars, Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, as they eat their way through six meals and a hundred years of Jewish history in Montreal.

It’s an outgrowth of a video web series they produced, called Global Shtetl, that explored a variety of Jewish communities in London, Tel Aviv, Houston, Detroit, Toronto, New York and Krakow before coming home.

The duo, which has extensive experience with feature film and the network television projects of others, launched their own careers five years ago with a $5,000 grant from the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal. They are surprised they’ve come this far.

“Who could have imagined,” Elman says, “that we would still be doing this

and that it would have evolved into this documentary? We love Jewish culture; we love thinking about questions of Jewish culture, identity and other cultures.

We like to see how everything intersects with each other.”

Their YouTube videos have racked up 3 million page views and a loyal following since they first began in 2014, and they have been honored four times for their web series by the Canadian Screen Awards, that country’s version of the Oscars.

While food is the film’s big draw in “Chewdaism,” Montreal's rich Jewish history is on display as well. The city that produced the likes of famed novelist Mordecai Richler and songwriter, poet and performer Leonard Cohen also nurtured political commentator Charles Krauthammer and Mort Zuckerman, who is chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report and publisher of the New York Daily News, among many other influential figures.

While the guide for the historical journey through Montreal is the executive director of the Museum of Jewish Montreal, all the fun in the film comes from Batalion and Elman, who have built a growing mini-comedy empire around the success of their YouTube hit, YidLife Crisis. It’s a series of short situation comedy sketches done entirely in Yiddish with English subtitles.

The first episodes took place, appropriately enough, in Montreal’s restaurants, where the pair poked fun at themselves and their Jewish heritage. It was done in a style reminiscent of the way devout Jews study the Talmud, as two chevruta, or study partners, sparring with one another.

“YidLife Crisis is trying to use what we like to call the Trojan horse of comedy to unpack complicated issues of identity,” Elman said. “We try to square our Jewish or otherwise religious and spiritual upbringing with the modern atheist, secular, profane, heretical, heathen lifestyle

that we currently live.”

The Yiddish of their web series is not that of observant black hats, but rather of an adult humor grounded in the great American comedians of the past quarter century and the language of the rough and tumble streets of the Lower East Side of a hundred years ago. So, viewer discretion may be advised.

“We wanted to show the side of Montreal where the Jews are not all that ultraOrthodox and are not all that religious,” Elman said.

“The tradition of Yiddish comedy

that I guess we feel that we’re part of comes to us through the Yiddish sensibility that was passed down to us through the American Jewish comic. So, we grew up on everyone from Mel Brooks to Woody Allen to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and many, many more.”

“Chewdaism,” which is making the rounds of the Jewish film festival circuit, was shown last month at the Miami Jewish Film Festival as well as in Atlanta.

This coming week, Batalion and Elman are back in Miami for a live show, based on their YidLife Crisis web series. ■

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 19

ARTS

Photos courtesy of Adam Hirsch // The Tuesday morning gatherings create more

than 10,000 bureka pastries for the synagogue’s Chanukah bazaar.

Burekas are baked turnovers that originated as a Sabbath treat in the Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean.

The Bureka Ladies of Or VeShalom Maintain Tradition

By Bob Bahr Famed anthropologist Ruth Behar stopped by Congregation Or VeShalom, the Sephardic synagogue on North Druid Hills Road, the day after delivering Emory’s annual Tenenbaum Lecture on Jewish life. The congregation’s gift to her was a modest one: six frozen bureka pastries nestled on a white foam plastic plate tied with a thin blue ribbon.

The presentation speech by Grace Benator, who was born into the con-

20 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

gregation 83 years ago, was short and simple: “Don’t microwave. Just heat in a 400-degree oven. They’ll get nice and crispy.”

For the past several decades, the little pillows of dough filled with savory fillings such as feta cheese and spinach, or eggplant, or cheese and rice, have been a standout at the synagogue’s annual Chanukah bazaar. They are said to have originated as a Sabbath treat in the eastern Mediterranean. Last year, Or VeShalom sold more than 10,000 of the pastries,

which helped to raise more than $50,000.

For decades, they have, in effect, become a symbol of the way the congregation has honored its heritage. The synagogue was started 104 years ago by immigrants from Turkey and the island of Rhodes off the Greek coast. Every Tuesday morning the members of the Sisterhood sit at a long stainless steel table shaping and folding ovals of fresh dough just as their grandmothers and greatgrandmothers did in the “old country.”

Last November, The New York Times was impressed enough by the tradition that it sent Jewish cooking maven Joan Nathan to write about “Bureka Tuesdays” at Or VeShalom.

Just last Sunday, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival premiered “Tuesdays Are for Burekas,” a six-minute tribute by Atlanta marketer Adam Hirsch. He’s been cited by the Atlanta Jewish Times as one of its 40 Under 40 outstanding young community leaders. He believes that what the women of Or VeShalom are doing is unique.

“Secondand third-generation Americans have kind of lost all of their family traditions, especially culinary traditions, and have just taken in American culture. I feel that, for these women, it’s really an important thing that they teach their children and their grandchildren these recipes.”

It’s a job that becomes increasingly critical as the Sephardic community, which was once tightly bound by marriage and family, becomes more assimilated. Or VeShalom, which recently renovated its intimate jewel box of a synagogue, has no Sunday school or Hebrew school, and is said to have had a difficult time attracting new members – Sephardic or not.

Behar, who was born in Cuba before Castro came to power, and moved to America as a small child, grew up in a half Sephardic family in Queens, New York. After a distinguished career studying the modern Hispanic populations of

Mexico and Cuba, she has developed a strong interest in her Sephardic roots.

“I was really interested in the bureka ladies. I am interested in this culture and what remains of it in America and in the world. I am interested in what’s happened to the Sephardim, to Ladino, their ancient language, what is distinct about these people today. It is a more invisible culture than the Ashkenazic majority.”

Hirsch has also taken an interest in Sephardic culture, partly because some of his relatives by marriage are Sephardic and partly because he is involved in Hispanic culture through the Goza Tequila brand he helped create.

In additional to the screening this year, two other short films he’s made have been featured in past AJFF programs. He’s now putting the finishing touches on a longer documentary of Ethiopian Jews in Israel that he hopes to debut though the AJFF. He’s particularly impressed by the way the AJFF, which just concluded, brings so many different people together.

“Every time I am a part of it, I look around the room and I am really impressed by the diversity in the room. It really makes me happy knowing that people from different cultures show up to Atlanta Jewish Film Festival because they care about the Jewish community that they live in.”

Before she left Or VeShalom, Behar, with her burekas firmly in hand, presented the synagogue a copy of her award-winning coming of age novel for middle schoolers, “Lucky Broken Girl.” It is about a young girl, like herself, growing up Sephardic. Next up is a book for even younger readers.

“I want to come to terms with Sephardic life as a poet and as a writer and what it means to be half Sephardic. I am now writing a children’s book about Sephardic culture,” she revealed, “because we have hardly any books about that for 5-year-olds.” ■

ARTS

‘The Tale:’ A Challenging Film About A Difficult Subject

By Bob Bahr “The Tale,” which was one of our Best Bets at the recent Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, is among the most honored of the dozens of films screened this year.

It won for its star, Laura Dern, not only a Golden Globe Award, but renewed notice as an actress of extraordinary range and depth. She was the cover story of January’s Vanity Fair magazine and the film was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

Just last week, the film’s director and the writer of the screenplay, Jennifer Fox, received nominations for her writing and directing at the Spirit Awards for independent film.

Fox’s true-life story of sexual abuse at the age of 13 by a respected 40-year-old athletic coach is told with unflinching realism that for some may be difficult to watch, yet, as she told me recently, it is a story that demands to be told.

ward and say we are not exempt from any human conditions, including all the negative ones.

“The Tale” tells the story of a middle-aged woman, played by Laura Dern, coming to terms with her sexual abuse as a child.

logue and the sex scenes.

That’s the story I told myself until I was about 45, when I was mature enough to be able to handle the fact that I could have been a victim.

At 45 was the first time I could actually admit to myself what happened to me. And that was the first time I used the word sexual abuse myself. And that’s when I decided to make a film about it.

AJT: What do you think this film has accomplished?

AJT: The sex scenes between the Fox: I think child sexual abuse is one of the taboos we have trouble even speak- 40-year-old man and the 13-year-old child are quite graphic. Do ing about. And so, the you think this could first thing this film present a problem does is to open up the for audiences? conversation.

The Fox: When I second thing we tried started to write this to describe is that film, I knew that child sexual abuse is it would be a deal so much graver and breaker not to show more complex. So, the sex scenes. I if you don’t underthought this was restand the complexally useful because ity, you really don’t most films about understand how it child sexual abuse happened. The film have this tendency really can open up to have the child and a discussion of how the adult walk into complex it is when a child gets ensnared Jennifer Fox’s true story, “The Tale,” won a room and fade to a standing ovation when it premiered black or the adult with a predator and at last year’s Sundance Festival. makes the move tothe nuances of feelwards the child and the film fades to black. ing that a child can go through.

And I think that’s a way that audiAJT: As the film describes it, you ences don’t have to grapple with what I lived with this abuse for years as an adult would call the ordinary horror of it all. without fully facing it until you were in The abuse is like a bullet that shatters in middle age. Why do you think it took so you rather than a bullet that cuts cleanly long for you to recognize what you had through.

