SIMCHAS SPECIAL SECTION, PAGES 20-45 NOW YOU SEE HIM MODERN CLASSICS TWO FOR ONE
Bar mitzvah Alex Newberg does good with magic he has practiced since age 4. Page 22
Miriam Karp adds a bit of tech to her art to create customized ketubahs. Page 24
Meet the Millers, the new rabbinic couple Emanu-El just had to hire. Page 42
Atlanta VOL. XCII NO. 12
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MARCH 24, 2017 | 26 ADAR 5777
Shoah Survivor a Bar Mitzvah at 85 Leon Asner never got to celebrate becoming a bar mitzvah when he was 13. The Nazis and World War II made that impossible for the native of Belgium. Now 85 and a retired tailor, he officially became a Jewish man at a special service Sunday, March 19, at the Marcus Hillel Center at Emory in front of nearly 100 people, most of them students who did not know him until that afternoon. “You have fulfilled the last commandment and have proven to everyone that it is never too late to be the person you want to be and to do the things that we think will make us complete,” said Anat Granath, who has worked with Asner for years through Jewish Family & Career Services’ Holocaust Survivor Services. “You are an inspiration, not just to all those who witnessed you just now, but to all those who are fortunate enough to know you,” said Granath, who arranged the service after Asner approached her with the idea several months ago. Rabbi Claudio Kaiser-Blueth presided over the ceremony and read Torah. Emory students, including members of Sigma Delta Tau, Delta Phi Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Mu and Alpha Tau Omega, brought gifts to celebrate the simcha, which included lots of food and dancing. Asner has the energy and humor of a man half his age, Granath said, and he has never let the lack of a ceremony stop him from leading a Jewish life.
Assisted by Hillels of Georgia Executive Director Rabbi Russ Shulkes, Rabbi Claudio Kaiser-Blueth blesses Leon Asner after the Torah ceremony.
Leon Asner recites the blessing after the reading of the Torah aliyah.
Photos by Michael Jacobs
Bar mitzvah man Leon Asner carries the Torah before his first aliyah at Emory’s Marcus Hillel Center on March 19.
Leon Asner gets a kiss as well as a gift from DPhiE.
Asner did not talk about his Holocaust experience, which included hiding from the Nazis and losing his parents, but he tearfully explained the miracle that led him to the Sunday ceremony. One day at home he prayed to have
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Anat Granath tells Leon Asner how proud she is to be his friend.
a chance to go to Belgium to say Kaddish for his father. “A few days later, something happened while I was sleeping and I was awake,” he said. “A big, bright light came in through my window, through closed blinds. I thought the window was
INSIDE Calendar ��������������������������������������� 4 Candle Lighting �������������������������� 4 Israel News �����������������������������������8 Opinion ��������������������������������������� 11 Business ��������������������������������������18 Arts ���������������������������������������������� 48 Obituaries ����������������������������������� 51 Marketplace �������������������������������52 Crossword �����������������������������������54
Leon Asner and friends dance in celebration.
Leon Asner listens to some wisdom from Rabbi Claudio Kaiser-Blueth after receiving students’ gifts.
on fire, and I realized that was the light of G-d. I have seen the light of G-d, so help me, and things changed for me and I decided to have bar mitzvah. That is about all I can say. And it was a miracle, so I share that miracle with you.” ■
BIG DAY IN COURT
How do you apply timeless Jewish legal principles to a self-driving car in a crash? Ask the two Weber School students who answered that question well enough to win a national moot beit din competition. Page 16
STAND AGAINST
BDS AT THE
UNITED NATIONS DATE AND TIME: Wed, March 29, 2017 - 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM EDT LOCATION: United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY 10017
MARCH 24 â–ª 2017
PLEASE RSVP: at rsvpisraelun@gmail.com
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MA TOVU
Spiritual Bond Emerges From Sharing Mikvah tations, my daughter took the plunge. Now mikvah has become something we share. Ahead of our move to Atlanta, at the beginning of the Jewish year, we went to the mikvah. Each of us takes her own time in these sacred waters, says her own
Taking Root By Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder rabbiruth@gmail.com
Photo by Michael Jacobs
During the MACoM gala March 16, Aliza Abusch-Magder speaks of her mikvah experience.
prayers, has her own experience. Just as I have taken to teaching at our local mikvah about Jewish tradition and innovation and the possibilities of modern ritual, she has taken to talking about the power of mikvah to counter the judgmental toxicity teens often experience when it comes to their bodies. At the March 16 celebration of MACoM, the Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman spoke of the unique power of the mikvah water to ignite the fire of the soul. Dipping into naturally sourced water connects us with an ancient tradition and offers us the potential for renewal. As we head into spring, into the busy Passover and tax seasons, consider experiencing the possibility for yourself. â–
MARCH 24 â–Ş 2017
When I first suggested to my daughter that she go to the mikvah, it was a nonstarter. She was 12. Her bat mitzvah was months away, but I wanted her to consider the possibility. My interest in Jewish ritual bath began in high school. For my final project in a Jewish studies class at my high school, I chose to focus on mikvah. A budding feminist and fiercely curious Jew, I was filled with questions about my own identity. But in the end, I only felt more confused and challenged by the tradition of married women immersing after their period and before resuming marital intimacy. Still, when I prepared to marry less than a decade later, I chose to dip in the mikvah. I wanted to connect with the act that had for centuries been a hallmark of the transition from single life to married life. It was a powerfully meaningful experience: a pause in the chaos of planning, a celebration of my womanhood, a reminder of the sacred nature of the commitment I was about to undertake. Nearly a decade passed, and a rabbi friend was about to celebrate her oldest becoming a bar mitzvah. As she rattled off the list of things that needed to get done, I asked her how she was doing spiritually. Startled by the question, she got emotional. I suggested that she consider a dip in the mikvah. The following year, when I prepared for ordination, she returned the favor and accompanied me for a visit to the mikvah ahead of my taking on the mantle of the rabbinate. Today, mikvah has become a key part of my spiritual lexicon, adding so much to my life at moments of transition. In the mikvah, tears of fear, joy, anxiety, loss and hope melt into the waters. Sometimes, as with any ritual, it feels rote, but more often than not it is an extraordinary experience. And so, as my daughter prepared for her bat mitzvah, I wanted to share the gift of this tradition with her. Her teenage hesitations were different from the ones that had troubled me decades before; it was unfamiliar and odd. Luckily, my cause garnered support when her close friend immersed for her bat mitzvah. Despite some hesi-
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“Atlanta Collects.” The second part of the exhibit of privately held art, covering contemporary work, is at the Breman Museum, 1440 Spring St., Midtown. Museum admission is $12 for adults, $8 for seniors, $6 for students and educators, and $4 for children 3 to 6; thebreman.org or 678-222-3700.
THURSDAY, MARCH 23
Immigration discussion. Lawyer Carrie Toth presents an overview of U.S. immigration law to the Edgewise group at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, at 10:30 a.m. Free for members, $5 for others; matureadults@ atlantajcc.org or 678-812-3861. Musical comedy. The Weber School, with Tri-Cities High School, presents “The Addams Family” at 7 p.m. at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for ages 60 and older, and free for students; www.weberschool.org/arts/rsvp.
CANDLE-LIGHTING TIMES
Vayakhel-Pekudei Friday, March 24, light candles at 7:34 p.m. Saturday, March 25, Shabbat ends at 8:30 p.m. Vayikra Friday, March 31, light candles at 7:40 p.m. Saturday, April 1, Shabbat ends at 8:36 p.m. at the Bailey Performance Center, 488 Prillaman Way, Kennesaw. An exhibit, “Never Forget: An Introduction to the Holocaust,” opens at 7. Free with RSVP; ksu-songs-not-silenced.eventbrite.com.
SATURDAY, MARCH 25
Sober Shabbat. HAMSA brings the program to Chabad Intown, 928 Ponce de Leon Ave., Midtown, for a morning service at 9:30, sermon at 11 and lunch at 12:30 p.m. Free; emiller@jfcsatl.org. Club-K. Prodezra performs at The Kehilla, 5075 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, at 9:30 p.m. Free; thekehilla.org/club-k.
SUNDAY, MARCH 26
Mental Passover preparation. Marita Anderson leads a pre-Passover discussion on “Reaching out of Our ‘Narrow Places’ Toward Hope & Healing” at 7:30 p.m. at MACoM, 700-A Mount Vernon Highway, Sandy Springs. Free; info@ atlantamikvah.org or 404-549-9679.
“The Brain & Brawn.” Hadassah Greater Atlanta Health Professionals holds an interactive program on Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis research and therapies and the Hadassah Medical Organization at 1 p.m. at Delgado Boxing, 6010 Sandy Springs Circle, Sandy Springs. Admission is $7; RSVP to Ellen Weinstein at elweinstein@yahoo.com.
Wine tasting. The Sixth Point and Young Israel of Toco Hills Young Professionals sample Passover wines, with part of the proceeds benefiting the ML4 Foundation, at a home in Toco Hills at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance or $18 at the door; www.yith.org/event/ YYPWineTasting.
Theater debut. The performing arts center at the Davis Academy, 8105 Roberts Drive, Sandy Springs, makes its public premiere with the musical “Peter Pan, Jr.,” showing at 1 and 7 p.m. today and 6:30 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $15; www.davisacademy.org/peterpan.
Concert of banned music. Kennesaw State University presents “Songs Not Silenced: Music Forbidden in the Holocaust,” with commentary by Laurence Sherr and composer Ignatz Waghalter’s grandson David Green, at 8 p.m.
Better aging. Savvy Cyber Kids founder Ben Halpert speaks on “New & Improved Aging: Surviving and Thriving
in a Digital World” at 2 p.m. at the William Breman Jewish Home, 3150 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta. Free; www. JewishHomeLife.org. Addiction discussion. With Chabad of North Fulton and Jewish Family & Career Services, Congregation Gesher L’Torah, 4320 Kimball Bridge Road, Alpharetta, hosts Eric Miller and Sally Anderson for a program on “The Triangle Epidemic” of opioid addiction at 4 p.m. Free; RSVP to adm@gltorah.org. Passover baking. The Chabad Middle School Club at Chabad of North Fulton, 10180 Jones Bridge Road, Johns Creek, prepares for Pesach at 6 p.m. Free; admin@chabadnf.org or 770-410-9000.
TUESDAY, MARCH 28
Movie classes. Starting at 10 a.m., Bob Bahr leads a six-session series on Jewish filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen and how their work relates to Jewish heritage and American society at Temple Sinai, 5645 Dupree Drive, Sandy Springs. The cost for the series is $49; bit.ly/2lU1wYr. Body image discussion. Mental health professional and parenting expert Irene Celcer leads a discussion on “Beauty & Body Image: A Jewish Perspective” for women on Rosh Chodesh at noon at the Weber School, 6751 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, with a kosher lunch served. Free; 404-917-2500 or www.weberschool.org.
Send items for the calendar to submissions@atljewishtimes.com. Find more events at atlantajewishtimes.com/events-calendar.
Remember When
25 Years Ago March 20, 1992 ■ About 500 members of the University of Georgia community gathered at a demonstration that resembled an outdoor lecture March 13 in Athens, in response to a recent advertisement in the student newspaper that questioned the reality of the Holocaust. Most of the speakers dealt with the content of the ad that ran in the March 9 issue of the Red & Black rather than the newspaper’s decision to publish it. Seven other campus newspapers published the ad; many others rejected it for being false. ■ The bat mitzvah of Mitzi Renee Zieve of Atlanta, daughter of Terri and Ron Zieve, will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 28, at Temple Emanu-El. ■ Audrey and Keith Kroll of Alpharetta announce the birth
of a son, Ross Alexander, on Jan. 6. 50 Years Ago March 24, 1967 ■ Vicious anti-Israel propaganda by Arab students at leading U.S. universities has reached such great proportions that the Zionist Organization of America has embarked on a counter-campaign through a series of conferences on campuses, held in conjunction with Hillel. ■ The Atlanta Section of the National Council of Jewish Women has grown from 85 members in 1895 to more than 800 today and now will host more than 1,000 council leaders from across the United States at the biennial national convention the week of April 9. The theme of the gathering, announced March 20, is “One Woman Makes a Difference.” ■ Mr. and Mrs. Abe Sugarman of Atlanta announce the engagement of their daughter, Anita Jo Sugarman, to Bruce Warschoff, son of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Warschoff of Atlanta.
CALENDAR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29
Arts showcase. The Weber School, 6751 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs offers “A Taste of the Arts,” from performance to visual arts, at 7 p.m. Free; www.weberschool.org/arts/fine-arts-night.
From eyes...
to thighs...
Masquerade dinner. Berman Commons, 2026 Womack Road, Dunwoody, invites families caring for older adults with dementia to attend a theme dinner at 5:30 p.m. Free with RSVP; info@ bermancommons.org or 678-222-7500.
THURSDAY, MARCH 30
Reconstruction. Georgia Tech’s Wardlaw Center, 177 North Ave., Midtown, hosts “Resilient Atlanta,” a symposium on the Civil War and its aftermath, including several Jewish speakers, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free; RSVP to chris.mcdermott@gatech.edu. Andrew Jackson. Retired businessman Brandt Ross discusses whether Jackson was a hero or a villain with the Edgewise group at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, at 10:30 a.m. Free for members, $5 for others; matureadults@ atlantajcc.org or 678-812-3861.
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FRIDAY, MARCH 31
TUESDAY, APRIL 4
Passover preparation. Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder leads a discussion on “Passover Dips: A Celebration of Passover Foods & Dishes” at 10 a.m. at MACoM, 700-A Mount Vernon Highway, Sandy Springs. Free; info@atlantamikvah.org or 404-549-9679. Film screening. Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta and the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival show “Brave Miss World,” about the abduction and rape of Israeli beauty queen Linor Abargil in Italy in 1998, and hold a panel discussion and dessert reception at 7 p.m. at Temple Sinai, 5645 Dupree Drive, Sandy Springs. Tickets are $18; jwfatlanta.org/events.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5
Antibiotic resistance. Jay Steinberg, the chief medical officer at Emory University Hospital Midtown, discusses the crisis of resistant bacteria at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Shearith Israel, 1180 University Drive, Morningside. Free; shearithisrael.com.
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Art show. The Alefbet Preschool at Congregation Beth Shalom, 5303 Winters Chapel Road, Dunwoody, holds an opening for a showcase of art by 3-yearolds and pre-kindergartners, including music by Atlanta Jewish Academy ninth-grader Zach Mainzer, at 5 p.m. Free; alefbetpreschool.com.
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LOCAL NEWS
Jewish Hunger Walk Teams Raise Almost $71,000 By Leah R. Harrison lharrison@atljewishtimes.com
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Spirits always run high at the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Hunger Walk/Run, and this year was no exception. It’s a feel-good annual event where the entire city bands together, from performers and food trucks to faith groups and corporations, to raise money to fight local hunger. The Atlanta Jewish Music Festival All-Stars again provided entertainment along the route for runners and walkers. Sunday, March 5, at the venue formerly known as Turner Field, the Jewish community participated under the guidance of Stephanie Wyatt of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and with the leadership of returning walk co-chairs Bebe Kaplan and Robert Frohlich. In all, 24 teams registered under the Federation umbrella, with approximately 350 participants in the 5K Hunger Walk/Run. Although donations will be accepted at the food bank’s website through March 31 (bit.ly/2nYW2bt), the community’s total is approaching
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Photo courtesy of Federation
Atlanta Community Food Bank President and CEO Kyle Waide (kneeling, in orange) joins the Jewish community’s Hunger Walk/Run participants in front of the Federation tent. Photo by Leah R. Harrison
Stacy and Isaac Fialkow are all smiles after their 5K walk.