Children without their parental congone through?

Fox: Much of my life I had a story sent should not see this film. Obviously, that I told myself. That story was that I it’s not shown in high schools, only colchose to have this relationship, for better leges, but it’s a risk I thought was worth or worse, and that I got something from facing compared to the reward of being it. I got a sense of being special, of be- able to talk directly about what actually ing loved. It wasn’t a forgotten memory. happened.

Much is in the film exactly as I rememAJT: In the Jewish community, we bered it, including whole patches of dia-

don’t like to admit that we have any faults. Perhaps the problem of childhood sexual abuse is another problem that the Jewish community has not fully faced?

Fox: I totally agree with you. Totally agree. I think that our arrogance about who we are blinds us to what’s going on in our own backyard. In the 70s, my parents were blind to childhood sexual abuse. It just doesn’t happen in the Jewish community.

Anyway, we know all of that is false, and we have to keep gently facing for-

AJT: Tell me about the very ambitious educational program that you’ve developed for your film.

Fox: So, the goal with this film was to do outreach and audience engagement.

We have partnered with many important organizations; every one from Planned Parenthood to various psychological organizations … across the globe even. So that when the film came out it could be used immediately to spread awareness.

There’s a printed audience guide and there’s a facilitator guide that we’ve created. It gives some ideas of how you might use the film to prompt a conversation to look at child sex abuse and the issues of memory in a new way.

Anybody can request a free screening of the film. You just fill out a form.

We schedule your screening, we send you everything you need at no cost to you. ■ For more information and to schedule a free screening of “The Tale,” www.hbo. com/movies/the-tale.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 21

ARTS

Jackie Sorkin, creator of Candytopia, in front of the Georgia peach.

Zac Hartog, Jackie Sorkin and John Goodman enjoy the swinging pods.

Candy portrait of Ray Charles.

Candytopia, The Product of a Jewish Imagination

By Patrice Worthy

lanta visitors. There are candy portraits of Real Housewives of Atlanta's NeNe It’s sweet. It’s interactive. It’s playful. Leakes and Kim Zolciak; a candy portrait It’s sensory-overload. It’s Candytopia, the tribute to Ray Charles; and a giant candylatest experiential shopping exhibition to coated Georgia peach.

“There were cities we wanted to go hit Atlanta. Candytopia brings the quintessential childhood fantasy of a candy- to, and Atlanta was on the top of our list,” Goodman said. coated world to life.

The exhibition It's located at EDENS includes more than Lenox Marketplace a dozen rooms of in Buckhead, which candy-made instalopened last month. lations, including a Candytopia is marshmallow swimappealing for both ming pool with half a kids and adults million foam marshwho appreciate the mallows and Kraft sweeter side of life, Jet-Puffed Marshsaid Jackie Sorkin, a mallow samples; an global candy artist. underwater-themed She created the exhiroom with candy bition with co-foundCandy portrait of record-breaking covered sea creaers Zac Hartog, an Grammy winner Cardi B. tures; a rainbow events and production design expert, and John Goodman, a room with flying unicorn pigs, confetti explosions and Trolli Twisted Sour Brite retail veteran.

“I watched ‘Willie Wonka and The Crawlers gummy samples.

Celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, Chocolate Factory’ and was raised on the movie and the principles in the movie of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Biel, Bruce Wildream big and be a good person,” Sorkin lis, Adam Sandler, Kevin Durant, Josh Dusaid. “You can be a little crazy and your hamel, Christina Aguilera, James Corden, dreams can come true. I watched it so Wiz Khalifa, Hilary Duff and Alessandra Ambrosio have all visited the mini much I made it come true for myself.”

Candytopia Atlanta features all the theme park. It’s the most “magical place” popular attractions from its locations in said Goodman, former CEO of Charlotte New York City, San Francisco, Los Ange- Russe and Wet Seal. He got involved with les and Miami, with new additions for At- the project after seeing the candy por22 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

traits done by Sorkin and her team. After were hardworking immigrants, which running the numbers, he felt like it was often led to Sorkin being home alone.

“I was the typical latchkey kid,” she his destiny.

“This is just the most magical place. said.

We just bring happiness to people for an She comforted herself with food hour or so and you can’t stop smiling,” he early on, and by the time she was 12 said. “It’s all ages, and by the time people she was enrolled in Camp Pennbrook get to the third in Pennsylvania, a room, they can’t weight loss camp stop smiling.” for teens. When she Each location attended the camp, is blessed by Rabbi Sorkin finally felt Zalman Shneur, like she belonged, executive director she said. There she of Menachem Edubegan to cultivate a cation Foundation, healthier relationand offers kosher ship with food and candy, an imporwith herself. Now, tant part of the exshe’s dedicated to perience, Goodman bringing sweetness said. In New York to as many people The underwater-themed room City, Candytopia as possible. featured aquatic life. includes a kosher “Candy was table with chocolates and taffy. He plans taken away from me as a kid, and I loved to welcome the Chasidic community in it so much that now I turned candy into Atlanta, after receiving such great feed- a life for myself,” she said. “The same back in New York. feeling of belonging I had at Camp Penn“Every holiday like Purim the Cha- brook is what makes Candytopia this insidic community was there. The com- credible place where everyone belongs. I munity really embraced us and had fun,” love that through candy, which is my meGoodman said. “The rabbi showed me dium, we’ve created this incredible place. pictures of him and his family and it was We have lightning in a bottle, and this is really special.” magic we’ve captured.” ■ Sorkin is the daughter of immigrants. Her father is an Argentinian RusCandytopia is at Lenox Marketplace, sian Jew and her mother is Mexican. Both 3535 Peachtree Road NE, Buckhead, through

ARTS June 3. Tickets are $28 for adults, $20 for children four to 12 and free for children 3 and younger. For more information, visit Candytopia.com

From top to bottom: The sideways door is the gateway to a slide; Another underwater scene; Candy sculpture of the Sphinx surrounded by portraits; Candy sculptures of lollipops; Interactive exhibit featuring flowers that smell like peppermint, chocolate and gum.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 23

DINING

The family prepares recipes together: Natalie Bitton Rosenthal, Nancy Bitton and Julie Bitton Price.

Julie Bitton Price loves the colors and the real Moroccan plates to showcase her salads and omelet first course.

Julie Bitton Price's kitchen update includes multiple sinks and dishwashers to accommodate her kosher lifestyle.

The Joy of a Moroccan Feast à la Toco Hills

By Marcia Caller Jaffe

Julie Bitton Price, production director for Turner Classic Movies-Warner Media, shares her traditional kosher family Shabbat meal served with the authenticity of her frequent visits to her Moroccan father Gaby Bitton (one of 12 children from Marrakech) and mother Nancy.

Some of the fragrances and dishes wafting from her recently renovated kitchen are cooked carrot salad, Moroc-

can omelet, salade cuite (tomato), dafina (cholent/stew), boulettes (dumplings), couscous, and chicken with olives and preserved lemon.

Get to know the family, along with its food traditions.

Marcia: What are your childhood memories from your mother’s Moroccan food?

Gaby: Very fresh, no cans. The tagines [stews] she made were the best on

the block, and my friends always wanted to come over for a snack and boulette sandwiches.

Marcia: Nancy, did Gaby’s family spend time teaching you about Moroccan cooking?

Nancy: I sat in the corner of my mother-in-law’s kitchen and watched her for hours in Ashkelon, Israel. We didn’t even speak the same language; she spoke Arabic, a little French and a little Hebrew.

We communicated via the cooking lessons.

My in-laws emigrated from Morocco in the early 60s. I loved the healthy food and the vegetables in Moroccan cooking, some of which I had never heard of growing up in Ohio.

Marcia: An Ohio gal, how did you meet Gaby?

Nancy: I was studying French at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, where Gaby was completing his master’s degree.

We were married and lived in Israel while Gaby got his Ph.D. at Hebrew University. I worked at Weizmann Institute, and spent every Shabbat with Gaby’s family.

We then moved to Boston, for Gaby’s post doc at Harvard University, finally settling in Gainesville, Fla. Marcia: How would you describe Moroccan cuisine?

Nancy: Moroccan dishes are very easy to cook ahead and then reheat when guests arrive. Moroccan spices include: turmeric, coriander, ginger, cumin, white pepper, paprika (regular and spicy) and saffron.

Marcia: What are the favorite dishes that Nancy prepares now?

Gaby: We make a great couscous together!

24 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Family patriarch Gaby Bitton makes his favorite Moroccan chicken with olives and preserved lemons.

Marcia: Do you use any special dishes/platters or utensils to make the food service more authentic?

Julie: Clay tagines make Moroccan entrees look even better. I often use blue and white pottery serving platters.

Marcia: Is there anything that makes preparing Moroccan food in a kosher kitchen unique?

Julie: Having a kosher kitchen is a choice, but I know it’s the same way my grandmother and her mother prepared her Moroccan dishes for the family.

Marcia: You recently had a magnificent kitchen renovation?

Julie: It changed my cooking experience. The extra-large island and all the storage floor to the ceiling really made storing and finding everything much easier. The plan that Kitchen Design Studio came up with utilized virtually every area to maximize storage. The layout isn’t super different from where my previous plumbing and electrical were.

Israel Dahan, the Jewish owner and designer of Kitchen Design Studio, described the update. “We transformed the Bitton kitchen from ‘old school’ to a real transitional, open space, bright kosher kitchen. We interviewed Julie to ascertain the way she uses the kitchen. Then we designed it to custom fit her needs, with multiple sinks and dishwashers so they can separate fleishig and dairy,” Dahan said.

“Julie was great to work with, and we had fun and deep conversations during the construction process. We also made shelving, refinished the floors, rebuilt the master bathroom, painted, replaced the fireplace area, all the puzzle pieces connecting together perfectly to have an authentic look through out the entire house.”

Two of Julie’s best family recipes:

DINING Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemons (at The Spicy Peach in Toco Hills) This is one of the best-known dishes from Morocco. Serves: 4 At least 3 ½ pounds chicken, cut up 2 tablespoons of olive oil 1 yellow onion, chopped very fine 2 to 3 garlic cloves Salt and pepper (Julie prefers white pepper) 1 teaspoon ground ginger 3 cups of chicken stock 1 cup of cracked/pitted olives (Israel green or Kalamata olives) 1 preserved lemon, rinsed and chopped 1 bunch of cilantro, chopped finely (use a mini Cuisinart) 1 bunch of parsley, chopped finely Parsley to also garnish Optional: saffron threads, crushed In a large saucepan or dutch oven, heat the oil and fry onion. Stir a lot and make sure it’s soft and a golden color. At the same time, in a little bowl, crush garlic with salt, some ginger, a little cinnamon, (saffron optional) and a little pepper. Stir the onions and add all the spices to the onion cooking in the saucepan. Make sure to taste the sauce to see if it’s missing something.

Put the chicken in the pan on a simmer; cover with the sauce (onion mixture). Add the stock and bring to a simmer for about 1 ¼ hours.

Turn chicken a few times.

Add preserved lemons, olives, parsley and cilantro. Cook covered for about 15 minutes, so that the chicken is very tender. Serve, putting the chicken on a dish and sauce over the chicken.

Garnish with parsley. Serve with couscous or rice.

Cooked Carrot Salad

About 8 medium carrots 2 garlic cloves 1 tablespoon of paprika 1/4 teaspoon of red cayenne (for a little spice) 1/4 teaspoon of cumin 1/4 cup of olive oil 1 tablespoon of white vinegar Salt and pepper (white pepper)

Wash and peel carrots. Boil until tender.

Make sure they are not overcooked.

Let cool. Cut the carrots in round slices, not too thin.

Make the dressing in a separate bowl: crushed garlic, the oil, cumin, paprika, red cayenne, salt, pepper, and white vinegar. Mix well.

Add the dressing to the cut carrots and refrigerate before serving. Add parsley to garnish. ■ ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 25

CALENDAR SUNDAY, MARCH 10

Atlanta Bar and Bat Mitzvah EXPO – Atlanta Marriott Alpharetta, 5750

CANDLE-LIGHTING TIMES

FRIDAY, MARCH 1

YJP First Fridays – Green Eggs No Ham – Chabad Intown On The BeltLine, 730 Ponce De Leon Place NE, Atlanta, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Join YJP every month for First Fridays Shabbat Dinner on the BeltLine. Mingle, schmooze and meet new people with an open bar and a delicious Shabbat dinner buffet. Bring friends and make new ones. $25 ticket includes open bar and dinner. For tickets and more information, www.bit.ly/2tjoUj7.

Vayak'hel Friday, March 1, 2019, light candles at 6:16 p.m.

Saturday, March 2, 2019, Shabbat ends at 7:12 p.m.

Pekudei Friday, March 8, 2019, light candles at 6:22 p.m.

Saturday, March 9, 2019, Shabbat ends at 7:17 p.m.

Dunwoody, from 10 to 11 a.m. Join Beth Shalom member and certified public accountant Janice Bauman to learn about steps you can take to prepare for retirement and that can help you manage your income even after you are retired. $7 per adult. For more information, www.bit.ly/2S77gsY.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2

of Egypt before Joseph” by Seth Fleishman – Torah Day School of Atlanta, 1985 Lavista Road NE, Atlanta, from 5:15 to 6 p.m. A one-of-a-kind lecture series: World history from a Jewish perspective: Learn about famous historical events and explore the (often surprising) ways these events are connected to the Jewish people. Free. For more information, cayatlanta@gmail.com.

Sharing a Love of Music – Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 600 Peachtree Battle Ave. NW, Atlanta, from 3 to 5 p.m.

An afternoon of music with “Sharing a Love of Music,” the inaugural annual concert of the Dr. Jerome and Betty Berman Concert Series. Wine and refreshments served. Free and open to the community. To RSVP, www.bit. ly/2Sybfmw. For more information, www.bit.ly/2WI1YHM.

Southern Soiree – Young Israel of Toco Hills, 2056 Lavista Road, Atlanta, from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. A pre-Purim event with improv from a troupe from Dad’s Garage, a chicken and waffles dinner, craft bar with signature bourbon cocktails and more. $54 per person. 21 and up. To RSVP, www.yith.org/soiree.

SAT., MAR. 2–SUN., MAR. 3

A Weekend with Rabbi Elana Zaiman – Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 600 Peachtree Battle Ave. NW, Atlanta, from 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

A weekend with Rabbi Elana Zaiman, author of “The Forever Letter: Writing What We Believe for Those We Love.”

Free. For more information, www.bit. ly/2V7upxs.

SUNDAY, MARCH 3

Ready, Set, Retire! – Congregation Beth Shalom, 5303 Winters Chapel Road, 26 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

THURS., MAR. 7–SAT., MAR. 16 SUNDAY, MARCH 10

Atlanta Jewish Music Festival – Six

World History by a Jew – “The History

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6

Windward Parkway, Alpharetta, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Check out nearly 100 vendors, win fantastic door prizes, sample food and drinks and enjoy interactive activities for kids. Free. Preregister for extra door prize entries, www.bit.ly/2IkxyEG.

metro Atlanta locations. Check website for locations and show times.

This specially curated lineup features Grammy winning artists, up and coming bands and historian presentations.

The theme for this year’s event is “Jewish Contributions to American Music.”

For more information, tickets and to view the entire lineup, visit www.atlantajmf.org.

FRIDAY, MARCH 8

Shabbat, Me & Rabbi G @ the JCC – Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Atlanta, from 5 to 6 p.m. Activities and crafts followed by songs and blessings with Rabbi Brian Glusman, concluding with a visit from the popular “Weinstein School Shabbat Dinosaur.”

Challah and grape juice will be served.

Free and open to the public. For more information and to RSVP, www.bit. ly/2BwiaoZ.

Friday Night Live – Congregation Shearith Israel, 1180 University Drive, Atlanta, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Shearith Israel’s monthly, spirited, song-filled Friday evening service followed by a lovely oneg and socializing. It’s a wonderful way to welcome Shabbat.

Free. For more information, www.bit. ly/2Gp5SRI.

SATURDAY, MARCH 9

Comedian Ashley Blaker in Atlanta!

– Congregation Beth Jacob, 1855 Lavista Road, Atlanta, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Ashley Blaker is an internationally acclaimed British Jewish comedian and star of the BBC Show, “Ashley Blaker’s Goyish Guide to Judaism.” $18 for members, $25 for non-members. For more information, www.bit.ly/2BFMtrd.

MONDAY, MARCH 11

Marcus JCC’s Young Adult Coed Volleyball – Piedmont Atlanta Fitness Center, 2001 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday nights through April 8 for the 20s to 30s indoor volleyball league INTOWN. Sign up with your friends, co-workers, Birthright buddies, or register individually to meet other young professionals in a friendly, active atmosphere.

No experience necessary. T-shirts are provided. $65 for members, $75 for the community. For more information, www.bit.ly/2XdyIsC.

TUESDAY, MARCH 12

ORT’s Men’s Night Out – il Giallo Os-

Camp Jenny Bingo Night! – Temple

DIY Studio: Metal Stamped Jewelry – Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road,

teria & Bar, 5920 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Join ORT for cocktails and conversation and Italian style hors d’oeuvres. Co-hosted

by Harvey Spiegel and Steven Cohen. For more information, www.bit. ly/2BRt72v.

Beth Tikvah, 9955 Coleman Road, Roswell, from 6 to 9 p.m. Support the youth group and help send kids to Camp Jenny. $15 per person, which includes dinner and eight bingo cards.

For more information, www.bit. ly/2XbN9gQ.

Atlanta, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. Learn the ABCs of jewelry metal stamping, including learning about metal gauges, practicing stamping on different metals (brass, stainless steel and aluminum), proper filing techniques, texturizing your jewelry blanks to

MARCH 1-16 SUNDAY, MARCH 10

Molly Blank Concert Series – “Salute to Hollywood” – William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum, 1440 Spring St. NW, Atlanta, from 4 to 7 p.m. This concert recognizes Jewish contributions to the Academy Awards® for best original songs written

by Jewish composer Bob Spiotto, the dazzling performer and director of programs at New York City’s Friars Club. Spiotto will be joined by a group of Atlanta musicians, including Joe Alterman. $60 per adult ticket, $30 young professional ticket ages 21 to 35, $20 for students under 21. For more information, www.bit.ly/2GwWGdx. create a hammered effect and more.