$71,000 from 850 donors. Champions Club membership for people who raise more than $500 is up from 10 in 2016 to 13 people this year. The top 10 Jewish teams are Sally’s Friends, Goody Two Shoes, Frohlich’s Frolics and Singer COH, as well as Temples Emanu-El, Sinai and Kehillat Chaim and Congregations Or Hadash, Dor Tamid and Shearith Israel. Other notable community teams include Federation Young Adults, Jewish Family & Career Services and the Epstein Eagles. As the only of five participating Hunger Walk partners that distributes money back out, Federation operates under a 40/60 split: 40 percent of the money raised by teams under the Fed-
eration goes to the food bank. The remaining 60 percent is funneled back for distribution to hunger-based organizations within and outside the Jewish community. This vetting process will culminate in early May when the Hunger Walk Allocations committee makes the final fund distribution decisions. Sally Kaplan, a one-woman tour de force who smashes her fundraising efforts for the Hunger Walk year after year to honor the tradition of her mother, Helen Cavalier, is the largest individual fundraiser in Hunger Walk history. She has raised over $32,150 this year, up more than $5,000 from last year’s total of more than $27,000. Her
team, Sally’s Friends, has brought in more than $36,000. (Six of the top 20 donors listed under the Federation section of the Hunger Walk/Run website have the last name Kaplan.) Annette Marcus is the second-largest individual fundraiser. Kaplan has raised more than $400,000 for the Hunger Walk through her annual campaigns; including the money she has brought in, the Jewish community has raised over $1.1 million since the food bank began keeping records for benefitting partners in 1996. One reason Federation CEO and President Eric Robbins mentioned for liking the walk: He sees people from the community he doesn’t see any other time of the year. ■
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MARCH 24 â–ª 2017
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ISRAEL NEWS
Grandson Highlights Ben-Gurion’s Success By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com “The declaration of the state of Israel was one the toughest decisions David Ben-Gurion had to make as Israel’s first prime minister,” his grandson Alon Ben-Gurion said Tuesday, March 14, during an interview with the AJT. Yet David Ben-Gurion was determined to fulfill his vision for a Jewish home and realized early on that he would have a war before he had a state. “How many people do you know who have created a state?” Alon BenGurion said. “Zero. Only Ben-Gurion has succeeded in doing so.” He added that when his grandfather was asked why he was so determined to create a Jewish state, his response amounted to “I decided to do it when I had questions and no one could give me an answer.” As the effective leader of the Haganah, Ben-Gurion, alongside Menachem Begin of the Irgun and Yair Stern of Lehi, sought to create a nation for the Jews by kicking out the British from Jewish establishments, then working with them to fight the Arabs for land promised in the Balfour Declaration of
1917. The Jordanian army, built and trained by the British, and the Syrian, Lebanese and Egyptian militaries were ready to fight. The first bombs landed in Tel Aviv as soon as Ben-Gurion declared the state of Israel, killing 47 people in a bus terminal. “We lost a lot of people to build Israel,” Alon Ben-Gurion said. “The first people who came did not have anything, but they believed in a Jewish state and pushed for it in the worst conditions and made it happen. Now it is our job to maintain it, keep it and cherish it. It is our right to be there.” In addition to fighting Arab countries, Ben-Gurion faced dissatisfaction within his own party because of the small portion of land they would receive for Israel. U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall called Ben-Gurion’s foreign secretary, Moshe Sharett, and advised him that he would not have U.S. support for an independence declaration. Even though some advised him to delay the declaration of the Jewish state, Ben-Gurion hated procrastination and was determined to create a
the most important thing. Jewish home. The belief and knowing He also looked toward our ability as a Jewish state the Negev as the cradle of provides strength to Israel. Israel. It was always a foBelieving in our country, cus of his life, and when he knowing what we have, bewas asked why he wanted lieving in our mission and the desert, his reply, acwhat we built there is imcording to his grandson, portant because for 2,000 was “For the next 60 years, years we did not have it.” I will be able to bring up He said it’s a mistake to 20 million people to that many Jews, including this place because the Neyoung Jewish Americans, gev is not settled. There want to separate Judaism are already settlements Alon Ben-Gurion is a grandson of David from Israel. “They say I throughout the country, Ben-Gurion. am a French Jew, Ameribut we will have to work can Jew or Moroccan Jew; together.” Since arriving in the land of Israel it doesn’t work. When 6 million went in 1906, Ben-Gurion had had a single- to the oven, no one asked them where minded vision for a Jewish homeland, they are from. Countless Jewish miAlon Ben-Gurion said, and he often norities are now all coming to Israel said, “I prefer a Jewish state on part of because the Jewish religion is the only Israel than to have a whole Israel with religion in history that is associated with land.” no Jewish state.” Ben-Gurion added: “When we read Israel continues to change, Alon Ben-Gurion said. “With all the challeng- the Bible, we always say, ‘If I forget you, es facing Israel, however, keeping Israel Jerusalem, I lose my right hand.’ You together as a Jewish state is one of the may claim to be an American Jew, but biggest we face in our lifetime. We don’t you are still praying to Jerusalem. You have to agree on everything, but this is cannot separate the two; they are one.” ■
Chanukah in Spring
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Photos by Michael Jacobs
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Yael Pritzker and her 3-year-old son, Avi, and Yael Waknine and her sons, Micah Weiss, 8, and Avi Weiss, 6, visit the AJT offices Friday, March 10, to receive the prize of an Israel Box from Israeli Consul General Judith Varnai Shorer, who is joined by her daughter, Roni, and the Israeli Consulate’s public affairs director, Lucas Dear. The two families were the winners in a Facebook contest the consulate ran during Chanukah, in which people were asked to post photos of their brightly burning menorahs. The IBox is a collection of Israelimade products and is a conscious response to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. ■
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ISRAEL NEWS
Israel Bonds Honors Berks for Israel Bonds since the program’s start in 1951 and a record $1.127 billion in U.S. sales in 2016. “Israel Bonds’ historic sales clearly show that throughout generations, the idea of demonstrating confidence in Israel through investing in Israel has touched a response chord with individuals from all walks of life,” said Israel Maimon, who became Israel Bonds’ president and CEO in the fall. Rony Hizkiyahu, the accountant general of Israel’s Finance Ministry, said the success of Israel Bonds reflects the economic partnership between Israel and the Diaspora. “Israel Bonds are both a financial instrument and a fraternal instrument, a bond of brotherhood and sisterhood with the Jewish state, for Jews and nonJews alike,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message shown during the dinner. The Berks were among 15 individuals or pairs from the United States, Canada and Mexico who were honored with the Israel69 Award at the event, emceed by actor Jason Alexander. The others: • Sharon Azrieli of Montreal.
Photo by Shahan Azran, Development Corporation for Israel
Chuck and Bonnie Berk join Jason Alexander, the evening’s emcee, at the International Prime Minister’s Club Dinner in Miami Beach on Feb. 12.
• Jeffrey Beck and Jarrod Beck of Dallas, Texas. • Israel Feldman of Mexico City. • Alex Halberstein of Miami. • Sharon and David Halpern of Livingston, N.J. • Sarah and Elie Hirschfeld of New York. • Suellen and Larry Kadis of Cleveland. • Alan Kantrowitz of Los Angeles. • Melanie and René Moreno of Washington and Curaçao. • Barry Shrage of Boston • Tobi Richman Steinhardt and Rabbi David Steinhardt of Boca Raton, Fla.
• Diana Sager and Steven Warren of Tampa, Fla. • Enid and Kalman Wenig of Chicago. • Richard Ziman of Los Angeles. “Since its founding, Israel Bonds has been a cornerstone of Israel’s economy,” Israeli Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said. “Crossing the $40 billion mark exemplifies the organization’s dedication to Israel and the way in which its message of economic support has resonated on a global scale. On behalf of the government of Israel, I wish to thank Israel Bonds and its worldwide client base for helping to build every sector of our economy.” ■
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Sandy Springs residents Bonnie and Chuck Berk received Israel Bonds’ Israel69 Award during the organization’s annual International Prime Minister’s Club Dinner at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach on Feb. 12. The award recognizes exceptional support for Israel and efforts to perpetuate Jewish heritage. “Many of us go out to an event, and we write a check. Why write a check when you can give a bond, which also ties people to us and ties anybody who gets that bond to the heritage of our people?” Chuck Berk, a former Southeast chairman of Israel Bonds, said to explain his support for the organization and the importance of the award. “That’s what we ought to be doing.” Bonnie Berk added: “Israel is a light unto the nations. It is and always has been. A safe and healthy Israel is a gift to the world.” The Berks are members of Temple Sinai and local leaders in the Republican Jewish Coalition. Chuck Berk also serves on the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust. The ceremony in Florida celebrated more than $40 billion in global sales
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ISRAEL NEWS
Israel Pride: Good News From Our Jewish Home A network from London to Moscow. Tel Aviv-based PacketLight Networks is working with Russia’s Avelacom to build a high-speed network from London to Moscow with PacketLight’s optical transport solutions. The long-haul network will provide speeds of 100G.
Take me out to the ballgame. After Team Israel’s Cinderella run to the second round of the World Baseball Classic, the Israel Association of Baseball launched a crowdfunding campaign Thursday, March 16, on GoFundMe to help build the first regulation baseball stadium in the country. By March 20, more than $11,000 had been donated. It will be one of several fields built with Jewish National Fund’s Project Baseball. You are getting sleepy. The MRIfocused ultrasound brain treatment from Insightec is used at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center to cure patients of tremors. One patient who was afraid of being enclosed in the MRI machine underwent hypnosis therapy, had the treatment and was cured. Arab military pilot. In a first, a Christian Arab is an Israeli air force cadet pilot. Israeli Arabs may volunteer for the military, and the trainee has passed the required rigorous medical, physical and mental abilities tests. Eilat now a 4.5G city. Technology has
Israel Photo of the Week
A Pretty Penny
Photo by Yoli Shwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority
Excavation director Annette Landes-Nagar holds up one of nine bronze Byzantine coins found in a cache uncovered during an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation of an area near ‘En Hemed where Highway 1 is being widened. The coins, bearing the images of Emperors Justinian (483-565 C.E.), Maurice (539-602) and Phocas (547-610), were found in a niche in a collapsed wall. Landes-Nagar said the coins were probably hidden during a Persian invasion in 614 that marked the end of Byzantine rule in the land of Israel.
been deployed in Eilat to make it the first Israeli city with a 4.5G LTE Advance cellular network. Customers can obtain speeds of 100 megabits per second. Meanwhile, the southern city is preparing to double in size with the construction of 7,000 hotel rooms, 18,000 homes, industrial zones, a sports center, parks and a waste facility.
Gluten-free vegan chocolate. Carmit Candy Industries in Rishon Letzion launched its vegan “milk” chocolate snacks, coins and buttons at the Natural Product Expo West in Anaheim, Calif. The product line is dairy-free and gluten-free and has no artificial colorings, flavorings or preservatives — addressing most allergy concerns.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Today in Israeli History
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Items provided by the Center for Israel Education (www.israeled.org), where you can find more details. March 24, 1993: On a narrow 66-53 vote, the Knesset elects Ezer Weizman the seventh president of Israel on the second ballot. A nephew of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, he advocates peace and the interests of Israel’s Arab citizens and serves until resigning in 2000. March 25, 1950: Sheik Yusuf Yassin, Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister, tells a U.S. State Department official that Arab states would “never agree to any working relationship with Israel.” He adds, “We shall never admit a Jew to Saudi Arabia, and we shall never admit anyone traveling on an Israeli visa.” March 26, 1979: Sixteen months after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem to address the Knesset, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is signed at the White House in Washington. March 27, 1839: Tensions between Shiites and Jews erupt in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad as a mob attacks the Jewish community and kills 30 to 40 people. The surviving Jews, nearly 2,400 people, are forced to convert to Islam in an event known as the
On the salad trail. Uri Alon is the founder and owner of the Salad Trail, the educational food farm at Moshav Talmei Yosef in southern Israel. He teaches about some of the amazing vegetables, fruits and herbs the “desert” nation of Israel has developed, such as purple carrots, flying strawberries, edible flowers, and, of course, cherry tomatoes. Best-ever start for tourism. The latest statistics show 2017 has seen the best start to a tourism year in Israel. Over January and February, 467,000 tourist entries were recorded, representing a 25 percent increase from the first two months of 2016. Compiled courtesy of verygoodnewsisrael. blogspot.com and other sources. Allahdad. March 28, 1932: The first Maccabiah Games, an international Jewish Olympics, open in Tel Aviv with 390 athletes from 18 countries, although some sources say 14 or 21 countries are involved. March 29, 2002: Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield, a military operation devised to curtail violence associated with the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000 after the breakdown of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians at Camp David. March 30, 1135: Moses Ben Maimon, known as Maimonides or the Rambam, is born in Cordoba, Spain, into a disPhoto by Marco tinguished family. Chiesa via Wikimedia (Some sources give Commons the year of his birth A statue of Maimonides sits as 1138.) in his hometown of Cordoba.
OPINION
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Federation, JCC Undermine Synagogues partnership between the Marcus JCC and Jewish Kids Groups. The Marcus JCC hosts JKG’s alternative Hebrew school on its Dunwoody campus. This initiative, underwritten in part by Federation, can succeed only
Guest Column By Ron Swichkow
at the expense of synagogues. In fact, Federation seems to promote this competition on its website by describing the initiative as “reimagining Jewish education and community for affiliated and unaffiliated families.” If that isn’t enough, JKG’s own website includes a Q&A that asks: “I want my kids to attend, but I don’t belong to a synagogue. Is that okay?” The answer is an emphatic “YES!” Now, in its aggressive efforts to attract more students, JKG is opening a location in the back yard of several North Fulton synagogues.