By the end of the class, you will walk away with two beautiful new pieces to call your own. Supplies are provided. $30 for members, $40 for nonmembers, For more information, www.bit. ly/2DVcVgM.

Find more events and submit items for our online and print calendars at:

www.atlantajewishconnector.com

Calendar sponsored by the Atlanta Jewish Connector, an initiative of the AJT. In order to be considered for the print edition, please submit events two weeks in advance. Contact community relations director, Jen Evans, for more information at jen@atljewishtimes.com.

representative to the United Nations, with a special music performance by Peter Yarrow, Grammy-award winning member of the legendary “Peter, Paul & Mary.” $180 per person. For tickets and more information, www.bit.ly/IsraelBondsGala2019.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13

Fulton Bag & Cotton Mills Lofts Tour with Phoenix Flies – Fulton Cotton Mill Loft Apartments, 170 Boulevard SE, Atlanta, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. This is part of the Historic Jewish Atlanta Tours presented by the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum. Once the largest employer in Atlanta, the Fulton Bag & Cotton Mill is now loft apartments and condos. Explore the Jewish history of the factory and how it gave rise to Cabbagetown and also Georgia Tech. This program is presented in partnership with Phoenix Flies, part of the Atlanta Preservation Center. Free. Limited spots available and registration is required, www.bit. ly/2ImSzST.

Words to Action – Temple Beth Tikvah, 9955 Coleman Road, Sandy Springs, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. “Words to Action: Empowering Students to Address Anti-Semitism” is an interactive education program for eighth- through 12thgrade students designed to empower and equip them with constructive and effective responses to combat antiSemitism and anti-Israel bias. Open to all Jewish teens. $12 for TBT members and $18 for nonmembers. For more information, email education@bethtikvah.com or call 770-642-0434.

SATURDAY, MARCH 16

ATL Collective Relives the Sounds of Chess Records – Venkman’s, 740

Israel Bonds Atlanta 2019 Annual Gala Dinner Honoring Michael Morris – City Springs, 1 Galambos Way, Sandy Springs, from 6 to 9 p.m.

Featuring as guest speaker Ambassador Danny Danon, Israel’s permanent

Ralph McGill Blvd. NE, Atlanta, with two shows at 6 p.m. and at 9:30 p.m.

The Atlanta Jewish Music Festival welcomes back the ATL Collective for two presentations of “The Sounds of Chess Records.” The best of American blues labels, Chess Records was founded in Chicago in 1950 by two Jewish immigrants from Poland. Brothers Leonard and Phil Chess introduced America to some of the greats in blues, soul, gospel and early rock. $25 per person. For tickets and more information, www. atlantajmf.org/calendar. ■ ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 27

COMMUNITY Tossed Out Treasures Attracts Savvy Shoppers

By Marcia Caller Jaffe Atlanta’s savviest shoppers and bargain hunters can find what they’re looking for at The Sandy Springs Society’s 28th annual Tossed Out Treasures sale March 22-23. This upscale market has a new site, the old Michaels location in Perimeter Pointe shopping center, 1155 Mt. Vernon Highway. It has been at different locations in the past.

The sale is the ultimate treasure hunting experience, with bargains on such items as gently-used, high-end home décor, jewelry, silver, crystal, sports meorabilia, art, furniture, women’s and men’s clothing, children’s toys and furniture.

An exclusive preview party, “BBQ in the Springs” buffet and auction, is 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 21, where shoppers can be the first to browse and buy while enjoying dinner, beer, wine, and a silent auction.

The Sandy Springs Society charity imagined the upscale resale event in 1992 to raise money for the society’s community causes, while repurposing a variety of household goods.

Items are donated by members of the 300-plus society and the community at large. Since then, it has become the

Portraits by Heidi Morton // Maxine Rosen, Rita Bodner and Sue Winner.

These doctors, Jonathan Winner, Arthur Bodner, Bruce Green and Ron Rosen, will head a new men’s division.

longest-running society fundraiser and a highly anticipated community event with thousands of high-end items.

“All of the funds raised, 100 percent, go back to the Sandy Springs community,” said Rita Bodner, Tossed Out Treasures chairwoman. “We have funded more than 25 nonprofit organizations through the society’s philanthropic grant programs and are very proud of the overwhelming response that has evolved for this event from the community.”

The society, formed in 1988, has grown to more than 300 members and has raised more than $3.75 million to fund its annual grants benefiting the Heritage Sandy Springs and other nonprofits. The society promotes the arts, heritage, education, environment and social services in Sandy Springs.

“The high quality of donated items always draws huge interest from our shop-

pers, as everything is offered at unbelievable prices,” Bodner said. “Traditionally, there is a line outside the door before the event opens with returning patrons from all over Georgia and neighboring states.”

Two experienced shoppers weigh in on why this is event is so special.

“Tossed Out Treasures is like a scavenger hunt on steroids!” said Jan Collins, a founding member of the society. “Through the years I have personally found and bought everything from a ‘real’ classic Chanel handbag to a Gucci evening jumpsuit, to an 8-foot-long blue fiberglass cow from Cows on Parade. The fun is in the find!”

Society member Robyn Spizman Gerson echoed those sentiments.

“Tossed out Treasures is a treasure trove for bargain shoppers. It raises important funds benefiting meaningful causes. This yearly fundraiser is a ‘tried

and true’ credit to the nonprofit communities in need. It’s a ‘can’t miss’ bargain hunter's dream, so be sure to be the first in line! One woman I saw last year outfitted her entire playroom with ‘like new’ current toys, including a Barbie DreamHouse, then filled her closet with gentlyused designer dresses and handbags.”

If you have items to donate, dropoff dates at the venue are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

March 5-9, March 11-14 and March 16. Donated items are tax deductible.

Limited Preview Party tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door, available through www.sandyspringssociety.org or the society’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/TheSandySpringsSociety. ■

Congregation Ariel Rabbi Binyamin Friedman with honorees Larry and Sandee Glassman.

Rabbi Binyomin Friedman, honorees Dan and Kim Cohen and President Michael Rice.

Honoree Bunnie Taratoot, her son Jeff, and daughter-in-law Esther Taratoot.

Rabbi Binyomin Friedman presented a painting to Rabbi Menachem Deutsch.

Thousands of items will be for sale at Tossed Out Treasures sale March 22-23.

Tickets for the early bird sale, 8 to 10 a.m. March 22, are $10. The main event, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 22-23, is free and open to the public.

Congregation Ariel Celebrates Quarter Century It’s been a quarter century since Congregation Ariel opened its doors. On Feb. 10, the Orthodox synagogue in Dunwoody celebrated its 25-year anniversary.

The occasion was marked with an elegant dinner honoring 11 of the founding couples of the synagogue. Special tribute was paid to Rabbi Menachem Deutsch, founding director of the Atlanta Scholars Kollel and current CEO of the global Jewish outreach organization, Olami.

In August 1993, several Jewish families living in Dunwoody urged Rabbi Deutsch to help form an Orthodox community in that area, where, at the time, there was no Orthodox presence for 28 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Shabbat-observant families.

These first few families began to attract others, who were drawn to the warmth and excitement of this fledgling community. Founders recall walking miles to attend services, drawing plenty of unwanted attention with their smoky efforts to bake matzah in the rabbi’s garage, and sharing inspiring Shabbat meals with other community pioneers.

In 1994, Rabbi Binyomin and Dena Friedman joined the community as Ariel’s spiritual leaders. Today the community includes almost 200 families, many of whom are Shabbat-observant. There are multiple daily services and classes;

a full slate of women’s learning opportunities and youth programs; a mikvah (ritual bath); and holiday programs. The Friedman home remains the heart of the community and a welcoming destination for a stream of guests.

Looking back on this milestone occasion, founder Rabbi Deutsch said he saw the potential for a Torah community in Dunwoody but could never have imagined the growth and vibrancy that Ariel has achieved.

Ariel will soon expand with the construction of additional classrooms, prayer, learning and office space, and room for a future preschool. The syna-

gogue looks forward to the future with enthusiasm and optimism.

Those honored at the anniversary celebration were: • Rabbi Menachem and Dena Deutsch • Dan and Kim Cohen • Miriam Seidband Cole and Howard Seidband z”l • Lester and Linda Czuper • Terry Eden and Same Eden z”l • Larry and Sandee Glassman • Marcia Lerner • Steve and Pearl Schaikewitz • Murray Siegel and Iris Siegel z”l • Bunnie Taratoot and Louis Taratoot z”l • Terry and Jan Tenenbaum ■

COMMUNITY

Sadie Weinstein with her greatgrandmother, Miriam Stein.

Weinstein works in the office of BrightWell Talent Solutions, earning money to donate in honor of her great-grandmother.

Lots and Lots of Lemonade

By Eddie Samuels

Most 9-year-olds don’t have the forethought to start planning anything two years in advance, but Sadie Weinstein, now 11, did. Seeing her great-grandmother’s 95th birthday approaching, she set out to raise money to donate in her honor.

“Our family supports several causes and she decided she wanted to get involved in raising money. Each year for the past several years we have supported Atlanta Scholars Kollel,” her father Mark Weinstein said.

“Back in 2017 we knew a watershed birthday was coming for her great-grandmother, G-d willing, and she wanted to do something special to honor her Mimi.”

Her initial goal of $5,000 was set in January of 2017, but after two years Sadie had raised more than $18,000 to donate for her great-grandmother, Miriam Stein’s birthday.

She first started selling lemonade, iced tea and apple juice in front of her home — Arnold Palmers were a top seller — and many who purchased were happy to add a little extra to support her cause.

“I really enjoyed meeting new people and explaining to them what I was doing, and why I was doing it,” Sadie said. “Everybody was very generous, and the more I smiled, the more they gave to our cause.”

In total, the lemonade stand averaged $47 a week, selling cups at 50 cents per serving — adding up to more than $2,500 each year.

In addition to the lemonade, she also worked between five and 10 hours each weekend at BrightWell Talent Solutions, where Mark is the CEO. She filed papers and amassed 250 hours in a year at $10 per hour, raising another $2,500 toward her goal.

“Sadie also saved her birthday and

Chanukah gifts to add to our donation pool and had the chutzpah to ask the givers for ‘matching gifts’ if she gave the money to a charity/cause of her choosing. They all agreed,” Mark said.

Miriam is the matriarch of the Stein family in Atlantic City, N.J., according to Mark, where the family’s restaurant supply house has operated since the late 1800s.

When it came time to choose a cause, ASK seemed a natural choice.

“I got to know several of the rabbis well. She loves them, their dedication to teaching the Jewish community, and the gifts they bring by our home on the holidays,” Mark said. “She also knows that we have a lunch and learn at the office, and how that is like a grown-up Sunday school class, [as] she calls it.”

Sadie also explained why she found it so vital to support the Kollel rabbis, who she says, “keep us all Jewish,” and who will continue to do so in the future.

“The Jewish people have been here for thousands of years even though we have been treated so poorly by so many people,” Sadie said. “After thousands of years and so many generations observing Judaism, we kids are up next to defend and protect our faith and our homeland Israel now.”

Sadie’s fundraising was kept quiet, and she surprised her great-grandmother on her birthday – no doubt a big shock.

With an incredible accomplishment already in the books, Sadie isn’t planning to stop pushing her limits any time soon.

She has already set a new goal.

“Now that Sadie has raised thousands of dollars to give away for the benefit of Atlanta Scholars Kollel, her next goal is to dedicate a Torah in honor of her dead relatives,” Mark said. “This is a lofty goal, but we are confident she will achieve it.” ■ ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 29

COMMUNITY SIMCHA SPOTLIGHT

Mazel Tov!

Epstein Boys Basketball B-Team Wins Championship

Academy and won with a score of 37-32 and a season record of 13-1. Coach Marshall stated, “It has been a GREAT season. These boys have consistently played to win all season, and everyone really worked hard and came together as a team. It was a very exciting season and championship game!”

B’nai Mitzvah Notices Hampton Hudson, son of Carlton and Ryan Hudson, on Feb. 23.

Asher Ronen Jacobs, son of Melissa and Thomas Jacobs, on Feb. 23.

Have something to celebrate?

Back row: Owen Schneider, Alec Rubin, Owen Rosenthal, Ilan Pritzker, Jacob Beldick, Eitan Force and Coach Harold Marshall. Front row: Yoni Sasson, Yoni Baranan, Jesse Berzack, Joshua Medwed, Ethan Goodhart and Gavin Brown.

Congratulations to The Epstein School Boys Basketball B-Team, which took home the first-place trophy at the 2019 Metro Atlanta Athletic Conference Championships.

Under the guidance of coach Harold Marshall, the Epstein Eagles played the Davis

30 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Births, B’nai Mitzvah, Engagements, Weddings, Anniversaries, Special Birthdays and more ...

Share it with your community with free AJT simcha announcements.

Send info to submissions@atljewishtimes.com.

COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT

Marvin Botnick Stresses Importance of Remembering

By Bob Bahr For nearly 30 years, The Jewish Georgian has been a community newspaper here, published every other month, with a circulation of about 12,000. It was started at a time when several prominent members of the community felt there was a need to preserve the local character of Jewish newspapers.

The publisher and editor of the Jewish Georgian for much of its history has been Marvin Botnick, who grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss., attended Duke University and became, in 1956, what is thought to be one the first Jewish employees of an Atlanta bank. He went on to a lifetime of service in the Atlanta Jewish community. He was president of The Temple, where he developed its night shelter for the homeless, organized the Jewish Educational Loan Fund to help needy students, and was deeply involved in Jewish organizational work.

Today, nearing 85, he describes the Jewish Georgian as a “feel good” newspaper.

“That's why I don’t print letters to the editor,” he maintains, “because all people want to do is complain.”

But when we sat down to talk, he wasn’t shy about sharing his own complaints, starting with what he considers a growing lack of cohesion in the Atlanta community.

AJT: How have things changed in the Jewish community in Atlanta over the years?

Botnick: A large percentage of the growth of the Jewish community in Atlanta has been people moving in from somewhere else. They don’t know or have the sense of what the community was, when we were all working together. So, each organization is striving to

day even knows his work for itself and name. He was a major not necessarily for the factor in the Hebrew purpose of creating Orphans’ Home and a community. That’s all the organizations good and that’s bad. then. Atlanta has had It’s the price you pay 60 mayors, but only for growing. one Jewish mayor.

I was talking to Shouldn’t there be a friend of mine who some place where the is a former official of contributions of the an important finanJewish community to cial institution and I the growth and progwas trying to get him ress of the city of Atinterested in supportlanta are highlighted? ing an important philWould it not be apanthropic project in propriate to somehow Africa, and he said to Marvin Botnick has been the editor and recognize that? And to me, ‘I am an Ameripublisher of The Jewish Georgian during somehow have a place can Jew, not a Jewish most of its nearly 30-year history. where we can show American; I am only interested in helping Jews in America. I our appreciation to the city of Atlanta for am not interested in support based on allowing us to be here and to prosper? mankind.’ It’s a difference concept than AJT: How did your personal values how I was raised. lead you to help found The Temple’s AJT: When one reads the Jewish night shelter for the homeless?

Botnick: Our previous president of Georgian, one is struck by the emphasis on the past and on personal reminis- The Temple said, ‘No, we don’t want a homeless shelter. We will wind up with cence. Is that part of your concern?

Botnick: I would like the people winos sleeping on our lawn,’ and the to know the background of how we got board turned down the idea. When I to where we are. I had an article in the became president, Alvin Sugarman, the paper two or three issues ago about this rabbi then, [asked] ‘Will you try again?’

Jew in 1915 who was elected president of and I said ‘yes.’ I presented the board an the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce even outline of what I wanted to accomplish. though there were almost no Jews who One of the points I made was that we were members at the time. Nobody to- should put into practice the teachings of

Botnick describes the Jewish Georgian as a “feel good” newspaper.

Judaism. I thought that members of The Temple could get an experiential education of what it means to be Jewish as opposed to a theoretical education. And 10 days later we opened a shelter. And that’s how the shelter came into existence. Instead of just saying the prayers, it’s the implementation. Judaism is in the doing.

AJT: In this age of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, some printed newspapers, Jewish or not, are having trouble surviving. Does that concern you?

Botnick: That’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is the lack of desire of the citizenry to understand what’s happening. They’re looking for buzz words. There’s a difference between study and learning.

Learning to me is the implication that there is an answer. Study means that you gather data that you can draw on to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.

We should be promoting Jewish learning, not promoting Jewish study.

To me there’s a clear difference between the two. We are in a situation where we are looking for the answers without understanding where that answer comes from.

AJT: During your lifetime you seem to have been around whenever good things were happening. How would you like your work to be remembered?

Botnick: I don’t care how I’ll be remembered. If I’ve earned it, I’ll be remembered; if I didn’t, I won’t be. My motivation is to try to make the world a little better. They are not going to know who Marvin Botnick was 10 years from now.

But what difference does it make? The fact is, if people are better off because of what Marvin Botnick did, that’s the only thing that’s important. ■

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 31

COMMUNITY Meet the Press

Get to Know Bob Bahr, From Cronkite to Raising Chows

By Roni Robbins Freelancing for the AJT for more than a decade, Bob Bahr has led a fulfilling career and volunteer life: from rubbing shoulders with Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer to teaching film classes and leading religious services throughout the Jewish community.

Bahr said he often feels like a minor celebrity shopping in his neighborhood among people he’s led in his many classes and services. But he once worked with some of the greats of TV broadcast journalism, many of whom were and are Jewish. “Every journalist aspires to fame and fortune. Just the experience of working at that level was rewarding.”

He described his famous co-workers as “ordinary folks, not anything extraordinary, who knew how to communicate.

They were raised to be god-like figures.