The lines get blurrier when you consider that the Marcus JCC has a full-time rabbi whose responsibilities include programming traditionally offered inside the walls of a synagogue. This positioning strikes at the very heart of synagogue survival. The fact is, the gateway to synagogue affiliation for many families is the religious school and associated youth programs. What begins with a finger painting of the Ten Commandments posted on the refrigerator or the singing of festive songs in Hebrew on the Sunday afternoon ride home quickly leads to deeper connections to the faith for the entire family. The seed that is planted on Sunday mornings and during the week blossoms into opportunities for having meaningful worship, engaging through adult education or addressing the needs of the broader community. And, yes, oftentimes engagement in synagogue life leads to affiliation with other Jewish organizations, including the JCC and Federation. We know from experience that if families bypass this important gateway to the synagogue — whether it be
for lack of interest, financial reasons or the lure of non-synagogue-based programs — the chances of a return become remote. For many synagogues, this is an existential concern. It’s difficult to understand why the Marcus JCC and Federation seek to expand their reach in these ways. Though many rabbis and synagogues in the community have raised concerns to them, the response has been silence. That is simply unacceptable. As programs like the one described here accelerate the Jewish community’s march toward “fee for service,” synagogues struggle to make ends meet, to fill the pews and to deliver kehillat chesed (caring community) at congregants’ most vulnerable moments. I encourage all the leaders involved in these programs to engage in a dialogue with rabbis and others on the front lines to explore ways to promote synagogue affiliation and the benefits it offers agencies in the broader community. ■ Ron Swichkow is an East Cobb resident and former synagogue president.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
As a CPA and business owner, I appreciate the importance of competition in our economy and the benefits it often produces for consumers. To a degree, competition is also useful among synagogues and Jewish agencies. After all, if a congregant, volunteer or contributor has more appealing options, agency heads, volunteer boards and rabbis who are not responsive to their constituents risk watching them head out the door to “the competition.” Though the analogy makes me uncomfortable, I believe it is a fair characterization of our Jewish community. But there is a point at which competition among Jewish organizations begins to have detrimental effects. We have reached that point in Atlanta. Thanks to the actions of the Marcus Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, synagogues have increasingly found themselves squeezed out of the market for congregants. Take, for example, the evolving
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OPINION
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Our View
Dean of Rabbis
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
The first Mitzvah for the Mikvah gala at the Georgia Aquarium on March 16 celebrated an important, relatively new community asset, the Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah, and it exceeded its goal of raising $275,000 to pay off MACoM’s mortgage. We congratulate all those involved with the community mikvah, led by board President Caryn Hanrahan and Executive Director Barbara LeNoble. It was a beautiful event, which you can read about on Page 40. But as much as the gala was about supporting MACoM — and with all due respect to honoree Rabbi Joshua Heller, who is indispensable as the mikvah’s self-described chief pool officer and grandfather (all the nachas, none of the responsibility) — it was also about paying tribute to the dean of Atlanta rabbis, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman. “Alvin is a gentle, patient and humble soul,” Rabbi Heller said. “Rabbi Sugarman has become a treasured mentor and friend, and I can think of no one that I am prouder to share an evening with.” Rabbi Sugarman would hold an important place in Jewish Atlanta history if his résumé began and ended with his being one of five senior rabbis in the 150year history of The Temple, a position he assumed in 1974, or that he has been part of the clergy at Atlanta’s largest synagogue for nearly half a century. But he has done so much more, from his work with Emory University and the Marcus Foundation to his work to welcome interfaith couples and his commitment to interfaith dialogue and understanding through such efforts as the Higher Ground group. We will not, however, go into detail about all the good Rabbi Sugarman has done in more than four decades of rabbinic leadership in Atlanta and beyond. Just as Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple didn’t have time to cover all of Rabbi Sugarman’s accomplishments at the gala, we don’t have space to list them here. But we can emphasize the vital role the rabbi played in bringing Atlanta a nondenominational, kosher mikvah as a tool to help knit our community together. That a rabbi raised in the classical Reform tradition not only supported a mikvah, but also championed its place as a community asset shouldn’t be surprising, Rabbi Heller said, because of the man Rabbi Sugarman is. “Whenever it is that an opportunity presents itself to help another person find meaning or beauty in his or her life, Rabbi Sugarman is not only there, he is the champion of the cause,” Rabbi Berg said. Thus, at a time when Rabbi Sugarman could have enjoyed retirement or spent time on the passion project of his choosing, he was instead learning about the community mikvah model created by Mayyim Hayyim in Boston and working tirelessly to ensure that MACoM was built and had the support of more than a dozen synagogues and roughly just as many other local Jewish organizations. Now MACoM indeed stands as the physical legacy of Rabbi Sugarman’s service to Jewish Atlanta. Rabbi Berg beautifully summed up Rabbi Sugarman’s place in our history: “So many of us have vowed to go where he goes and to live as he lives.” When we get there, we can and should thank 12 Rabbi Sugarman. ■
Cartoon by Emad Hajjaj, Jordan
Why We Loved Team Israel The AJT usually doesn’t get much readership for Unless you’re a diehard Braves fan, you might sports, and I’m always worried about shifting space, not remember any of them other than Marquis, who time and effort from the local news we do best to the was part of playoff teams from 2000 to 2003 and had Israel news that often comes to us secondhand. 40 of his 318 career starts with Atlanta. So it might have seemed strange that we Lavarnway played 27 games for Atlanta in 2015 devoted considerable resources to covering the surand 38 for the Gwinnett Braves in 2015 and 2016. prising six-game, nine-day, Burawa was a September Far Eastern adventure of call-up in 2015 and apTeam Israel in the World peared in 12 games but was Editor’s Notebook Baseball Classic. back in the minors last By Michael Jacobs Fortunately, the liberal year and was released in mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com WBC rules require that June. Freiman, signed in players only be eligible for December 2015 to a minorcitizenship in the countries league deal and invited to they represent. Israel was spring training, was traded thus able to build a team of Jewish Americans (not to the Nationals before the 2016 season. necessarily halachically Jewish); only one Israeli So, no, Team Israel wasn’t a local story. It also citizen, U.S.-born Los Angeles Dodgers minor-league wasn’t much of an Israel story. Baseball has barely pitcher Dean Kremer, took the field. made a dent in Israel, and I have no reason to think Still, Associate Editor David R. Cohen and I did any Israelis other than American olim even noticed our best to provide live coverage and quick recaps of their national team was playing. Israel’s wins (2-1 over South Korea, 15-7 over Taiwan, But it was a quintessential story of the Jewish 4-2 over the Netherlands and 4-1 over Cuba) and Diaspora in America. losses (12-2 to the Netherlands and 8-3 to Japan). While threats against Jewish community We did some of it on Twitter, which was great centers and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries were for interacting with fans around the world, and shaking our comfort level in American society and some on our new website, which has a live-blogging while we were celebrating our unlikely survival as function that we’re just learning to use. a threatened minority in ancient Persia, a team repWe localized Team Israel by highlighting four resentative of us — Americans with varying levels players who have a history with the Braves: of observance but a shared belief in Israel — made • Pitcher Jason Marquis, who was the staff ace the most of a rare chance to compete against majordespite being out of baseball for almost two years. league stars on a world stage. • Catcher Ryan Lavarnway, who was the MVP of None of the players on Team Israel was even Israel’s three-game sweep of its first-round pool and under consideration for the U.S. team, which does was the team’s best position player all tournament. have Jewish infielders Ian Kinsler and Alex Bregman. • First baseman Nate Freiman, who provided Lacking a single active major-leaguer, Team Israel power in the middle of the lineup and was part of shouldn’t have won a game; it went 4-2. what likely was the tallest hitter-pitcher matchup in We took pride in their accomplishments and joy pro baseball history when the 6-foot-8 Freiman drew in their life-size Mensch on a Bench because we’ve a walk from 7-foot-1 Dutchman Loek van Mil. never seen a team in an open international competi• Relief pitcher Danny Burawa, who had one tion composed of people so much like us. Even if good inning against Taiwan in the first round and those weren’t our sons or friends on the field, they one nightmarish inning against the Netherlands in could have been. And for a couple of weeks of March the second round. mania, they were. ■
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Who Is to Live, Who Is to Die? There is a battle going on in the U.S. Congress over whether this nation will follow a moral-humanist value or will become an instrument for those who seek to retain the primacy of economic interests. This battle is about the right to life — that is, the right of human beings to have access to medical care. It is interesting that those who coined the term “right to life” as a slogan to deny a woman the right to decide about issues related to her own fertility and body are also those who would deny an existing human the right to medical care. As a Jew, I take pride in the values our ancestors elucidated three millennia ago in the Torah, declaring not only that it is society’s duty to provide access to medicine for all human beings, but also that it is the sick person’s duty to avail himself of medicine. After all, the well-being of individuals is intricately tied to the well-being of society: A sick person and even more so a dead person usually create a greater burden on society than the
cost of curing the sick. A dead person leaves widows and orphans, a group the Bible defines as those most dependent on the collective for economic welfare and emotional well-being.
One Man’s Opinion By Eugen Schoenfeld
Yes, as Cain learned from G-d, we are indeed our brothers’ keepers. All industrial societies have for many decades provided access to medical services to all their inhabitants, but we who call ourselves the richest country are the poorest when it comes to human welfare. Perhaps the crass capitalism that still dominates has made us immune to social concerns. Look at this historical fact casting doubt that we are a caring society: The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was established April 10,
1866, 38 long years before some people in the country developed a social consciousness and proposed that it was our moral duty to prevent cruelty to children, especially children performing labor. We were more concerned about preventing cruelty to animals, especially workhorses, than protecting our children, even after the myriad pictures by Lewis Hine depicting the cruelty of child labor in the coal mines, the textile factories and the cotton fields. A child labor committee was established in 1904, but its impact on legislation was minimal. It took 14 years before Congress passed a child labor law, but it and another effort in 1922 were ruled unconstitutional. Congress passed a proposed constitutional amendment in 1924, but the states did not ratify it. Finally, in 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect children from abusive labor. We are again fighting a battle for human rights. It is fight for the right to life — the right to have affordable access to medical care.
Supposedly, the United States is the most religious country among the economically and educationally developed nations. When I moved to Memphis in 1965, many of my neighbors proudly proclaimed that the city had more churches than gas stations. Maybe so, but my studies in Memphis showed that its population had little care about poverty, quality of education and medical care. Many ministers informed me that they did not dare to speak about poverty. Their job, as defined by their parishioners, was to deal with salvation and not with what I see as real moral issues. Other than Tikkun, a magazine of Jewish humanists, I do not see great concern by rabbis (or, for that matter, by priests and ministers) about the present administration’s desire to deprive more people of their access to medical care. Let us consider which war is more important to our national welfare: the war against Islam (radical or not) or the war against those who would deprive people of their right to life. ■
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
OPINION
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OPINION
Letters To The Editor
Cohen Doesn’t Get Mideast
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Thank you for including the guest column by Ilise Cohen (“Past, Present and Future Tents”) in your March 10 issue. I say this not out of agreement with her viewpoint, but rather strenuous disagreement with it. As I understand it, her interpretation of the Israeli-Arab (including Palestinian) political situation is an interpretation of a Rorschach drawing that reveals far more about her outlook than it does about the realities of the political situation that she is attempting to describe. Cohen is missing a significant amount of context. For example, in May 1948, in full adherence to established political protocols of the time, Israel issued its Declaration of Independence. In the Arab world, this date became known as Nakba Day, or Day of the Catastrophe. That sentiment still holds. Jews in numerous Middle Eastern countries (Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria and Yemen, to name a few) were persecuted and had their property confiscated, for which they never received compensation. Fast-forward to today, and some of the textbooks used in Palestinian schools are filled with hatred of Jews, Israel and Zionism. Where’s the justice in that? The net result of the above dynamic is that there is a major existential difference between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors. There is no Palestinian leader now in power who will recognize Israel’s right to exist as a nation. Israel has repeatedly sought a responsible Palestinian negotiating partner. The Palestinians have repeatedly counteroffered with nonstarter preconditions to negotiations. As a result, there are 22 Arab countries, but there cannot be a single Jewish country. Until this issue is resolved, all other issues (including alleged Palestinian justice) are secondary. Said another way, if the Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist as an independent state, it is reasonable to expect progress on a range of subsequent issues. Furthermore, Cohen’s approach, like that of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, is to conflate several issues (Black Lives Matter, Palestinian justice, Jews of color, borders and walls) that create confusion instead of the resolution of primary issues. 14 A former U.S. president from the
state of Georgia and several subsequent presidents and their respective secretaries of state have been down this path and consistently reached a dead end. Maybe it’s not such a good approach after all. In addition, even the co-founder of the BDS movement, Omar Barghouti, has admitted that Israel’s acquiescence to BDS demands would not end his opposition to Israel. For those interested in Palestinian justice, perhaps a better target of their rage would be to demand that the Palestinian Authority hold elections. Consider that the PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, ended his elected term in January 2009, yet he remains in power eight years later. Where’s the justice in that? Cohen complains of being marginalized. Her arguments are based on an incomplete understanding of the history of the region, an inability to distinguish between primary and secondary issues, and a dedication to solutions (like BDS) that do not produce satisfactory results, especially for Israel. So here’s a thank-you to the editors of the AJT for providing an opportunity to read and dissect a viewpoint that does not enjoy widespread support in the Jewish community, either now or likely in the future. — Richard Lapin, Dunwoody
JVP Is Anti-Israel
Ilise Cohen claims that Jewish Atlanta does not allow sufficient space for Jewish Voice for Peace yet hides the fact it actively promotes boycott, divestment and sanctions and wants to be part of the “big tent” only to advance an anti-Israel agenda. A cursory examination of its website and activities reveals that its primary goal is a Palestinian state replacing Israel. JVP is very active in spreading the gospel of Palestinian refugeehood but ignores the issue of the similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, let alone that both refugee issues were the consequence of wars initiated by the Arab world. While giving lip service to Mizrahi Jewry, Cohen seems happy to forget their difficult history under Arab and Ottoman rule. Israelis of Middle Eastern origin are overwhelmingly supportive of a vigorous Israeli selfdefense, and I have not met one who would want to return to the dhimmi status endured by their grandparents in much of the Middle East. I have worked for a long time with an Israeli mathematician of Turkish descent who would give a very different view from Cohen’s. It is curious that JVP protests Is-
rael, the freest state in the Middle East, but can find no fault with the authoritarian regimes in every one of Israel’s neighbors. It blames all on the “occupation” yet is blind to the fact that this “occupation” would have long since ended if Palestinian leaders were prepared to end the conflict. It is one thing to hand over vitally strategic land, conquered in a war of survival, to those prepared to accept your existence. It is another to hand it to Palestinian leaders who make it clear that every inch gained will be used for further hostilities. Jewish Voice for Peace is a misnomer. It would more aptly be called “Jewish Voice for Palestine” or “Jewish Voice Against Israel.” — Doron Lubinsky, Sandy Springs
Arab Responsibility Ignored
It seems the only group that has no place in Ilise Cohen’s tent comprises Jews who believe that Jews have the right to live on land of historic and religious significance to them, land that Israel liberated from an illegal occupier (Jordan) in a war of self-defense, land from which Jews had been ethnically cleansed during 19 years of Jordanian occupation. It further seems that Cohen cannot bring herself to accept that the real persecutors of the Palestinian “refugees” (overwhelmingly descendants of Arabs who fled an Arab-initiated war against Israel decades ago) are the Palestinian leaders and the leaders of the broader Muslim world who incite the Palestinians to “violently resist the occupation” while the leaders themselves reject Israeli proposals for the establishment of a Palestinian state, one after another. Unfortunately, this moral blindness has repercussions well beyond Israel. The world’s failure to condemn terrorist attacks on Israel has emboldened jihadists to strike in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Seeing Palestinians trapped in refugee limbo has led refugees from current conflicts to risk dangerous crossings into Europe from fear of suffering the same fate. When will Ilise Cohen and Jewish Voice for Peace call for an end to the anti-Jewish invective that spews from mosques, schoolrooms and media outlets? When will they call on Muslims to stop persecuting Christians? When will they demand that Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims stop killing each other? When will Cohen and Jewish Voice for Peace realize that Palestinians do not have a right of return to Israel? It’s true that some of their forebears who fled in 1948 (to ease the work of Arab armies in annihilating the Jews) had
been told, by the leaders of the Arab armies, that the job would be accomplished quickly, after which they could return. But that promise did not obligate the Jews to allow themselves to be slaughtered. Justice for the Palestinian “refugees” must mean that they can become citizens in a viable Palestinian state (or any other Muslim state that will rescind its laws barring Palestinians from citizenship and economic opportunity). Israel would be happy to cooperate in improving the economy of any Muslim state willing to live peaceably beside the nation-state of the Jews. — Toby F. Block, Atlanta
Marcus Should Speak Out
I grew up at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta. I attended Zaban since infancy, sweated through Camp Isidore Alterman, switched to drama camp when I discovered it was air-conditioned, had my first job as a junior counselor at Camp Marie Benator and continue to work out with my mom at the JCC’s gym. I joined the rest of the Atlanta Jewish community in shock and outrage upon hearing that the JCC recently received its second bomb threat since January. As I learned at the Epstein School, anti-Semitism is insidious and pervasive, and we must meet it with unequivocal condemnation. That is why I’m so disheartened by Bernie Marcus’ continued support for President Donald Trump and his senior counselor, Stephen Bannon. Marcus has vocally defended and endorsed the current administration despite its hateful rhetoric. Another lesson from Jewish history: Words matter. Trump and Bannon may not be ordering these threats, but they’ve built a climate conducive to hateful acts and emboldened the altright (a neo-Nazi by any other name would smell as rancid). I’ve seen many attempts to defend the current administration against allegations of anti-Semitism. They tend to involve the facts that Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are Jewish and Bannon supports Israel. But I also saw Trump silence an Orthodox Jewish journalist for asking him to denounce anti-Semitism and saw Trump take more than a month after assuming office to heed this request. I’ve read articles on the website Bannon ran attacking multiple minority groups, making it clear that his support for Israel stems from his own Is-
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OPINION lamophobia rather than any fondness for the Jewish people. I’ve heard Trump suggest that we, the Jewish people, are vandalizing our own cemeteries and threatening the community centers where our babies learn to crawl to make him look bad. At best, they’re complicit. At Epstein, we memorized that quote by Martin Niemöller about the Nazis: “They came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.” That is why I believe it’s imperative for the Atlanta Jewish community, especially its leaders, to speak out against a leader who has been endorsed by former Klansman David Duke, current American Nazi Party Chair Rocky Suhayada and white nationalist William Johnson (to name a few). The security of our community is at stake, Mr. Marcus. We’re counting on you. — Mallory Harris, Dunwoody
CIE Session Missed Mark Contrary to what was reported in an Atlanta Jewish Times editorial (“Our View: We Blew It,” March 10), I was very proud as the rabbi of Congregation Etz Chaim not to have “blown it” by bringing close to a minyan of students to attend to the Center for Israel Education’s first session at the Weber School. As a synagogue, we have been very blessed over the years to have benefited from excellent educational curricula and professional training provided by CIE. That is why, despite its poor scheduling adjacent to the High Holidays, as a new rabbi in Atlanta I agreed with your sentiment that a workshop regarding Israel and anti-Semitism on campus was just what our teens needed to hear. I gladly attended the first workshop alongside many teens enrolled in my senior seminar class.