Television creates a new class of divine beings to worship. Some of their glow rubs off when you are on TV.” Bahr grew up in Kansas City in an Orthodox family. At his bar mitzvah, the

32 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

taught communicarabbi addressed the tions at the College of congregation in a Yidthe Virgin Islands. dish young Bahr didn’t Jews played an understand. “It was important role in the a simpler time, also a history of the islands, time in which Jews still including the goverhad memories of Eunor at the time, Ralph rope.” Kansas City was Paiewonsky, Bahr said. a close-knit community Later, Bahr became at a time when Jews a foreign corresponwere “always aware dent in London, and that the powers to be covered Israel’s Six Day were not always the War in 1967. “It was a friendliest.” great time to be Jewish A theater major at in Europe.” A producer, the University of MisBob Bahr reporter and news exec souri, Bahr once was the lead in a one-act play, winning best for CBS, he was nominated for an Emmy supporting actor. He also took broadcast- Award for coverage of the civil war in El ing courses and worked at the local radio Salvador. He eventually ended up at CNN station, realizing that being a television as managing editor of its documentary reporter could satisfy his theater ambi- unit, and won many awards for his long and short productions. tions.

About 20 years ago, he rediscovered Bahr earned a master’s degree in communications from Syracuse Univer- his Judaism. When he’s not leading Shabsity and his first job was at a radio station bat services at Sunrise at Huntcliff Sumin St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. He also mit in Sandy Springs or teaching about

film and popular culture around town, he’s active in the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival and sharing his best bets on films to watch.

He says he enjoys writing about what he knows. His AJT specialties are movies and the arts. But Bahr was also a food columnist for Atlanta magazine for a while, so when he’s not writing, he enjoys experimenting in the kitchen. “I do a really good Italian.” He’s also gotten into Sephardic cooking in the past few months, he says. Although he doesn’t follow them, he touts an impressive cookbook library he uses for inspiration to learn about foods from around the world.

“I am a person who never saw a book I didn’t like. I’m irresistibly drawn to books. I have an immense collection.”

The last book he read was “Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey & the Last Great Showbiz Party” by Shawn Levy.

Another little-known fact about our prolific freelancer is that he raised chows.

“They are the most difficult dog to raise; they make wonderful companions.” ■

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 33

COMMUNITY Dear O.T.F., Bravo to you! In a generation that spurns the wisdom of its elders, your caring about your parents’ opinion and not wanting to cause them disappointment and pain is an eloquent testimony to the stellar person you surely are.

While Josh presents with many fine qualities, it does seem concerning that he has flip-flopped through so many jobs in a relatively short period. Financial es, instability has wreaked havoc in many a marriage. Even if the wife brings in a ch date that pass now, and with ea ile Dear Rachel, wh a or r fo irr m ne s eo ng m eli so fe l s ia steady income, there is always the hopeful chance that she will, G-d willing, behi ec ly sp ul a E. Thankf I’ve been dating at Josh is THE ON er large th th ra in e rta on ce is come busy with children. If those blessings come to fruition, she may even want e e or er m th and However, I’m feeling more erous occasions. rents. m pa y nu m on – d n se to stay home to tend to her family during their formative years. How will that io es at pr ip s ex joyous antic mine, which he ha a time filled with tion. Josh be ua ld sit r ou ou be possible if Josh is in between jobs or must settle for a lower salary since he is sh t at ou wh ab in servations thorn embedded as proharbor a lot of re es d ov an m d s hi ne once again beginning anew? e er se nc I co ars, and while My parents are t. the span of six ye en in itm bs m jo The second issue you raised also sets off alarm bells for me. Shouldn’t Josh m nt co re g ffe in di kle and lack has worked three s view him as fic nt re pa y care enough and make the extra effort to please your parents by joining you m , us tio gressive and ambi they take ey wonder. e th ” nc u? sta yo when you attend synagogue? He can lounge in front of the TV when you get a t s, or pp ow e their br “How will he su ard, they wrinkl rw fo s er ld home.

To show such flippant disregard for values they and you hold dear is a ou sh to carry.

Hunching their weight too heavy dition. Ala tra by ish ed rather strong statement. en Jew rd on bu e el strong valu whenever they fe lighting always placed a ith ve w ha d s ke nt I suggest that you and your parents engage in a long, honest conversation. ar re m s pa y were alway In addition, m mpletely bos and holidays co ab is Sh , , nd ox If the three of you continue to feel strongly regarding your positions, meaning ha od r th he Or ot t , on the though we weren’ e attendance. Josh wn on an gu do go ps na flo sy that you still want to proceed with the relationship and they would like you to d he an e, ls gu ea f to synago candles, festive m while we rush of d an ls, terminate it, then please seek counsel from someone the three of you respect – ua rit e es disinterested in th to please . us TV in e jo th d a rabbi, therapist, or just a wise friend. Before you go, plan that no matter what on ul s wo he itc wishes Josh easy chair and sw him and torn. Part of me pt ng ce eli ac fe e we you ultimately decide to do, you will continue to support each other with love, m t s n’ ve ca is, and why This conflict lea at this is who he nse of huth se l ys fu sa er rt because that’s what family is all about. Life is too short; there is no place for nd pa r wo a he ot d loyal, has my parents. The , like I’ve warm, loving an re is cu se sh d Jo ? an long-standing anger and resentment against our loved ones. ly fe al sa on iti him, I feel love him uncond n. When I’m with ee qu a e lik Wishing you heartfelt blessings as you navigate this significant voyage. el fe e m ars. mor, and makes issing for many ye my childm ut s ho wa ug at ro May you and your intended build a home that will be a source of pride and th th elf e ys m m supported found a piece of their reshave guided and g ey rin Th no ig s. joy to yourselves, your family, and the entire Jewish people! nt by re em pa sappoint th But I love my d I’m afraid to di ive a wedge an , dr ge ay sta m t I Warmly, , en sh rr Jo cu d with hood up until my that if I go forwar nship.

Rachel Stein that, but I worry ly on mage our relatio t da No . tly ns en tio an rm erva pe ill w at d? th ee s oc nt re pr u pa y yo d m d ul w wo between myself an re in my shoes, ho Atlanta Jewish Times Advice Column to you. If you we So, Rachel, I turn Got a problem? Email Rachel Stein at oyvey@ Sincerely, atljewishtimes.com, describing your problem On The Fence

OY VEY! HAVE I GOT A PROBLEM...

Jewish Joke of the Week

in 250 words or less. We want to hear from you and get helpful suggestions for your situation at the same time! Identifying details will be changed upon request.

Yiddish Word of the Week lúftgesheftn

The Eye Test Dave leaves Atlanta and makes aliyah to Israel. As soon as he settles in Tel Aviv, he goes to see the local optician.

“I’m having trouble reading,” he says. “Maybe you could check my eyes?”

The optician agrees and sits Dave in front of a large eye test chart. “Can you read the letters on the bottom line?” he asks.

“No,” replies Dave.

“So how about the next line up?” asks the optician.

Squinting, Dave replies, “Oy, I still can’t read them.”

“OK,” says the optician, “let’s start at the top line. Read out the letters please.”

“But I can’t,” says Dave.

“Are you perhaps a teeny bit blind?” asks the optician.

“Oy vey, certainly not,” replies Dave, “it’s just that I’ve never learned to read Hebrew.”

Joke provided by David Minkoff www.awordinyoureye.com 34 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

Lúftgesheftn, Yiddish: ‫לופט געשעפטן‬, literally, “air business.” Related to the German words Luft (air) and Geschäft (business). Unrealistic ideas — like making quick money, coming up with the greatest invention in history or making a once-in-a-lifetime investment — as opposed to modest but steady and secure income from a traditional Jewish trade. Reminiscent of the English “a pie in the sky” or the Hebrew building “towers flying in the air” (‫)מגדלים פורחים באוויר‬. Sometimes used to denigrate new ideas that threaten a traditional lifestyle. In modern and/or secular context, can also refer to non-lucrative (artistic or intellectual) occupations, which are not so good in the matchmaking market. A person in this category is Lúftmentch ‫לופט מענטש‬, literally: “an air man” – not exactly an airhead, rather an impractical dreamer.

Literary example: “When he is in the village, Mr. Menachem Mendel’s wife speaks to him as a partner in his business. Stock exchange businesses (bérze geshéftn ‫געשעפטן‬-‫)בערזע‬, stocks (áktsyes ‫) ַאקציעס‬, in other words blooming air businesses (bliyándike lúftgesheftn ‫געשעפטן‬-‫)בליענדיקע לופט‬.”

Rabbi Joab Eichenberg-Eilon, PhD, teaches Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic at the Israel Institute of Biblical Studies, eTeacher Group Ltd.

BRAIN FOOD

Jerusalem: Top to Bottom By: Yoni Glatt, koshercrosswords@gmail.com Difficultly Level: Medium 1

2

3

4

5

7

8

9

14

13 16

17

19

20

22

30

27 32

37

38

25

28 33

34

35

36

40

42

43

44

45

46

47

41

50

49 52

12

21

39

48

11

18

24

31

10

15

23 26

29

6

53

54

55

51

56

57

58

59

61

62

63

64

65

66

60

ACROSS

1. Sephardic character on “Srugim” 5. “ASAP!” 9. Winston Churchill’s “___ Country” 13. Trendy chips 14. It grows on you 15. Org. in “Interstellar” 16. Elevated spot in the Old City 19. Baseball All-Star Kinsler 20. Collie of TV 21. Word before a maiden name 22. Music symbols 24. Former Russian VIPs 26. Albania currency unit 28. ___ Air 29. Looney Tunes brand 32. “Laugh In” comedian Johnson 35. A Biblical king and a Gray 39. Locale lower than 16-Across 42. “Velvet” or “cant” ending 43. Rabbi Isaac Luria 44. “The way” of the East 45. Gallery display 46. Electric autos 47. Fall back, as the ocean 48. Moses alternative 50. He’s got the whole world on his

12. Insurance and interest 17. “Is there anyone ___?”

18. Administer, with “out” 23. Jetted 25. Cabbage, carrots and mayo 27. “Hard” in Hebrew 28. He said “It gets late early out there” 29. George Peppard TV series, with “The” 30. Some Jeeps 31. Cited formally 33. Israel’s 6 and 20: Abbr.

34. Blue hue 36. Space relayer 37. Vase material 38. Shlumps 40. “ ___ Extra-Terrestrial” 41. Hebrew month 49. Court figure, for short 51. Brief and to the point 53. Lose air, as a tire 54. Word with “crime” or “believer” 55. Like the Giants’ season 56. Says “yes” without saying a word 57. See 57-Across 60. Dark and depressing, as music

shoulders 52. Locales lower than 39-Across 57. ___ (Hilario), Brazilian-born 57Down player 58. As a result 59. Bar or bat mitzvah, e.g.

61. Has attachment?

62. “Lang Syne” preceder 63. Thorn site, on a flower 64. “___ I” (“Ditto”) 65. Command and Control 66. Gateway Arch designer Saarinen

DOWN

1. Room at the top 2. Taj ___ 3. Sendler who rescued Warsaw children 4. Go bad 5. Eye-covered prayer: Var. 6. Items on some shoes 7. Isn’t well 8. ___ Asar (12 Prophets) 9. “Wheel of Fortune” request 10. Animals, collectively 11. “Mary Tyler Moore Show” costar

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION 1

2

W A

14

A

T

I

N

D

I

S

E

O

31

N

39

A

33

P

T

O

A

A

S

A

K

A

26

A

27

C

Y

A

I

S

N

N

E

40

34

H

A

N

N

A

H

S

T

R

A W

Y

P

E W R

T

50

S

U

E

E

V

E

N

A

E

L

59 64 67

56

60

H

N

A

D

A

L

S

A

S

A

35

R

I

11

S

T W E

19 22

U

N

A

R

I

G

V

S

U

T

S

23

A

B

B

I

S

P

O R

E

36

13

N

R

30

H E

B

28

12

37

S

A

C

T

U M

R O

T

K

E

N

R

E

E

R

41

T

L

O

S

P

O

I

L

S

N

C

I

S

62

A

63

R

N 48

P

S

57

A K

44

S 58

52

A

H

38

T

51

68

A

T

47

65

10

I

43

61

S

16

W R

R

46

9

R D

21

I

55

8

E M A

E

49

R

B

25

R

H

45

7

A

18

U

6

E

J

29

C

15

T

42

53

E T

54

G O

S

L

O

L

I

N G

66

B

O

Z

Z

G

A

O N

69

Y

50 Years Ago // February 28, 1969 ■ Ben Hyman, past president of the Gate City B’nai B’rith Lodge 144, will be installed as president of the Georgia State Association of B’nai B’rith Lodges. Mendel Segal, president of Gate City Lodge 144, Dr. Bernard Kahn, president of Atlanta Lodge 1773, and Ben Rabinowitz, past president of the Georgia State Association are co-chairmen of the convention and banquet.

15 Years Ago // February 27, 2004 ■ A new matching grant will allow Birthright Israel to more than double enrollment for its free trips to Israel for young adults who have never been on a peer tour to the Jewish state.

■ A bill that would allow the state of Georgia to buy Israel bonds is making its way through the Georgia General Assembly. Sen. Tom Price (R-Roswell) introduced the Senate bill. He is the Senate majority leader and is running for Johnny Isakson’s seat in the U.S House of Representatives for District 6.

25 Years Ago // February 25, 1994

■ The bar mitzvah of Gabriel Klehr of Decatur took place Saturday, Feb. 26 at Cannon Chapel at Emory University. Gabriel is the son of Dr. Harvey and Elizabeth Klehr.

32

5

Y

D O N

24

■ The third annual Atlanta Jewish and Israeli Film Festival is set to begin on March 3 at the High Museum of Art’s Rich Auditorium.

4

E

20

Remember When

R O

17

L

3

Sen. Tom Price introduced a bill in the Georgia Senate that would allow the state to buy Israel bonds.

■ Two plays will be performed after a parade March 2 as part of the Purim “Adloyada,” jointly sponsored by Hashahar, formerly Young Judaea, and the Atlanta Jewish Community Center. The cast for “The Trial of Miss Purim” includes Harvey Cohen, Ester Rockstraub, Elise Goldwasser, Sharon Kinsler, Debbie Steinberg, Candy Haskins, Deborah Pruce and Lisa Busch, with Sheryl Maslia as narrator. Appearing in “The Last Penny” will be Harvey Cohen, Debbie Greenfeld, Mario Gresges, Anita Birnbrey, Larry Hecht, Lynn Kraus, Jeff Green and Marcia Sternberg, with Lisa Little as narrator.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 35

OBITUARIES

Toby Morris Pearlman 92, Atlanta

Toby Morris Pearlman, 92, died in Atlanta Feb. 19, 2019. She was born Toby Delores Morris on Aug. 4, 1926, in Sharon, Pa., to Holocaust survivor parents Lillian Weisel and Isadore Morris. Toby, her sister Rose, and her parents lived above the bakery her family owned and operated.

When her father died at a very young age in 1936, the family sold the business and moved to Canton, Ohio, to be closer to family. In Canton Toby thrived, graduating Lehman High School as valedictorian. Her mother was able to afford one semester at Ohio State University.

It was in Canton that Toby met and married Samuel Pearlman in 1946, and they had two daughters together. They owned Motz Grocery in Greentown, Ohio, until Sam went into business with his brother-in-law, opening the Value Center in Wooster, Ohio, in 1961.

Four weeks shy of the family’s move to Wooster, Sam died of a heart attack. Toby and her daughters moved to Wooster for three years, where Toby worked to help grow the business.

The family then made the decision to return to Canton, where Toby began work in furniture sales at Jacobson’s R & J Furniture. She remained there until its closure.

She completed her sales career at Thurin’s Furniture until her retirement. Toby never met a stranger. She treated everyone she met with kindness and respect, worrying that whatever she sold them was “right” for them. No household with children would be encouraged to buy anything not indestructible. No person was pushed to strain their budget. And most everyone she met had to listen to stories about her family.

During this time, she epitomized the model single mother. She encouraged her two daughters to become first-generation college graduates; she celebrated their marriages; and finally, she cherished the six grandchildren that soon expanded her beloved family.

Fiercely independent, Toby excelled in her role as Grandma and swelled with pride as she celebrated each and every grandchild’s accomplishments. Once retired, she filled her time with family events and volunteering at Mercy Hospital’s gift shop.

She approached her volunteer capacity with the same commitment she exhibited while working.

Once health no longer supported her independence, Toby chose to join her eldest daughter in Atlanta, where she watched that half of her family grow to include eight Southern great-grandchildren and monitored from afar her gain of another six greatgrandchildren in Ohio. She lived just long enough to express her worries to her eldest grandchild concerning new driver safety.

Toby’s legacy will live on in the lives of her Atlanta family: daughters Ilene (Adrian) Grant and Brenda (Sam) Linnick; grandchildren, Sammy (Tracey) Grant, Andy (Dara) Grant, Jonathan (Becca) Grant, Seth (Adrienne) Linnick, Lisa (Josh) Zelvy, and Janie (Brad) Weisman; and great-grandchildren, Elizabeth, Jacob, Heather, Matthew, Sari, Naomi, Levi, Leilani, Eli, Aaron, Kallie, Tucker, Noah and Fiona.

She is also survived by her devoted and loving caretaker and honorary family member, Jonette Underwood, who made sure the last four years of her life were as special as they could possibly be.

A service honoring Toby’s life was held Feb. 21 at Arnold Funeral Home in Canton, Ohio. Memorial donations may be made to Weinstein Hospice, 3150 Howell Mill Road NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30328, or Congregation B’nai Torah, 700 Mt. Vernon Highway NE, Sandy Springs, Ga. 30328. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770451-4999. Please sign online guestbook at www.edressler.com.

Maxine A. Rock 78, Atlanta

Maxine Rock, age 78, of Atlanta, passed away peacefully Feb. 19, 2019. Maxine was born in New York City on April 29, 1940, to parents Jean and Louis Hochman. She graduated from New York University in 1961 and from the University of Michigan in 1963 with a graduate degree in journalism.

She was a journalist and writer who authored numerous articles and books on medicine, environment, human relations and science. Her favorite book was the one she wrote with her grandchildren entitled “Adventures in Faun Forest.”

She was a founder and president of the North Buckhead Civic Association and was instrumental in the creation of the PATH Foundation, which has built numer36 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

OBITUARIES ous walking and bicycle trails throughout the Atlanta region. She was a tireless advocate for the environment and maintained membership in the Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and other environmental and wildlife agencies. She was an enthusiastic cyclist, potter and painter.