Unfortunately, I did not insist that my teens return for the second and third sessions because the first session did not meet my expectations. Contrary to the highly informative final session that you describe in your editorial, which is what I hoped my teens would experience, much of the first session essentially boiled down to useful information for students interested in applying to Emory. Professor Stein and the Emory admissions director who spoke no doubt provided helpful insights on general college admissions. However, I found that none of it was tailored to considerations specific to a Jewish student’s college application process. I agree with your sentiment that the Center for Israel Education continues to be an indispensable gem in the city of Atlanta, and the community must do more to support it. I personally remain deeply impressed by the
scope of CIE’s impact nationally and by its educators. From your editorial, it sounds like subsequent sessions in this series were more worthwhile. Unfortunately, I also hope you can appreciate that after this first session disappointed, I was not going to insist that my students return for subsequent sessions. — Rabbi Dan Dorsch, Congregation Etz Chaim, East Cobb
Write to Us The Atlanta Jewish Times welcomes letters and guest columns from our readers. Letters should be 400 or fewer words; guest columns are 600 to 700 words. Send your submissions to editor@atljewishtimes.com. Include your name, the town you live in, and a phone number for verification. We reserve the right to edit submissions for style and length.
What Is Next From Trump? Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations. There is a question whether these employees will even be replaced. If vacancies are not filled, the
Guest Column By Harold Kirtz
work of the department will be jeopardized. The proposed Trump budget for the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1, would reduce the appropriations of the State Department by 37 percent. Why would a president do this type of damage to some of the most important duties of a government? Donald Trump has so far shown no appreciation for these concerns. In fact, the only explanation that makes any sense is that he wants the State Department to be weakened. The only reason for that explanation is Trump’s connection to Russia. With the reduction of these employees, the State Department is less able to exert its soft power in the world. That soft power provides our value-based, democratic-based, humanrights-based advocacy throughout the world — and the ability to negotiate with the hard-headed realities of the world. One product of that soft power
is the writing and announcement of the Human Rights Report about what is happening in the world; it is a widely anticipated product of the State Department. Even with all our challenges, the world still looks to the United States as the major world leader. But Vladimir Putin hates that the United States is so powerful because of the values and standards with which the United States has led the world. So what happened? The annual Human Rights Report is usually announced with great fanfare. The world awaits the advocacy of the U.S. human rights agenda and judgment. The United States, even with the problems we face, is looked up to, through either hope or fear. But the Trump administration has this month weakened the annual release of the report, for no explicable reason except to please Putin (or, also frighteningly, other bad actors in the world). Bad actors around the world will be emboldened by the weakening of America’s position. Another example of this concern is the inexplicable advocacy of a single plank for the Republican platform right before the July Republican National Convention. The only plank that the Trump campaign had any interest in was the one advocating arming the Ukrainians to defend themselves from the incursion by Russia.
The Trump campaign neutered that plank. The only explanation is that it was paying back Putin. None of this is good for the Jews. Jews are better off when the government is stable and committed to the values of a liberal democracy (liberal in the general sense, not in the partisan sense). Cozying up to a dictator who is a former KGB operative, who is known to eliminate opponents and journalists committed to getting the truth out, who is the richest person in the world because of the worst excesses of crony capitalism, is not valuing human rights, including the rights of minorities. There have already been concerns in the Jewish community: Trump’s retweeting of anti-Semitic websites during the campaign; his slowness to respond to the bomb threats roiling the community; and his suggestion during the early stages of the bomb threats that the episodes could be false flags — that is, Jews were doing it to undermine him. It is unsettling to call for resistance to anything that the president of the United States does or wishes to do. But at this point, it is up to Trump, if he wants the approval of the vast majority of the American people, to change his predilections, to stand up for American values, and to become a more normal person and leader who can inspire confidence in a competent, reliable, knowledgeable, patriotic chief 15 executive. ■ MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Jews depend on a stable, knowledgeable, competent government. The hacking of the Democratic National Committee by Russia, confirmed by the intelligence agencies, has laid the ground for tearing apart the U.S. government. What Donald Trump got from Russia, with its assistance in supplying Wikileaks with the DNC materials, is being paid back right now. One example is what is happening to the State Department. The Trump administration has fired or failed to retain a number of the top career executives who had many years of institutional knowledge, including the three employees with the most experience, one of whom has been part of the State Department team involved in many negotiations with the Russians. And this is a new administration that has no experience in the affairs of state. It takes years to replace that kind of expertise and knowledge. These people were not political appointees; they were career employees who served whoever was president. They were part of the guts of the agency and were doing the important day-to-day work, no matter who was in power. They pledged themselves to work in the public interest, some having served since the presidency of Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter and worked during the Reagan, George H.W. Bush,
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EDUCATION
Weber Team Wins National Beit Din Contest By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
A two-student Weber School team won a national championship Sunday, March 19, by successfully arguing that a self-driving car involved in a nonfatal traffic accident should be viewed like a tam (tame) ox under Jewish law. Junior Aaron Gordon, 17, and sophomore Aliza Abusch-Magder, 16, competed with 135 other students from 28 Jewish schools across the United States and Canada at the Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools Moot Beit Din competition in Houston after a Shabbaton and other events that began March 16. All the teams were charged with applying halachah to a case in which a woman’s self-driving car swerves into oncoming traffic to avoid a jaywalker and smashes into a man’s manual vehicle. The man’s car sustains serious damage, and he requires months of recovery time. The jaywalker disappears. The man sues the woman for his medical bills, his lost wages and the damage to his car. The woman says he should sue the carmaker instead. Rachel Rothstein, the social studies
Aaron Gordon and Aliza AbuschMagder say they learned to work well together as a team, with Aliza answering questions about halachic classifications and Aaron handling questions about compensation.
teacher who accompanied Aaron and Aliza to Houston when faculty adviser Moshe Sokol couldn’t make the trip, said most teams treated the self-driving car like fire: a useful tool started by humans that sometimes gets out of control and causes unintended harm. The Weber team disagreed. While Aaron and Aliza judged the jaywalker’s actions to be like fire — causing unintended damage spreading uncontrollably — they preferred the analogy of the tam ox because, like an ox, the car made decisions and controlled where it went after a human set it in motion, it had a function only when moving, and
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it caused limited damage after lacking any history of violence (or accidents). In the absence of the jaywalker, the Weber students decided the owner of the self-driving car was liable for the damage to the other car and should cover half of any medical expenses not paid by the other driver’s insurance. But she did not owe him for lost wages. Just as important, the car company was not liable at all because it had followed the Jewish principle of pukuach nefesh and given primacy to the preservation of life in programming its car. The car “did the right thing,” said Aaron, the son of Lynn and Brian Gordon. “It hit the other car to avoid killing the pedestrian.” The Prizmah judges praised Weber’s written ruling for its “clear and convincing positive classification” of the self-driving car as a tam ox and its rejection of the parallels to three other potential sources of damage — fire, a pit, and a chewer or tooth — in applying ancient Jewish law to a high-tech case. The students’ written ruling accounted for half their score; the other half came from an eight-minute oral argument and eight minutes of ques-
The Jewish Breakfast Club Featured Speaker
ERIC ROBBINS Eric Robbins was hired as president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta in May of 2016. He moved to Atlanta in September 2005 to run Camp Twin Lakes, which provides camp experiences to nearly 10,000 children a year with serious illnesses in collaboration with other nonprofit organizations. Under his
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Leadership, the camp expanded from one location to three and moved into areas such as programs for military veterans and their families and a group home opened with Jewish Family & Career Services for special needs adults.
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Before taking over Camp Twin Lakes, Robbins worked in the New York area. He was associate executive director of the Jewish Community Center MetroWest in northern New Jersey from the start of 2000 until he took the Twin Lakes job, and he was deputy executive director of New York’s Educational Alliance, a wide-ranging service agency with Jewish roots, for about four years. Robbins also earned a master’s in social work from Yeshiva University during his time in New York.
tions and answers with judges in Houston. Aaron and Aliza, competing in a category of teams allowed to use only the 23 sources provided by Prizmah, topped six other teams to win their group and the championship. Aliza, the daughter of Epstein School Head of School David AbuschMagder and Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, had left for Houston from the Georgia Aquarium, where she spoke Thursday night about the importance of the Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah to teenagers during the Mitzvah for the Mikvah gala (see Page 40). She said the two experiences are connected. “The reason behind both is I have an interest in exploring Jewish tradition and using it to enhance my life now and using the rich tradition I come from to find happiness.” While winning was nice, both Weber students emphasized their pleasure at spending the weekend praying and discussing Jewish issues with a diverse group of their peers. “It was a cool opportunity,” Aaron said. “It was an amazing experience to be with so many other Jewish students.” ■
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BUSINESS
Lebanese Chef Gives To Jewish Community
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com
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of the Red Pepper Taqueria locations in Buckhead and Toco Hills, the latter in the same shopping center as the KoMimmo Alboumeh opened Maya sher Gourmet, Pita Palace and BroadSteaks & Seafood in Sandy Springs way Cafe. in 2015, and the Lebanese-born chef He also helps non-Jewish chariand restaurateur knew that connect- table organizations. In April, the chef ing with the surrounding community will provide food for 500 people in Vine would be a key factor in his success. City at an event called Feeding God’s The upscale restaurant has re- flock. ceived wide acclaim in its two years “People knock on you all the time of operation, thanks in part to Al- to participate in this and that,” he said. boumeh’s friendly demeanor and a “Thank G-d we are extremely busy and menu full of high-end steaks sourced able to help.” from farms as far away as Iowa Born in Lebanon and raised in and Tennessee. Spain and Italy, Alboumeh has been “It’s all about relationin Atlanta for 20 years. Drawing ships,” Alboumeh said. on his Spanish upbringing and “Nothing happens without Italian culinary school education, that. You’re not buying a prodhe opened his first Red Pepper uct. Our guests are going Taqueria in Toco Hills five to come back based on years ago, then opened the relationship they the second location have with us, so I in Buckhead a year want to make sure later. they leave happy. He also instilled I’m not a corporate Spanish influences restaurant; I’m a into Maya, which mom-and-pop opis named after his eration.” youngest daughTo get closer to the ter. Sandy Springs commuAlboumeh nity, which includes said he is worka prominent Jewish ing on plans to add population, the chef one or two restaudecided to get inrants to his ME Resvolved with a few taurant Group in the Jewish organizanext few years. In the tions. He is now meantime, the chef Born in Lebanon, raised in Spain and a partner of the is excited about the trained in Italy, Mimmo Alboumeh Atlanta Jewish Film City Springs develophas lived in Atlanta for 20 years. Festival and is runment, due to be comning a promotion at his restaurant pleted next year just up Roswell Road to benefit Second Helpings Atlanta, a from Maya. nonprofit organization started at Tem“People don’t understand, but this ple Sinai that aims to eliminate hunger is the next Buckhead,” he said. “Inman through donations of leftover food. Park is still just a neighborhood. West Dine at Maya on a Wednesday Midtown is a neighborhood. This is gothrough May 10 and 20 percent of your ing to be a city. Sandy Springs is going total bill will be donated to Second to be more of a city than anything else. Helpings. You must also let the host I can’t wait.” ■ or hostess know that you’d like to be What: Second Helpings fundraiser seated at the chef’s table for Second Where: Maya Steaks & Seafood, 6152 Helpings. Roswell Road, Sandy Springs “There’s a big Jewish community When: Wednesday nights through in Sandy Springs,” Alboumeh said. “I May 10 think the best way to work with the Reservations: Reserve spots for two community is to be in it. My restaurant to eight people at the chef’s table to is here in the heart of the Jewish combenefit Second Helpings by calling munity, and for me to do well here, I 404-705-8880 or visiting www. opentable.com/maya-steaks-andhave to get involved and give back to seafood; www.secondhelpingsatlanta. the community.” org/chefs-table-nights-maya Alboumeh is also the chef owner
BUSINESS
Build on Strengths To Go for Greatness It is important not to ignore your weaknesses. More correctly, we must not only know them, but also manage them. It is important not to define yourself or others solely based on strengths. We are all complex crea-
Coach’s Corner By Jason Adler JasonAdler@johnmaxwellgroup.com
tures and a mixture of good and not so good. What specific areas of strength should we look for in ourselves as leaders? The four broad, overlapping areas of leadership strengths, as identified in the 2009 book “Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow,” by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, are: • Executing. • Influencing. • Relationship building. • Strategic thinking. Executing is the ability to get things done. A good executor is skilled at arranging and controlling tasks, events and people. He is consistent, focused and prepared to take responsibility for jobs. John Maxwell defines leadership as simply “influence: nothing more, nothing less.” Relationship building can be defined as the ability to encourage people to work together toward a common goal or ambition. A strategic thinker is skilled at analyzing information, seeing links and connections, and thinking both inside and outside the box. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Can you see any of these traits in yourself? If you are having a hard time deciding, take a strengths-based test and give one to your key employees. Whether your business is a startup, a few years old or a generational business, it is never too late to focus on strengths-based leadership. Building your team this way will help get you to rock star status quickly. ■ Jason Adler is a John Maxwellcertified executive coach (www. johncmaxwellgroup.com/jasonadler) helping people and their organizations hire and keep quality employees.
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The debate continues: Is it better to be a jack of all trades or an expert and specialist in one thing who outsources weaknesses? Let’s say you are a good guitar player but cannot sing. If you take singing lessons and work hard, you might become a decent singer to go along with your good guitar playing. You might have a modicum of success in a music career. But what if you focused only on your guitar playing and became a great guitarist? Then you could join a band that has a great singer and become a great band. You are now a rock star. This is called a strengths-based approach. The flip side is you’re taught to shore up your weaknesses from an early age. If you struggle with math or English, you might find yourself attending remedial classes or receiving tutoring and spending a lot of time on those areas of difficulty. Most of us can only hope to go from poor to average with regard to developing our weaker skills. In the end, we resent all the hard work put in just to get by with those skills. Unfortunately, even as adults, we often see our weaknesses and deficiencies much more than our strengths. There is a famous Bob Newhart skit in which he counsels a patient with this malady in just two short words: “Stop it!” (Find it at youtu.be/Ow0lr63y4Mw.) In life and in business, going from good to great is a much smoother and ultimately more satisfying experience. Let’s look at how a strengthsbased approach can be applied to business. Briefly, we’ll explore what strengths-based leadership is and how you can use it to develop yourself and your team members. Socrates said, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” So, too, the No. 1 skill a great leader must have is to be self-aware. The first step is for a leader to accept that it is OK to have a weakness or two. Then this self-aware leader must be attuned to his particular core competency and surround himself with people who are strong in areas of his weaknesses. The acronym TEAM represents what this leader can accomplish: Together everyone achieves more. All this comes with a big caveat.
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www.atlantajewishtimes.com
Bimah Buddies 101
Navigating a shared b’nai mitzvah date
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Yippee, you got your first choice of bar or bat mitzvah date! But so did another family at your synagogue. Concerned about how this will work? No problem. Here are seven ways to ensure the bimah buddy experience goes smoothly: • Meet with the other family. Maybe you know the other family already, and maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s a good idea to establish friendly relations from the beginning. Get to know a little about the parents and all their kids. You don’t want to be strangers on the big day. Tip: Like a first date, meet for a quick bite (frozen yogurt or bagels) rather than commit to a long meal. If you hit it off, you can make another date to meet up socially. • Team up teens. Encourage your teens to at least become friendly acquaintances. It’ll make the big day less nerve-racking to know they have each other’s back. Maybe they can support each
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other’s mitzvah project or, better yet, complete one together. Remind them to acknowledge each other (if appropriate at your synagogue) when they speak from the pulpit. (Example: “Jamie, it was an honor to share this day with you.”) • Share plans. Are you both plan-
Guest Column By Shelly Danz
ning evening functions? Who wants the synagogue for Shabbat dinner? Talk about your proposed schedules to eliminate confusion when you start making venue arrangements and reviewing synagogue fees. Also, talk about the number of guests you’re each expecting so that you can make fair arrangements for oneg Shabbat and Kiddush luncheon, and ensure there’ll be enough kippot and service programs.
• Talk Hebrew. Your kids may be at different levels of Hebrew proficiency. Does one want to do more prayers and the other doesn’t? Talk about it and know that it isn’t a competition. Your family and friends are there to support your mitzvah kid; no one’s comparing them. • Cash in on collaboration. There is strength in numbers. Use the pairing to your benefit. Can you save on shipping costs by ordering kippot together? Can you negotiate a better rate by choosing the same hotel for your out-of-town guests, doubling the room block? • Meet in the middle. Compromises will likely need to be made, so go into this venture with flexibility. Make sure you’re prepared to make the case for things vital to your family, but be willing to bend on elements that are more important to the other
family. • Make time for mazel tov. Remember that you’re part of the same community, and kvell with your bimah buddies for a moment after the service. Appreciate that you’ve just fulfilled a mitzvah by witnessing another young boy or girl complete a bar or bat mitzvah service. Mazel tov all around. ■
Like a first date, meet for a quick bite rather than commit to a long meal. If you hit it off, you can make another date to meet up socially.
Shelly Danz is the founder/ chief party officer of Atlanta Party Connection, www. atlantapartyconnection.com, the premier bar and bat mitzvah resource in the metro area, helping thousands of families to create their ideal mitzvah celebrations. APC connects parents with top vendors, secures exclusive deals and discounts on services, provides party consulting, and produces the twice-yearly Bar & Bat Mitzvah EXPO.
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Magical Mitzvah Is in the Cards By Kevin Madigan kmadigan@atljewishtimes.com
Alex Newberg was only 4 years old when he began taking an interest in doing magic tricks. “My grandpa bought me a magic set as a birthday gift, and since then it’s been a passion of mine. It’s grown to be more of an obsession over the years,” Alex said in a phone interview. Now 13, he has received kudos from the likes of Penn Jillette, who described Alex in his podcast as being “really good,” and from New York magician Steve Cohen, who posted that Alex “has a mature understanding of magic for such a young fellow.” Cohen praised his “surprisingly vast mastery of sleight of hand” and said “the future of magic is in excellent hands.” Alex’s mother, Jennifer Gelder, told the AJT that sleight of hand is his favorite trick, but “that was also the most challenging to learn because his hands are small. He had to work hard to master that skill.” She said Cohen, Penn & Teller,
Sleight of hand is a specialty for bar mitzvah Alex Newberg.
and Las Vegas magician Mac King all sent congratulatory messages to Alex, which she incorporated into a video montage for his magic-themed bar mitzvah celebration in February. During his speech at the event, Alex thanked his grandfather Roger Gelder for his guidance and inspira-
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Alex Kyle Newberg was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, at Temple Sinai in Sandy Springs. Alex has been a magician since the age of 4. For his mitzvah project, Alex hosted “Magic Night” at a restaurant, where he performed to raise money for Camp Sunshine and the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Alex is the son of Jennifer Gelder and Tenise and Eric Newberg. He is the grandson of Corky and Roger Gelder of Atlanta and Francine and Neil Newberg of Winter Park, Fla.
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tion. “My dad, his grandpa, has been highly instrumental in Alex’s magic career,” his mother said. “He was the one who took him to meet Penn & Teller when he was 9. At that point, we didn’t realize how talented Alex was with magic. After that, my dad has really helped Alex by taking him to many magic conventions and several other trips to see and meet other famous magicians.” In his speech, Alex spoke of his influences. “If you ever closely watch a magic performance by a classic like Penn & Teller, my personal favorites, you can truly see the elegance, hard work and practice put into it. In my opinion, that is art.” Alex has been putting his unusual skills to good use, his mother said. “He has been involved with Camp Sunshine since he was little, as his dad has volunteered there for many years. He has always donated to camp when he makes money with his magic, as well as performed for many of their functions.” Lately, Alex has been up to his tricks at venues around town. “I perform at different restaurants, but mainly Ippolito’s in Roswell,” Alex said. “I do children’s parties as well. I prefer the older crowd; I feel I connect to them a whole lot better. They have a better attention span.” “Alex also goes to Tannen’s Magic Camp during the summer at Bryn Mawr College,” his mother said. “Many famous magicians, such as David Copperfield, went there as kids. This was also my dad’s doing.” A student at the Davis Academy, Alex will play the lead role in the school’s musical production of “Peter Pan” on March 26 and 27 after portraying Young Simba in last year’s “The Lion King.” “I’m into acting, singing. I enjoy basketball, soccer and tennis,” Alex said. “I’m pretty easygoing. I like a lot of things.” ■
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Ketubahs Combine Tech, Art
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com
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The art of creating ketubahs has changed over time, but Miriam Karp displays a passion for designing handmade Jewish wedding contracts through her business, Custom Ketubah (customketubah.com). Karp was raised in Atlanta and moved to New York for college, earning a master’s in painting. from the State University of New York at Albany. Upon graduation, she took calligraphy classes in English and Hebrew, and she created her first ketubah while living in Brooklyn. “I got to combine my love of letters and calligraphy as well as being a painter into one, it was a great combination,” Karp said. She decided to design her own ketubahs after she discovered that most ketubah artists have a background in design and calligraphy but not necessarily fine arts. “To me, they all looked kind of the same. They had a very hard edge and were filled in, and I wanted to make something very different,” Karp said. “A lot of people were doing lithographs or silk screens, but I wanted to do handmade etchings.” She possessed little knowledge about etchings, but when she moved to Italy, she produced a series of them with a master etcher. “They were very different because they were handmade, and of course there wasn’t a huge market for them,” Karp said. “But that’s when I realized that people either wanted a handmade ketubah or print, and I fell right in between.” The art of Giclee changed the playing field for Karp, who found she could produce a ketubah using art and technology. “I thought, ‘OK, I should start doing this. It’s fabulous, and I can now create a watercolor, scan it and use Photoshop to create what I want.’ It was so much easier than a handmade etching and opened a lot of doors for me having that print, especially done on fine watercolor paper. “Giclee still produces a high-quality print but doesn’t have the amazing amount of work that goes into creating an etching,” Karp said. The print software provides greater flexibility for Karp, helping her accommodate her client’s needs. “I could now take out a
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Artwork by Miriam Karp
This is a Turkish Ladino ketubah.
Continued on the next page
$18.99
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tree and replace it with a rose bush, per the client’s request.” When Karp started designing ketubahs, only a handful of artists were making them, but the Internet helped elevate her business to the next level. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t have to do this locally anymore.’ I always worked nationally, but it was mostly through hearsay or rabbis who had heard about me before.” Karp finds inspiration in Italy, where she lived for a year and a half and grew to admire Italian art and ketubahs. She also owns books on the history of ketubahs and enjoys experimenting with different styles. “If you see my website, it is very eclectic, but I also try to draw my inspiration from various cultures. Jews come from all over the world, and the art they produced is reflective of the societies they lived in. I love that aspect,” Karp said. In addition to painting florals, Karp draws inspiration from 18th century Dutch engravings if it’s not a commissioned work. She also considers herself a chameleon and is open to client suggestions. Karp’s first step in creating a ketubah is understanding what her clients like, perhaps based on something they like on her website. She then conducts a long consultation with the couple. “It’s like art or marriage therapy because you learn a lot about the couple and see them negotiating what they want on the ketubah, what colors they like, and I also follow through with questions such as what symbols they like and what is important to them.” The next step is to create a blackand-white sketch that can be adjusted based on the couple’s specifications before Karp begins making the final ketubah. After confirming the rough
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This ketubah shows the influence of Isfahan, Iran.
Rhodesian artistry inspires this ketubah.
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Two women are in the top right corner because this Turkish tile ketubah is for a lesbian couple.
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draft, Karp gets started. “I always begin with the calligraphy first because if you make a mistake that can’t be fixed, like leaving out an entire line of the text, then you can start over with the calligraphy. But if you do the painting first, you are really screwed. I always tell people who are just starting out to start with the text first,” Karp said. The ketubah design process has changed over five years. Most are now computer-generated rather than handmade. “I think this is both good and bad,” Karp said “I have seen some amazing ketubahs online that are made from Vector art, and they are really quite beautiful, and some of the simpler designs are very gorgeous. I admire them, but it’s vector art and not hand-painted.” Laser cutting has also become a
popular trend in ketubahs. Karp has created ketubahs for various Jewish ethnicities, including Indian, Moroccan and Ladino. She encourages couples to think of their budget when they select a ketubah and to learn what is important to them. She also has created ketubahs for same-sex marriages and commitment ceremonies. Although she received some criticism from the Jewish community in doing so, she feels strongly about providing her services to the LBGT community the past 10 to 15 years and wants people to know her website is a haven for same-sex couples. She created a new category on her website, where she makes every pictured ketubah available to same-sex couples. “Having a custom ketubah is meaningful to them,” Karp said. ■
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Strangers Welcome At Shearith
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
By Cady Schulman cschulman@atljewishtimes.com
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Nora Richardson dedicated her life to helping others. She invited a couple new to Atlanta with a broken-down car to stay at her home until the car was fixed. She bought supplies for an artist who couldn’t afford them. She picked up a homeless woman on Interstate 85 and took her to get a hot meal. Richardson’s husband, Hank, said his wife was put on Earth to do G-d’s work. “She was one of those people who was very humble and stayed in the background,” Richardson said. “She never wanted anyone to know what she was doing. She would do so much good for people and help them in every way.” After Nora died last fall, her husband wanted his design students at Atlanta’s Portfolio Center to create a project based on her values. One student, Cydney Schwartz, who came to Atlanta after evacuating New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina shortly before her bat mitzvah celebration, decided to combine Nora’s passion for helping strangers with the Jewish tradition of bringing someone you don’t know into your Shabbat. That combination inspired her to start the Strangers Shabbat program. Originally, the program was going to be for the Jewish community, but Rabbi Ari Kaiman encouraged her to take the program outside the community to those who aren’t Jewish. “That’s when it really started to take off,” Schwartz said. “When you uproot your life to a new city, you really don’t have any sense of community. It’s hard to make friends.” She said the goal is for people who start Shabbat as strangers to leave with friends. “This is an opportunity to bring so many people together to learn new things and really get to know someone who would be outside of your circle.” Schwartz has teamed up with OneTable and is using its platform to bring people to the dinners. The organization provided funding to feed people who sign up for the meals. That funding, in addition to money raised from a GoFundMe campaign, will feed more than 100 people at the first dinner, which is scheduled for Friday night, March 31,
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at Congregation Shearith Israel. The ultimate goal is to host dinners twice a month in congregants’ homes. “It’s going to be very, very big,” Schwartz said. “Through this dinner, I’m wanting to build a community with Stranger Shabbat hosts. We already do have a lot of people who want to be involved. If you can’t host, you can assist in hosting the meals. We want several Jewish people at each meal to show what Shabbat is about and bring the two aspects together.” As of this writing, Schwartz has raised $1,248 of her $1,500 crowdfunding goal. You can donate at bit. ly/2mi2Nc0. “It truly warms my heart,” Schwartz said. “To have something like this that has grown and is reaching another part of my life, my family, my heritage, is just overwhelming for me in so many ways to just know that this is something that is going to continue to grow past my time at school and can go for years and years and years. To know I’ve done something to help is very exciting.” Richardson said Schwartz is empathetic, as his wife was, and has interpreted his wife’s values the way she saw them. “It’s a great way for the values that Nora shared to be continued,” he said. “It helps so many people in bringing people together the way Nora did herself. She put her passion and her energy together, and it’s starting to work. It’s just terrific. I could not be more pleased with what she’s done and how she’s pulled everyone together at every level. What was Nora’s is hers now. That’s the amazing thing.” ■
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Cydney Schwartz is striving to honor the legacy of the wife of Hank Richardson, her professor at the Portfolio Center.
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$1.8M Gala Celebrates 125 Years of Grady By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com Even Henry Grady turned out for the 125th birthday party for the hospital that bears his name. Sure, it was Henry Grady III, the great-great-grandson of the promoter of the New South whose downtown statue faces east toward Grady Memorial Hospital. But Grady’s appearance helped set a festive mood for the more than 800 people packed into the Georgia Aquarium’s Oceans Ballroom on Saturday night, March 18. The seventh annual White Coat Grady Gala raised a record $1.8 million for the Grady Health Foundation, making the seven-year total $9.3 million. “This year’s gala received an unprecedented level of support from companies, individuals and foundations who give because they believe in Grady’s mission,” foundation President Renay Blumenthal said. “What a wonderful way to celebrate the 125th anniversary of a storied Atlanta institution
that saves and changes lives each and every day.” Candy Berman worked nonstop throughout the night to keep the program running smoothly. In addition to video messages from politicians (Gov. Nathan Deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, Congressmen John Lewis, Hank Johnson and David Scott) and community leaders (Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank), the celebration welcomed people whose lives have been saved by Grady and the doctors and nurses who cared for them. Those stories included a teen girl burned over much of her body in a car accident, a police officer with multiple life-threatening injuries after a motorcycle accident, an AIDS patient and a baby born at another hospital who would have died without Grady’s neonatal specialists. Another Grady baby, former Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, was among the dignitaries at the event who were highlight-
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ed during the evening. The after-party featured physician band Phrenzy, with Emory Healthcare CEO Jonathan Lewin sitting in with Marcus Stroke & Neuroscience Center head Michael Frankel and others. One of the highlights was the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to seven Grady physicians who have practiced medicine at the hospital for more than 40 years and have more than 300 years of collective experience: • Al Brann, professor of pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine. • Joel Felner, associate dean for clinical education and professor of medicine in cardiology at the Emory School of Medicine. • Michael Lubin, professor of medicine at the Emory School of Medicine, who did not attend the gala. • Sidney Stein, chief of hematology and medical oncology for the Grady Health System. • William Torres, vice chairman for clinical affairs and chief of radiology at the Emory School of Medicine. • H. Kenneth Walker, professor of medicine and neurology at the Emory School of Medicine and executive director of Partners for International Development. • Nanette Wenger, professor of medicine in cardiology at the Emory School of Medicine and a pioneer in research in women’s heart disease. “These physicians have collectively treated hundreds of thousands of patients while training tens of thousands of residents and new physicians who are now practicing and teaching in Georgia and around the world,” Blumenthal said. “Honoring them is one small way we can thank them for the incredible contributions they have made to the medical profession and over 300 years of combined service they have given to Grady.” The gala was co-chaired by UPS Chairman and CEO David Abney and his wife, Sherry, and PNC Bank Regional President Eddie Meyers and his wife, Jan. TV journalists Monica Kaufmann and Linda Stouffer emceed the event, and entertainer Jasmine Guy narrated videos about Grady’s history. ■
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Attending the White Coat Grady Gala are (from left) Grady President and CEO John Haupert, Bryan Brooks, Eddie and Jan Meyers, Ned and Renay Blumenthal, Sherry and David Abney, and Ada Lee and Pete Correll.
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www.atlantajewishtimes.com
Classic Truck Fires Up Crusty Goodness By Kevin Madigan kmadigan@atljewishtimes.com At February’s Bar & Bat Mitzvah EXPO, one vendor attracted a lot of attention: a catering company called Southern Crust, whose presence was marked by its main attraction, a 1953 Chevrolet truck converted into a rolling kitchen. “We’re not actually a food truck. It’s a catering truck,” company owner Bob Lewis said during a visit to his center of operations in Chamblee. Outfitted with a wood-fired pizza oven as well as beer and wine taps, the vintage vehicle also has refrigeration, a generator, a stainless-steel work area, water tanks, a triple sink and a PA system. “We showed up there (at the expo), and everyone was looking for something new and different. They wanted something cool. Kids can get into this; so can dads, because we have beer and great pizza,” he said. “It’s a really unique system.” The truck is a story in itself, Lewis said. Its shell was found rusting away in a field in Tennessee. He hauled it
back to a restoration facility in Conyers, where a longer chassis was built and a new engine was installed. The kitchen area — Lewis calls it “the box” — was assembled in Charleston, S.C., based on an idea by a local man he met through a mutual love of soccer. The service, with former Apple chef Robert Echols at the helm, has been running only since October, but it has handled 45 bookings, Lewis said. “The majority of what we’re doing is birthday parties, wedding rehearsal dinners, corporate events. We served 300 pizzas at Sweetwater’s 20th anniversary party.” The truck also serves up s’mores as one option for dessert. On Saturday, March 18, the company was at the Jim Ellis car dealership in Chamblee to help launch the new Alfa Romeo sedan. Lewis’ wife and son help him run the business. “It’s a family affair,” he said, calling them both “very big foodies. We import the best, non-GMO flour from Italy, and we have the best tomatoes and greens and fresh ingredients.
bring new f lavors to your seder table this year by tasting syrian dishes and sweets.
for more information contact margot alfie at 404-275-1397 or magmex67@gmail.c om
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
cooking with margot
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Photo by Kevin Madigan
Southern Crust is one of several entrepreneurial efforts for Bob Lewis.
Southern Crust Catering uses a restored 1953 Chevrolet truck.
The Southern Crust catering truck features a built-in, wood-fired pizza oven.
Simchas can have pizza made on site with Southern Crust.
We start from a good basis. It’s pretty hard to screw it up.” The food is healthy and focused on the taste, Lewis said, and Southern Crust has already won a food award. “The National Association of Catering and Events had a showcase, a food competition called Taste and Trends,” he said. “I thought I’d pull away with a trend award because this is pretty trendy, but we came away with a favorite taste award.” Southern Crust Catering (www. southerncrustcatering.com) is by no means the only venture in which Lewis is involved, though. “I’m a serial entrepreneur — got a lot of other things going on,” he said. “I’ve got my event production company consulting some big agencies in town on marketing strategies. Just picked up a big contract with
the U.S. Marines, reinventing how they recruit.” The latter project also involves a truck. “I’m creating a challenge course on wheels, in a big NASCAR-sized trailer. It was (racing driver) Tony Stewart’s merchandise truck. Inside are all the assessments for mental fitness — sound effects, bombs going off, noise — and outside it’s all physical challenges — rope climbing, push-ups. Those things are standard, but not with a vehicle.” Lewis wants to expand Southern Crust to three or four trucks, taking them into Nashville and Raleigh. “They are both hot markets with pretty good populations,” he said. “You put pizza and beer together, and it’s a pretty fashionable, palatable party on wheels. It’s a fun business.” ■
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MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Wine, Spirits & Beer
SUNDAY “LIVE JAZZ” BRUNCH
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B’nai Mitzvah Rachel Abrams
Rachel Abrams celebrated becoming a bat mitzvah Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017, at Congregation Beth Shalom. Her parents are Phyllis Abrams and Mitchell Abrams. Her brother is Jacob Abrams. Her grandparents are Mildred and Martin Kwatinetz and Rosalyn Abrams and the late Leon Abrams. Rachel is in the seventh grade at Peachtree Charter Middle School, where she enjoys participating in the chorus. In her spare time, Rachel enjoys cooking, listening to music, singing
and playing the guitar. Her mitzvah project was twofold: She collected pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House, and she volunteered at the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Casey Elinger
The bar mitzvah celebration of Casey Jacob Elinger of Roswell was held Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, at Temple Beth Tikvah. Casey is the son of Jerry and Robin Elinger and has a sister, Marley, 10. He is the grandson of Moshe and Miriam Elinger of Lake Worth, Fla., and the late Max and Hedy Pollack of Nashville, Tenn. Casey is in the seventh grade at St. Francis School, where he participates in the debate club and is a member of the Junior Beta Club. His hobbies include playing basketball and spending
time with family and friends.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Alexander Levin
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The bar mitzvah ceremony of Alexander Phillip Levin of Sugar Hill was held Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017, at Congregation Beth Shalom. Alex is the son of Glenn and Alyson Levin and has a brother, Brandon, 15. He is the grandson of Guy and Susan Rappaport of Suwanee and Joyce Levine of Selden, N.Y. For his bar mitzvah project, Alex raised funds and donated part of his bar mitzvah money to Bert’s Big Adventure, a nonprofit organization that provides a magical, all-expense-paid, five-day journey to Walt Disney World for children with chronic and terminal illnesses and their families.
SIMCHAS
Births
Elliott Fineman
Andrea and Robby Fineman announce the birth of a son, Elliott Samuel Fineman, on Nov. 7, 2016, in Atlanta. Elliott is the grandson of Diane and Harold Cohen of Atlanta and Judy and Stan Fineman of Atlanta and is the younger brother of Benjamin Fineman.
Geri and Andy Owens and big sister Gilliann of Knoxville, Tenn., proudly announce the birth of their son and brother, Oakley Michael Owens, on Jan. 31, 2017. Oakley weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces and was 20.5 inches long at birth. Mrs. Owens is the former Geri Spindel of Atlanta. The proud grandparents are Reba and Bennett Herzfeld of Atlanta, Gail and Donnie Owens of Powell, Tenn., and Sherry and Don Spindel of Alpharetta. Oakley will be given the Hebrew name Elon Menachem at a naming ceremony.
MARCH 24 â–Ş 2017
Oakley Owens
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Wedding Seskin-Alterman
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Helaine Seskin and Elliot Alterman are pleased to announce their religious marriage Dec. 29, 2016, at Congregation B’nai Israel Ohev Zedek in Philadelphia. Rabbi Ezra Elstein (formerly of Atlanta) performed the ceremony. Helaine and Elliot met in the USY youth group at Ahavath Achim Synagogue in 1962 and had been dating since they reconnected on JDate in 2012. Helaine is the mother of three children, Aaron (Janna), Joel (Francine) and Laurie Seskin, and the grandmother (Nana) of four grandchildren. Elliot is the father of two children, Michael (Chashy) and Leslie (Matthew) Silverman, and the grandfather (Poppo) of 11 grandchildren. The couple will share wedding vows with their immediate families during a small civil ceremony officiated by Elliot’s son, Rabbi Michael Alterman, and Rabbi Mayer Freedman at Congregation Anshi S’fard on March 26, 2017, followed by a small family dinner.
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SIMCHA RESOURCE GUIDE Catering Alon’s Bakery, 1394 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, www.alons.com, 678-397-1781 Bagel Boys Cafe, 6355 Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Sandy Springs, www.bagelboyscafe.com, 678-5853435 Bagelicious, 1255 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 37, Marietta, 770-509-9505 Buckhead Life Restaurant Group, 265 Pharr Road, Atlanta, www.buckheadrestaurants.com, 404-237-2060 Café Vendôme, 4969 Roswell Road, Suite 155, Atlanta, www.cafevendome.com, 404-551-5163 Cinnaholic,1230 Caroline St., Suite B110, Atlanta, www.cinnaholic.com, 404-343-0805 Citi Wine & Spirits, 5861 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, www.CitiWineandSpirits.com, 404-2284260 Corks & Caps, 4600 Roswell Road, Suite D-110, Atlanta, www.corkscaps.com, 404-483-1050 Create Your Cupcake, 203 Hilderbrand Drive, Sandy Springs, www.createyourcupcake.com, 844-354-7487 Cuzin’s Duzin, 2121 Windy Hill Road, Suite 128, Marietta, www.sweetdreamsminidonuts.com, 347-724-6200 Epic Events, 1119 Logan Circle, Atlanta, www. EpicEventsAtlanta.com, 404-991-9128 For All Occasions and More, 5200 Northland Drive, Sandy Springs, www.foralloccasionsandmore.com, 404-953-8157 The General Muir, 1540 Avenue Place, Suite B-230, Atlanta, www.thegeneralmuir.com, 678-927-9131 Goldbergs Group, 4385 Roswell Road, Atlanta, www.goldbergbagel.com, 404-477-1110 The Kosher Gourmet, 2153 Briarcliff Road, Atlanta, www.kgatl.com, 404-636-1114 Liquid X Cream, www.liquidxcream.com, 678733-0084
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
Madras Mantra, 2179 Lawrenceville Highway, Suite A, Decatur, www.mandrasmantra.com, 404636-4400 Maggiano’s Little Italy — Buckhead, 3368 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, www.maggianos.com, 404-816-6257 Maggiano’s Little Italy — Cumberland, 1601 Cumberland Mall, Cumberland, www.maggianos. com, 770-799-1590 Maggiano’s Little Italy — Perimeter, 4400 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, www.maggianos.com, 770-804-8898 Margot Alfie Catering & Cooking Classes, 3088 Greenfield Drive, Marietta, 404-275-1397 The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co., 2955 Cobb Parkway, Cumberland, www.brooklynwaterbagels.com, 770-988-9991 Pita — Mediterranean Street Food, 4709-B Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, pitastreetfood. com, 404-392-7070 Rumi’s Kitchen Persian Cuisine, 6112 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, www.rumiskitchen.com, 404-477-2100 The Spicy Peach, 2887 North Druid Hills Road, Toco Hills, www.thespicypeach.com, 404-3347200 Sufi’s Atlanta Persian Cuisine, 1814 Peachtree St., Atlanta, www.sufisatlanta.com, 404-888-9699 Tower Beer & Wine, 2161 Piedmont Road, Atlanta, www.towerwinespirits.com, 404-881-0902 Yum Boutique Catering, 678-592-1783
Décor
Balloons and Events Over Atlanta, 1231 Collier Road, Atlanta, www.balloonsover.com, 404-2313090 Encore Events & Entertainment, 253 Swanson Drive, Lawrenceville, www.encoreevents.com, 678-427-0028 EventScapes, 1484 Atlanta Industrial Way, Suite
B, Atlanta, eventscapesatlanta.com, 404-472-9233 Jim White Designs, 2922 Marlan Drive, Atlanta, www.jimwhitedesigns.com, 404-599-4731 Kagan Entertainment, 10270 Piney Ridge Walk, Alpharetta, www.kaganentertainment.com, 770826-8263 Total Lunacy, 215 Berry Glen Court, Johns Creek, www.totallunacy.com, 770-315-4116 Village Green Flowers & Gifts, 3246 Atlanta Road, Smyrna, www.villiageflowersandgifts.com, 770435-9393
Entertainment Bodyworks Atlanta, 600 Garson Drive, Suite 7304, Atlanta, www.makeupartistryatlanta.com, 404816-0989 Caricatures by Tony, 130 Canal Place, Fayetteville, www.caricaturesofatlanta.com, 678-817-0169 Encore Events & Entertainment, 253 Swanson Drive, Lawrenceville, www.encoreevents.com, 678-427-0028 FlipnPics, 901 Gemtry’s Walk, Atlanta, www. flipnpics.com, 770-742-8910 Game Truck, 50 Barrett Parkway, Suite 3005-137, Marietta, www.gametruck.com, 770-755-5100 iFly Indoor Skydiving, 2778 Cobb Parkway, Cumberland, www.iFlyWorld.com, 678-803-4359 Premium Corporate Entertainment Group, 2981 N. Tower Way, Conyers, 678-663-7096 Rock Steady Ballroom, 270 Carpenter Drive, Suite 120, Sandy Springs, www.rocksteadyballroom. com, 404-254-1491
DJ & Live Music Atlanta Fever Entertainment, 978 Forest Pond Circle, Marietta, www.atlantafeverent.com, 404931-5779 Big Band Contractors, www.bigband.band, 770998-8888
Kagan Entertainment, 10270 Piney Ridge Walk, Alpharetta, www.kaganentertainment.com, 770826-8263 Party Express by Tevyeh, 2823 Arabian Trail, Marietta, www.tevyeh.com, 404-939-3813 Richard Siegal, Pianist, 404-994-7507 Sephinta Zarka Music, 141 Meriwether Circle, Milledgeville, www.sephintazarka.com, 404-4791719 Vibe Entertainment, 2080 Peachtree Industrial Court, Suite 107, Atlanta, www.vibeentertainmentinc.com, 404-257-0206
Venues & Hotels
103 West, 103 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta, www.103West.com, 404-233-5993 Alpharetta Convention and Visitor Bureau, 178 S. Main Street, No. 200, Alpharetta, www.awesomealpharetta.com, 678-297-2811 Andretti Entertainment, 1255 Roswell Road, Marietta, www.andrettikarting.com, 678-496-9530 Atlanta Events Center, 1150 Peachtree St., Atlanta, www.atlantaeventcenter.com, 678-793-0030 Atlanta Marriott Peachtree Corners, 475 Technology Parkway, Peachtree Corners, www.marriott. com, 404-263-8558 Café Intermezzo, Midtown, Dunwoody, Alpharetta, Atlanta airport, www.cafeintermezzo.com, 770396-1344 College Football Hall of Fame, 250 Marietta St., Atlanta, www.cfbhall.com, 404-880-4800 Defoor Centre, 1710 Defoor Ave., Atlanta, www. defoorcentre.com, 404-591-3809 Embassy Suites-Perimeter, 1030 Crown Pointe Parkway, Sandy Springs, www.embassysuites3. hilton.com, 770-394-5454 Fernbank Museum, 767 Clifton Road, Atlanta, www.fernbankmuseum.org, 404-929-6339 Game X, 275 Baker St., Suite B, Atlanta, www.ga-
Planning your next Wedding, Mitzah, or Celebration… TWELVE Hotels always the right time! TWELVE Atlantic Station 361 17th Street NW Atlanta, Georgia 30363 404.961.1212 TWELVE Centennial Park 400 W. Peachtree Street Atlanta, Georgia 30308 404.418.1212
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MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Share Your Simchas with the
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Share the joy of a wedding, engagement, anniversary, bar/bat mitzvah or a birth with the community. Your simchas can be submitted for free at www.atlantajewishtimes.com/submit-a-simcha
SIMCHA RESOURCE GUIDE mexatl.com, 404-525-0728 Georgia Aquarium, 225 Baker St., Atlanta, www. georgiaaquarium.org, 404-581-4000 Georgia Freight Depot, 65 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Atlanta, www.dceatlanta.com, 404-656-3850 The Georgian Club, 100 Galleria Parkway, Suite 1700, Cumberland, www.georgianclub.com, 770952-6000 Hilton Garden Inn-Perimeter Center, 1501 Lake Hearn Drive, Sandy Springs, www.hiltongardeninn3.hilton.com, 404-459-0500 Hyatt Atlanta Perimeter at Villa Christina, 4000 Summit Blvd., Brookhaven, atlantaperimeter.regency.hyatt.com, 404-303-7700 Lake Lanier Islands, 7000 Lanier Islands Parkway, Buford, www.lanierislands.com, 770-9458787 Le Meridien Atlanta Perimeter Hotel, 111 Perimeter Center West, Dunwoody, www.lemeridienatlantaperimeter.com, 770-396-6800 Omni Hotel CNN Center, 100 CNN Center, Atlanta, www.omnihotels.com/hotels/atlanta-cnncenter, 404-659-0000 The Pavillion at Olde Towne, 4950 Olde Towne Parkway, Marietta www.the-pavillion.com, 770578-1110 Sage Perimeter/Sage Woodfire Tavern, 4505 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, www.sagewoodfiretavern.com, 770-804-8880 Sandy Springs Hospitality & Tourism, 5920 Roswell Road, Suite A-118, Sandy Springs, www.visitsandysprings.org, 404-206-1447 Sherwood Event Hall, 8610 Roswell Road, No. 200, Sandy Springs, www.sherwoodevent.com, 678-643-9324 SlingShot Entertainment, 6344 Cash Court, Peachtree Corners, www.slingshotplay.com, 678585-2268 Spring Hall, 7130 Buford Highway, Suite A-100, www.spring-hall.com, 770-613-9973 The Standard Club, 6230 Abbots Bridge Road, Johns Creek, www.StandardClub.org, 770-4970055 Stars and Strikes-Sandy Springs, 8767 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, www.starsandstrikes.com, 678-965-5707 Sufi’s Atlanta Persian Cuisine, 1814 Peachtree St, Atlanta, www.sufisatlanta.com, 404-888-9699 Three Sheets, 6017 Sandy Springs Circle, Sandy Springs, www.threesheetsatlanta.com, 404-3038423 Tongue & Groove, Lindbergh City Center, 565 Main St., Atlanta, www.tandgonline.com, 404-2612325 Twelve Hotel Centennial Park, 400 W. Peachtree St., Atlanta, www.twelvehotels.com/centennialpark, 404-418-1212 Westin Atlanta North, 7 Concourse Parkway, Sandy Springs, www.westinatlantanorth.com, 770-395-3900 Wyndham Atlanta Galleria, 6345 Powers Ferry Road, Sandy Springs, www.wyndhamatlantahotel.com, 770-955-1700
The Great Frame Up, 1432 Dresden Drive, Suite 400, Brookhaven, brookhaven.thegreatframeup. com, 404-464-5972 Harold Alan Photographers, P.O. Box 88744, Atlanta, www.haroldalan.com, 770-730-8911 Jon Marks Photography, 651 Maple Grove Way, Marietta, www.jonmarksphoto.com, 770-587-3365 Kissed With Light Photography, 655 Huntwick Place, Roswell, www.kissedwithlight.com, 404538-4977 Michael Rosser Photography, 3905 Remington Way, Marietta, www.michaelrosserphotography. com, 770-516-4332 Montage Mania, www.montagemania.net, 404444-5999 Paula Gould Photography, www.pmgphoto.com, 404-310-2094 RMB Studios, rmbstudios.zenfolio.com, 410-8046408
Beauty Anderson Center for Hair & Restoration, 5555 Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, Suite 106, Sandy Springs, www.atlantahairsurgeon.com, 404-2564247
www.atlantajewishtimes.com For the Sole Foot Spa, 6690 Roswell Road, No. 550, Sandy Springs, www.ftsole.com, 404-254-3758 Joseph & Friends Salon, 6309 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, josephandfriends.com Keri Gold Salon, 1258 W. Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta, www.kerigoldsalon.com, 404-990-3200 Noami’s Salon, 4401 Shallowford Road, Suite 132, Roswell, www.naomisalonandspa.com, 470-5450815 Premier Image Cosmetic & Laser Surgery, 4553 N. Shallowford Road, Suite 20B, Atlanta, www. picosmeticsurgery.com, 770-457-6303 Sweet Peach Wax & Sugaring Studio, 206-A Johnson Ferry Road, Sandy Springs, www.sweetpeachwax.com, 404-481-5488
Event Planners Atlanta Party Connection, 330 Highlands Court, Alpharetta, www.atlantapartyconnection.com, 770-744-5750 Balloons and Events Over Atlanta, 1231 Collier Road, Atlanta, www.balloonsover.com, 404-2313090 Mazel Tov Atlanta, www.mazeltovatlanta.com, 770-312-9722
Clothing & Accessories Chic Occasions, P.O. Box 144, Marietta, www.chicoccasions.com, 770-257-9007 Nina McLemore, 110 E. Andrews Drive, Suite 3, Atlanta, www.ninamclemore.com, 404-841-8111 Ticknors, 3500 Peachtree Road, Suite 2012A, Atlanta, www.ticknors.com, 404-946-5808 Under the Pecan Tree, 5482 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody, www.underthepecantree.net, 678-694-8704 Zimm’s Dry Cleaning, www.zimmsdrycleaning. com, 404-227-4426
Jewelers D. Geller and Son, 2955 Cobb Parkway, Suite 230, Cumberland, www.dgeller.com, 770-955-5995 LeeBrant Jewelers, 127 Perimeter Center West, Sandy Springs, www.leebrant.com, 770-551-8850 Solomon Brothers Fine Jewelry, 3340 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, www.solomonbrothers.com, 404266-0266
Invitations
EventPrints, www.eventprints.com, 404-745-9590
7th Wave Pictures, 750 Ponce de Leon Place, Atlanta, www.7thwavepictures.com, 404-246-9674 Affordable Photography, 3000 Old Alabama Road, Suite 119-195, Alpharetta, www.affordablephoto.com, 770-992-1529 Blue Orchid Productions, 2184 Zelda Drive, www. blueorchidproductions.com, 404-275-2290 Chuck Wolf Photo Design Bar, 3763 Roswell Road, Atlanta, www.photodesignbar.com, 404-709-2981 Current Pixel, 5975 Roswell Road, Suite A125, Sandy Springs, www.currentpixel.com, 404-256-4108 Eric Bern Studio, 400 Mount Vernon Highway, Sandy Springs, www.ericbernstudio.com, 404252-0209 Gray Imaging Photo, www.grayimagingphoto. com, 770-284-0395
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Photographers & Videographers
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SIMCHAS
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
MACoM Clears Debt With First Gala By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
The Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah took the plunge on its first gala fundraiser Thursday night, March 16, and emerged from the Georgia Aquarium event clean and refreshed. But for one night, instead of the living waters of the mikvah, it was the lifeblood of money that renewed MACoMas a nondenominational, nonjudgmental community mikvah. By the time emcee Mike Leven, the aquarium’s CEO, started the program, the first Mitzvah for the Mikvah had already succeeded. Through sponsorships, donations and ticket sales, the event raised $300,000 after expenses — enough to pay off MACoM’s $275,000 debt and put away $25,000 for operational expenses. And those numbers don’t include an additional $90,000 in outstanding pledges that now also will go toward operations, Leven said. With the event’s business settled from the start, the night could focus on the spiritual and emotional reasons more than 250 people gathered to celebrate the mikvah and honor its found-
ing fathers, Rabbis Alvin Sugarman and Joshua Heller. It was Rabbi Sugarman, the former senior rabbi at The Temple, who heard author Anita Diamant speak about Boston’s community mikvah, Mayyim Hayyim, at a Union for Reform Judaism biennial and brought the idea back to Atlanta and the Marcus Foundation. It was Rabbi Heller, drawn to Congregation B’nai Torah 13 years ago in part because it had its own mikvah, who bought into the idea of replacing that decaying mikvah with an independent facility on the site during the synagogue’s extensive renovations.
PASSOVER 2017 PAREVE CASSEROLES Medium
At the mikvah, unlike in the song “Had Gadya,” Rabbi Alvin Sugarman says, “the water does not quench the fire. It ignites and brightens the soul, that spark of G-d that dwells within each of us.”
Photos by Michael Jacobs
Members of the Weber School dance ensemble perform a special dance on the theme of the seven steps of mikvah preparation.
Large
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And it was the pair of them embracing on the floor of the Oceans Ballroom, celebrating not just the success of their vision for a welcoming, stateof-the-art mikvah, but also the friendship that developed between them since they met in 2010. “Rabbi Sugarman and Rabbi Heller had a vision that few of us had: a true community mikvah as an essential part of our Jewish community,” past B’nai Torah President Brian Mand said. Rabbi Heller acknowledged how unlikely it was for the two rabbis from different denominations and different generations to work together, let alone
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Rabbis Alvin Sugarman and Joshua Heller share a hug after Rabbi Sugarman’s speech accepting MACoM’s recognition March 16. (See more photos at www. atlantajewishtimes.com.)
become close friends. While Rabbi Heller joked that he’s the mikvah’s chief pool officer or a pious pool boy, Rabbi Sugarman called him “the Julio Jones of the mikvah world,” catching the idea of a community mikvah and running it in for a touchdown. “Your friendship has blessed my life more than I can say.” Rabbi Heller said he and the Marcus Foundation’s Jay Kaiman agree that MACoM is the craziest thing either of them ever attempted and got away with. The rabbi said he has 80 computer files of mikvah proposals; 12 of them are marked “final.” “I never thought Heller could pull it off,” Leven said about why he and his family committed to the project. MACoM didn’t exist physically or as a nonprofit entity 27 months ago, but since opening in November 2015, it has seen more than 300 immersions, President Caryn Hanrahan said. Some 30 guides, male and female, ages 24 to 81, have gone through eight hours of training to facilitate those mikvah visits, Tracie Bernstein said. Testimonials throughout the night addressed the reasons people visit, beyond the monthly rules of ritual purity for women and the dip required for conversion. Weber School sophomore Aliza Abusch-Magder spoke of the importance for teenagers to have a “judgment-free zone” after facing the oftenbrutal comments about their bodies in high school. Michelle Cooper said MACoM helped her emerge from sickness to health as a transformed person after a successful battle against cancer. Above all, Leven said, MACoM is a place of unity for the Jewish community at a time of rising anti-Semitism and deep political divides. “The community mikvah is a place where we can be together no matter what,” he said. “We Old-Fashioned Bread need to transfer that to ourStuffing relationChallah Bread Stuffing ships with each other.” ■
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SIMCHAS
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Assistant Rabbi Picks Beth Jacob Over Baltimore Rabbi Dov Foxbrunner didn’t always know he would become a rabbi when he was growing up, but his strong connection to Judaism and his suburban upbringing in Silver Spring, Md., led him to become the new assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth Jacob. After his mother died at a young age, Rabbi Foxbrunner’s father, a prominent Torah scholar, raised him on notions of truth and knowledge while immersing him in music and the arts. That upbringing in a relaxed Jewish community that resembled Atlanta’s led him to develop a deep reverence for Torah scholarship and Jewish academics. At age 18, Rabbi Foxbrunner traveled to Israel, where he studied at various yeshivas, including the famous Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Upon graduating, he formed his own kollel, which offered graduate programs and taught classes with as many as 30 students at a time. For three years Rabbi Foxbrunner managed the administrative, financial and academic duties of the kollel. “The opportunity taught me a lot of valuable skills and experiences and gave me a deep appreciation for Torah values,” Rabbi Foxbrunner said. Atlanta was the future for Rabbi Foxbrunner because he was determined to give back the knowledge he had received along the way. “It took most of my life to realize what an important role a rabbi can play on both the communal and individual level. My role as assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth Jacob is a fantastic opportunity to take what I gained through my years of Torah study in Israel and share that inspiration and passion with the Beth Jacob community and beyond.” After operating the kollel in Jerusalem, Rabbi Foxbrunner was ready for another opportunity, and one of the first people he called was Beth Jacob Rabbi Ilan Feldman. “Rabbi Feldman’s leadership abilities in the realm of community building and outreach are beloved and respected not only on a national level, but even internationally. Through his devotion and vision, Beth Jacob is known as the synagogue upon a hill, a model of a diverse yet united community that grows both in number and in spirit,” Rabbi Foxbrunner said. Weeks later, Rabbi Foxbrunner received an email from a search commit-
Rabbi Dov Foxbrunner is excited to fulfill his rabbinical duties as the new assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth Jacob.
tee about an opening in Atlanta. “I was very excited about the position because I was already familiar with Atlanta,” he said. “There were two openings, one in Baltimore and the other in Atlanta, but I already had a deep admiration for Rabbi Ilan Feldman and the spiritually diverse and growing community he continues to lead. The congregation and community offer a fresh and real look into Jewish content and wisdom and offer a unique experience which Rabbi Ilan’s father, Emanuel Feldman, also helped establish. It’s a real privilege to add my link to that chain.” As with any rabbinical position, Rabbi Foxbrunner believes he has a dual purpose within the community as the assistant rabbi. The first is to humbly respond to the needs of the community, whether that means counseling, lending rabbinical guidance or coordinating with other organizations, and the second involves raising Beth Jacob’s community to the next level. “I am delighted to join Beth Jacob during a time of change,” Rabbi Foxbrunner said, adding that the synagogue’s ongoing renovations are sym-
bolic of his vision for the congregation. “The synagogue’s rich history stands as the groundwork, and the rebuilding of the sanctuary symbolizes our work in raising the community to the next level of growth.” He also said, “We have a new board with young lay leaders who are passionate about getting involved with the shul and community, which allows for greater networking opportunities.” As with any new position, Rabbi Foxbrunner anticipates positive challenges along the way and is committed to fulfilling his role as the assistant rabbi at Congregation Beth Jacob. “The two biggest challenges that I foresee are also two of my biggest opportunities. There is the personal challenge of making sure that I am wholly a devoted husband and father of six wonderful children and even utilizing their
wonderful qualities to give to the community. And there is also the communal challenge of bringing together the strengths of a diverse congregation under one roof. “We have both an older, more experienced demographic that is really the foundation of the community, as well as an increasing influx of young, energetic and talented couples and young families. Some of these families are Atlanta natives returning to settle, but many are attracted to our community from all over, including major Jewish cities such as New York and L.A.” Rabbi Foxbrunner said he looks forward with Beth Jacob members and lay leaders “to attracting a diverse community and to grow spiritually. Our goal is to take what we have and spread it out and find one roof where diversity can thrive.” ■
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com
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SIMCHAS
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
Meet the Millers
The stars have aligned for Emanu-El’s new assistant rabbis By Patrice Worthy
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
When Max Miller met Rachael Klein, he knew after two weeks she was the woman he was going to marry. “We knew immediately we were going to be best friends,” Max said. It took a little longer for Rachael to hear wedding bells, but nonetheless she loved being around him. “He was still coming out of his shell post-college and fraternity,” she said. “I wanted to see where his maturity level was, but it was never really hard for us to talk to each other.” The two Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion rabbinical students met in their first year in Jerusalem, where they dated and cultivated a working relationship that breathed life into their friendship. The couple worked together through school, interned together and launched The Table, a program to help young professionals in Cincinnati experience an authentic Shabbat. On July 15, the Millers will continue working together as the new assistant rabbis at Temple Emanu-El. When the two Reform rabbis-intraining came home from Jerusalem after that first year of study, things began to get more serious. By Passover of their second year, Rachael knew a proposal was in the works. “Most girls grow up dreaming about their wedding dress. I grew up dreaming about my wedding ring,” she said. “I knew it was coming soon, and I didn’t want him to fly blind.”
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The Millers married in August 2015 at Plum Street Temple.
Max and Rachael Miller will start their rabbinic careers at Temple Emanu-El.
Rachael picked three settings she liked and left Max to make the final decision on the ring. She waited for him to pop the question before the first seder at Passover in 2014. When it didn’t happen, she texted a friend that he wasn’t going to propose. Little did she know that Max made special plans for that night. “I wrote in Rachael’s haggadah, ‘Rachael answers fifth question,’ ” Max said. The answer was yes, a new reason that night was different from all others. The couple married Aug. 16, 2015, at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati, the original home of the Reform movement’s historic Isaac M. Wise Temple and the same synagogue where the Millers will be ordained May 20. Now married for 19 months, Max said a definite spiritual transition took place during the exchangie of vows. “It seems like the stars were aligned. Being in the chuppah with our
parents around us was a very awe-inspiring place,” Max said. “It’s very hard to describe the feeling when we were performing the ritual.” The synergy between them is undeniable as they tell their story through smiles. Their chemistry also led Emanu-El, the congregation where Max grew up, and Senior Rabbi Spike Anderson to hire them as the assistant rabbis, stepping in for Rabbi Scott Colbert after his retirement June 30. New rabbis often have a hard time getting placed with a synagogue, but Rabbi Anderson wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to hire the Millers. “They are such a dynamic couple,” Rabbi Anderson said. “I would have hired both of them individually. They’re greater than the sum of their parts.” Max is from Johns Creek, and Rabbi Anderson spent time with the couple during holiday visits to Georgia. The sparkle in their personalities led Rabbi Anderson to ask his congregation for help to hire both Max, who is 27, and Rachael, 26. He said their en-
Rachael Klein is ready for the big day in Cincinnati 19 months ago.
ergy is hard to find among rabbinical students. “Many rabbis are not extroverts; most are introverts,” Rabbi Anderson said. “To find two rabbis who are truly outgoing, dynamic and married to each other and have deep connections in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs brings our congregation to a new level.” When he brought the idea to hire the newlyweds to his congregation, it was an easy sale. He said 30 families stepped up financially so the congregation could afford to hire two rabbis instead of one as planned. Now Rabbi Anderson hopes the Millers will bring their entrepreneurial flair to the synagogue. “It’s a shot of adrenaline for Temple Emanu-El. It’s very rare to hire two rabbis at the same time,” Rabbi Anderson said. “I feel like I got the No. 1 and 2 draft picks of the seminary class.” ■
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Rabbi Adam Starr welcomes couples to Young Israel of Toco Hills’ postnup party Dec. 17.
The point of a postnup agreement for a couple married for years, if not decades, is to encourage wide use of halachic prenuptial agreements for Jewish couples.
Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, oversees a couple signing a postnuptial agreement, ensuring that if they divorce, the woman will receive a quick get or the man will face financial penalties.
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Couples may not marry at Young Israel of Toco Hills without signing a halachic prenuptial agreement in which each spouse promises to grant the other a get (Jewish divorce) if they should ever part ways. Refusal by either spouse to take that halachic step to accompany a civil divorce would result in financial penalties. Such agreements are an important, increasingly common way to prevent the problem of agunot (chained women). They are stuck in Jewish limbo after divorce when their husbands refuse to grant them their freedom under Jewish law to get on with their lives. Without a get, an observant Jew may not remarry. The halachic prenup was little known a quarter-century ago, but in September the Rabbinical Council of America, the leading organization of Orthodox rabbis in the United States, passed a resolution requiring its members to follow the practice of Young Israel and others and require halachic
prenups. To emphasize the importance of such agreements, Young Israel hosted Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, as a scholar in residence in mid-December with the support of the Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta. After that Shabbat, the synagogue held a postnup party — a chance for couples who married without halachic prenups to address that oversight. The event was not meant to protect against a rash of divorces in Toco Hills but to offer a fun way, including cake and music, to raise awareness of the importance of halachic prenups, Rabbi Adam Starr said. “They should become a standard part of all Jewish weddings.” His own parents signed a postnup at a similar event in Maryland in 2013 after 42 years of marriage. Get refusal is a longtime issue, Rabbi Starr said, but prenups and postnups are an effective way to make it a decreasing problem. ■
SIMCHAS
Allie Awards’ Best Team Enjoys Dream Night A bar mitzvah celebration organized and executed by a Jewish dream team of simcha service providers was named the best team effort at the 27th annual Allie Awards at the Georgia Freight Railroad Depot in downtown Atlanta on Sunday, March 5. The Allie Awards are the Oscars of Atlanta’s event planning industry and recognize outstanding achievements and event accomplishments. The nominees represented a Who’s Who of the Atlanta special events industry for affairs including weddings, b’nai mitzvah, corporate events and charity fundraisers. The final award of the evening was Best Team Effort, which was awarded to a bar mitzvah hosted by Kagan Entertainment, Nancy Joffre, Event Savvy,
Added Touch Catering, POHP Events, Button It Up, INC and more. The award-winning vendors are local Jewish business owners who rely on providing top-notch service to Atlanta simchas. The winning event, titled “Micah’s Amusement Park,” was a bar mitzvah hosted by the Bronfman family on the roof of Ponce City Market. In other categories, Event Savvy won for best nonfloral design for a bat mitzvah party called “All About M.E.” Members of the team behind Micah Bronfman’s bar mitzvah also were nominated for videography, the use of media and technology, entertainment at an event costing more, and less than $20,000, and best team effort on a social event. ■
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www.atlantajewishtimes.com Lauren Gellar and Mari Braswell of Event Savvy, Katie Rosenberg, Wendy Cohen, Michelle Venter and Sandra Bank of Added Touch Catering, Sharon Hochdorf of Button It Up, Kumar Thakkar of POHP Events, Tamara Gollob of I Do Linens, and Aaron Payes, Edrick Ramsay, Byron Cooper and Jason Kagan of Kagan Entertainment accept the shared Allie for best team effort.
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(From left) Jason Kagan, Edrick Ramsay, Byron Cooper and Aaron Payes celebrate Kagan Entertainment’s double win at the Allie Awards.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Sharon Hochdorf of Button It Up brings home a pair of Allies.
Let us know what you think by emailing david@atljewishtimes.com or call 404-883-2130.
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LOCAL NEWS
Perlman Ends Term At JF&CS
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
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John Perlman’s two-year term as president of Jewish Family & Career Services didn’t quite end where he’d hoped, but he was close. Perlman handed over the gavel to Michael Levy at the agency’s annual luncheon Thursday, March 16, amid a sense of accomplishment at the improving financial strength, expanding reach and impact of services, rising quality of those services, and increasing number of working relationships with other agencies. But the meeting was held at Congregation B’nai Torah, not at the upgraded, expanded JF&CS campus about four miles away, where the groundbreaking took place a year earlier, immediately after the 2016 annual luncheon. Although parts of the renovated facilities are in use, the grand opening isn’t until May 10. Perlman called it a “big disappointment” not to have the meeting on the completed campus, but he said staffers such as clinical counselors, who are already in their new offices, love them. Still, he said the No. 1 achievement of his second time leading the agency — he was the president of predecessor Jewish Vocational Services in the 1990s — is the transition of Rick Aranson to CEO from chief operating officer after Gary Miller retired. The praise and mutual respect between Perlman and Aranson did leave room for some laughs. Perlman, for example, gave Aranson a parting gift of a compass so the CEO can find the incomplete northeast section of the JF&CS main building in the future, while Aranson’s farewell presents to Perlman included a candy dispenser. Levy, a partner at Aprio, said his focus as president will be the implementation of the revised strategic plan, which he said will help JF&CS fill the gaps in services left by public funding. The plan’s three main planks are to put the right people and facilities in place to be responsive and adaptable, to focus and scale programs to help clients achieve self-sufficiency and an improved quality of life, and to promote agency sustainability. “Without people and funding, JF&CS couldn’t exist,” Levy said. “As we grow, so must our base of volunteers
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and donors, who combine to bring all of our programs to life.” The agency also presented two awards during the luncheon: • Tara Kornblum, a JF&CS board member and volunteer, received the Herbert Kohn Meritorious Service Award. After pushing the annual fundraising campaign above $1 million as its leader in 2011 and 2012, she led the annual campaign for a third time in 2016 and exceeded the goal by raising more than $1.4 million. “Tara’s energy and devotion are beyond measure. She ate, slept, drank annual campaign,” said Cherie Aviv, who presented the award. • Ashley Semerenko, the social services program manager at the Ben Massell Dental Clinic, received the Sta-
Cherie Aviv comforts Tara Kornblum after presenting her the Herbert Kohn Meritorious Service Award. “Oh, great,” Kornblum said through tears after realizing she’d have to pose for photos after the emotional surprise of having her 97-yearold grandmother at the ceremony.
cy G. Fialkow Staff Appreciation Award from last year’s winner, Chris Greer. Semerenko started as an intern with JF&CS about five years, “and we realized we did not want to let her get away,” Greer said. He said she has managed over 20 community partnerships at the Massell Dental Clinic, has developed training guides for new team members, has found resources to bring in medical and vision services, recently earned her licensed clinical social worker certification, and still will go outside to direct traffic in high heels. ■
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ARTS
18 Days of Jewish Music The eighth annual Atlanta Jewish Music Festival ended Sunday, March 19, after 18 days and 24 events. From Sephardic world rhythms to jazz, rock and Israeli hip-hop, AJMF8 featured one of their most eclectic lineups yet. This year’s attendance was estimated at 5,335, up 35 percent from 2016. ■
AJMF8 closes with the Molly Blank Jewish Concert Series at the Breman Museum, featuring music from 1956 to 1966, including the hits “Jailhouse Rock,” “One Fine Day” and “Stand by Me.”
Will Miriam and Sameer’s cross-cultural romance survive a shocking accusation?
Foad Naraghi performs at international night at Eddie’s Attic.
Strait of Gibraltar A World Premiere March 31 - April 23 2017
Afro-Cuban jazz fusion group Odessa/Havana opens AJMF8 at City Winery.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
For tickets and information, call 404-484-8636 or visit synchrotheatre.com.
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Atlanta-based pianist David Marcus has some fun at Congregation Bet Haverim, where he performed a set of Sephardic music on his accordion.
AJMF songwriting commission winner Nick Edelstein performs at Eddie’s Attic during international night.
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Rabbi David Spinrad, Sammy Rosenbaum and Michael Levine lead a special edition of The Temple’s monthly Well series at City Winery.
Local hip-hop group Mighty High Coup throws down the beats with a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight for Your Right to Party.”
American hip-hop artist Kosha Dillz gets the crowd into it at the Buckhead Theatre.
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Sarah Aroeste teaches Ladino to the audience at the Marcus JCC’s family Purim concert. She performed five times at AJMF8.
AJMF Executive Director Russell Gottschalk and local hip-hop artist Adan Bean introduce the live cover of the Beastie Boys’ album “Licensed to Ill.”
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ARTS
‘Atlanta Collects’ Delights in Part 2 The second leg of “Atlanta Collects: Treasures From Atlanta’s Private Collectors” opened to the public Sunday, March 12, after a sneak-peek premiere party the night before at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum. These works on loan from private collections represent modern selections, whereas Part 1, which was on display from December to February, presented more traditional, better-known artists. Aaron Berger, the Breman’s executive director, put it in glossy perspective: “Atlanta has a reputation for not being terribly sophisticated. The reality is we have great depth, knowledge and experience. The earlier show, which had works from well-known artists like Cassatt and Wyeth, was less risky than this. These contemporary collectors genuinely get to know the artist and love their work.” Berger said one of his favorite pieces in the new exhibit is “Self Portrait/Pulp” from 2001 by American Chuck Close, who is a quadriplegic.
“Considering the challenges he had to overcome, I consider this work outstanding. Close also has had prominent pieces in our High Museum of Art.”
Jaffe’s Jewish Jive By Marcia Caller Jaffe mjaffe@atljewishtimes.com
William Eiland, the curator, explained Atlanta’s assimilation of styles and said pop art is not dead as he spoke about each piece. “Relevant,” “collaborative,” “conflicting,” “theatrical” and “insightful” were some of the terms he employed. Creative fan Carol Nemo said her favorite work is a collage by Vik Muniz that features dozens of babies. “This speaks to me because I love babies.” Spring Asher was impressed with a collection of individual creature sculptures climbing the wall — spider, cactus, bird’s nest, fox — made of clay, steel, sand, paint, aluminum and glue by Kentuckian Joe Walters.
Photos by Marcia Caller Jaffe
Collectors Michael and Ann Kay pose by their “Erzulie,” created by Radcliffe Bailey, an Atlantan known for layering with cultural relevance.
“I like how it’s textural and fills the wall,” she said. Ann and Michael Kay lent to the exhibit “Erzulie” by Atlantan Radcliffe Bailey, who is known for his mixed media, layering and cultural resonance, often through the use of found materials.
Other attention-grabbers include “Mao,” an accumulation sculpture made in 2004 from toy cars, and “Shimmering Madness,” a jelly bean statue created by Sandy Skoglund in 1998. The collection is open to the public through April 16. ■
Anniversary Celebration March 24-27, 2017
Come enjoy wine, champagne and hor d’ouerves! Fri-Sat Mar 24-25 3-7PM Eats-drinks & free art or fine art poster for all.
Meet Mordechai Rosenstein March 26-27
Sandy Skoglund’s “Shimmering Madness” is composed of jelly beans and resin.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Sun Mar 26 4-7PM Mon Mar 27 3-7PM
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Breman Executive Director Aaron Berger is a fan of Chuck Close’s self-portrait.
Since 1979, Mordechai Rosenstein has beeen creating Jewish Art and putting it up in people’s homes, synagogues, and agencies throughout the world. Mark Jaffe | Mark@chaifineart.com | 770-289-0114 5975 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, Ga 30328 Hammond & Roswell next to Cafe Sunflower Hours : Sunday & Monday - Closed • Tuesday-Saturday 12-6PM Or by appointment
Kentuckian Joe Walters’ creatures of sand, clay, steel, aluminum and paint cling to the wall.
Mao Zedong perhaps has never looked as driven as he does in this accumulation sculpture of toy cars and other vehicles.
OBITUARIES
Mildred Bleiberg 98, Atlanta
Mildred Ruben Bleiberg, 98, of Atlanta passed away peacefully Tuesday, March 14, 2017. She was born in Chicago on Dec. 22, 1918, to Sadie and Max Ruben, both of blessed memory. She was preceded in death by her husband of 65 years, Arthur, and is survived by her sons, Fred (Karen) and Bob, and her grandchildren, Nolan, Miles and Emily Bleiberg and Hailey and Caitlyn Brown. Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. Graveside services were held Thursday, March 16, at Crest Lawn Memorial Park with Rabbi Ilan Feldman officiating. Memorial donations may be made to the American Heart Association, www.heart.org. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.
Elliot Shafer 92, Atlanta
Elliot Stanley Shafer died Tuesday, March 14, 2017. He was born in Roxbury, Mass., Feb. 6, 1925, to Anna Simons and Leo M. Shafer and was preceded in death by his wife, Peryl Patricia Shafer, and a sister, Sandra (Lewis) Wernick. He is survived by daughter Elizabeth (Charles) Cohn, grandchildren Michael Cohn of Atlanta and Stephen (Shannon) Cohn, and great-grandchild Catherine Cohn of Austin, Texas. Elliot was educated in Winthrop Public Schools and graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in April 1944. Upon graduation, he was commissioned an ensign in the U.S. Navy and assigned to a troop carrier that was commended for making more trips than any other during World War II. He married Patricia Goldman in Boston in September 1948. He returned to active duty and transferred to the Coast Guard in 1949; he retired as a commander in June 1970. One of the highlights of his career was escorting Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip aboard the HMS Britannia on the 10th anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway. After retiring from the Coast Guard, Elliot worked for Texaco as a senior environmental specialist, handling oil spills and cleanups. He retired from Texaco in July 1987, moved to Atlanta and worked for Bank of America. He often volunteered with his daughter, ushering for Symphony Street and assisting the Decorators’ Show House & Gardens, benefiting the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He was also active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars and its “Buddy” Poppy campaigns. Befitting someone who lent his hand to such varied endeavors, he developed friendships with many, whom he cherished dearly. Donations in Elliot’s honor may be made to the charity of your choice. Graveside services were held Friday, March 17, at Arlington Memorial Park. Arrangements by H.M. Patterson & Son, Arlington Chapel.
Shirley Weisman Mrs. Shirley Weisman (nee Aronoff) of Augusta entered into rest Thursday, March 16, 2017. She is survived by her husband of 66 years, Dr. Manuel Weisman. She was born to the late Jack and Helen Aronoff of Rome, Ga., on March 2, 1927. She was preceded in death by her son, Gary Dean Weisman, and a brother, Marvin Aronoff. Mrs. Weisman is also survived by her daughter, Dr. Carol Weisman Beck of Beachwood, Ohio, and two grandchildren, Brian J. Beck