She is survived by her husband, David, daughter Lauren Rock and son Michael Rock; son-in-law Jarad Schiffer and daughter-in-law Pamela Rock; and grandchildren Rachel Rock Schiffer, Ren Rock Schiffer, Sara Rock and Jordyn Rock, all of Atlanta.

A celebration of life service was held at the home of daughter Lauren Rock, Feb. 24, 2019 at 2 p.m. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the PATH Foundation, www.pathfoundation.org/support/donations. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.

Arthur Louis Schoenberg 92, Atlanta

Arthur Louis Schoenberg, 92, died Feb. 17, 2019, in Atlanta. A lifelong resident of Atlanta, Arthur attended Boys High School, and graduated from Emory School of Business in 1948. Throughout his long career in the building materials and construction industries, Arthur was a homebuilder and served in management in multiple national companies. He was an avid do-it-yourselfer, which included totally refinishing all the cabinets in the kitchen. After retirement he was a caregiver to Sara, his wife of 67 years; he was deeply devoted to his family.

Arthur is survived by sons and daughter-in-law, Howard Schoenberg, Alan and Emily Schoenberg, and Barry Schoenberg; grandson David Nabers; granddaughter Sharon (Brian) Whelton; and several nieces and nephews.

A graveside service was held Feb. 19, 2019, at Greenwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association (www.cmtausa.org). Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-4514999. Please sign online guestbook at www.edressler.com.

Paul Secrest 58, Atlanta

Paul Secrest, age 58, of Atlanta, died unexpectedly Nov. 30, 2018. He is survived by his wife Roselene Esther Secrest; son Dave Eduard Tannenbaum; mother Mary Secrest; sisters Pam Barrett and Sherrie Sims; brother Brian (Leah) Adams; and many nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his father Paul Secrest, Sr., and brother Wade Secrest. A Louisiana native, Paul served more than 20 years in the U.S. Navy. Paul helped form World IT Solutions in 2001, which grew to more than 100 engineers. He joined Tec-Masters in 2009, where he served as chief strategy officer.

Paul was charismatic and loved guitar, pool, and karaoke. Funeral services were held Dec. 7 at the Northeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery, Rayville, La. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Jews For Judaism, PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), and National Public Radio. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999. Sign online guestbook at www.edressler.com. ■

‫זיכרונה‬ ‫לברכה‬ Obituaries in the AJT are written and paid for by the families; contact Managing Publisher Kaylene Ladinsky at kaylene@atljewishtimes.com or 404-883-2130, ext. 100, for details about submission, rates and payments. Death notices, which provide basic details, are free and run as space is available; send submissions to editor@atljewishtimes.com.

ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 37

CLOSING THOUGHTS Brown Paper Bags in order to pick these letters out of the mailThere was a time you literally could box before anyone spotted them. Problem not tell a book by its cover. solved.

All my school text books were covered Jeffrey entered kindergarten already in brown paper bags to keep them safe and reading. The Rubins, the first Jewish family clean. he knew, were great neighbors and friends.

Some of my covers were very creative.

The Rubins influenced Jeffreys’ life in many Those were the subjects I loved. Others … significant ways. Jeffrey feels blessed to not so much. have had them in his life.

I learned this is also true for the many In 1976 Jeffrey earned his Ph.D. at the people whose paths we cross on our life’s Shaindle age of 29. He was the first person from Sajourney. vannah State College, where he earned his All my life I had a picture in my head Schmuckler M.Ed., to go on to earn a Ph.D., graduating of what frum (religious) women would look Shaindle’s Shpiel top in his class. like and act like. Boy was I wrong. I personJeffrey retired from his beloved position as a proally know some religious women who are the coolest, fessor of American history and economics at Savannah worldliest, funniest and most beautiful women I know.

Then there are the folks who are in certain jobs, State at the young age of 52. For the next eight years, the wearing certain uniforms signifying these jobs. Boy was Savannah Public Library system was clever enough to lure him into a position as library system administraI wrong again.

So, I am strolling down main street of the MJCCA, tor, while still working as an administrator for a local chatting it up with Jeffrey, who joined our support ser- nursing home.

Did I mention Jeffrey bought his parents a home vices staff about a year ago. Now here is a surprise you in 1965, paying $69.23 a month for many months? His are gonna love.

Dr. Jeffrey Jenkins, yes, I said Dr. Jeffrey Jenkins, did tribute and thank you to the two most inspiring people indeed join our support services staff approximately in his life.

This is not a man to sit on his laurels! one year ago. Jeffrey was one of seven children. When However, he finally acted on an urge to reconnect he was 4 years old, his neighbor, the Rubin family’s son, needed someone to intercept letters he was receiving with his past.

“I felt a pull to return to my Jewish ‘roots.’” Don’t get from his girlfriend. He did not want Daddy Rubin to know about these ‘love’ letters. He taught Jeffrey to read confused; Jeffrey is not Jewish. He worked for JEA, the

RESIDENTIAL CLEANING

Jewish Educational Alliance for 10 years.

Their loss, our gain.

His children and grandchildren live in Atlanta; he knew this is where he wanted to ‘retire.’ His wife Davida, who is with Emory, and Jeffrey spend every moment available to them with their family.

Jeffrey shared with me what his association with the Jewish people has taught him: “Jewish people set an example for the world – a good education, love and family is most important. Be brave; if you work hard in America, you can be successful. The Jewish people have been good to me and my family”.

Folks, the memory of those brown paper bags I used as book covers came in handy when I met Dr. Jeffrey Jenkins.

Lesson to remember: You can never tell a book by its cover. ■

HOME CARE

MOHEL

Cleaning Services Earning Your Trust

Detailed Residential Cleaning 20+ Years of Experience 100% Satisfaction Weekly, Bi-weekly, Monthly, One Time Great References

FREE In-HOME ESTIMATES

Rabbi Abi Nadoff

dustbgone375@hotmail.com

Call: 844-MOHEL-ABI (844-664-3522)

Mary: 404.454.2063 or 678.886.2718 Eleventh Series Jubilee Bonds ($25,000 minimum) for 10 Years %

3.84

38 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES

SimpleCircumcision.com Eleventh Series Maccabee Bonds ($5,000 minimum) for 10 Years

Eighth Series Mazel Tov Bonds ($100 minimum) for 5 Years

Eighth Series eMitzvah Bonds ($36 minimum) for 5 Years

3.70%

3.95%

3.95%

(404) 817-3500 Atlanta@Israelbonds.com Development Corp. for Israel Member FINRA Valid through February 28, 2019

MARKETPLACE VIDEOGRAPHER

CARE VOLUNTEERS

TUTOR

Stella Tarica Gordon

PRESERVE YOUR LOVED ONE’S MEMORIES ON DVD FOR $650

Tarica Tutoring Stellagordon835@gmail.com 678-592-3155 call or text

Your loved one will have two hours to be videotaped talking about growing up, stories of life and anecdotes.

• Writing and reading comprehension • Certified in 5-12 grade English curriculum • ACT and SAT prep • College bound and grad school essays

Award-winning Director, Dan Sperling, and family members will keep the flow going. The footage is then professionally edited.

Dan Sperling GA Addy & Emmy winner 678-478-2259

Serving students since 1986

dsvideo213@gmail.com

COMPUTER

fakakta computer?

I’ll drive to you!

BEST OF JEWISH ATLANTA

HOME

STANLEY PAVING

Our other trades are garage doors, gutters, mantels and fireplaces

Fast Appointment Scheduling Reasonable Rates All Services Guaranteed

damon.carp@gmail.com COMPUTER

COMPUER HOUSE CALLS

Voted #1 by Atlanta Jewish Community

770-751-5706 www.HealthyComputer.com

As Seen On BEST OF JEWISH ATLANTA

www.aplusinc.net • sales@aplusinc.net • 404•373•plus (7587)

Specializing in driveways & small parking lots Family Owned & Operated since 1969

CALL NOW FOR 10% OFF SPECIAL 770.962.7125 770.480.1698 cell

VISIT OUR WEBSITE

w w w. At l a n ta J e w i s hTi m e s.c o m F O R M O R E O F W H AT YO U N E E D

COLLECTIBLES

HOME

THE DUSTY COIN, LLC

The Handyman Can

“Shekels For Your Collectibles”

• Coins • Bullion • Jewelry • Flatware

404-263-2967

Strict Confidentiality • References Upon Request

It’s Time to Call for Help!

• • • • • • •

Plumbing Electrical Sheetrock • Floors Tile • Framing • Kitchens Painting • Roofwork Concrete • Stained Glass Antique Door Restoration

as well as many other issues...

FOLLOW

:

We are Insulation Professionals: Depending on application Spray Foam, Fiber Glass, Cellulose

Asphalt Paving, Patching & Seal Coating

→ Desktop & Laptop Repair → Home/Business Networking → Performance Upgrades → Apple Device Support → Virus/Spyware Removal

404-954-1004

HOME

John Salvesen • 404-453-3438

Member: ANA, NGC & PCGS

thehandymancanatlanta@gmail.com ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES MARCH 1, 2019 | 39

I

40 | MARCH 1, 2019 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES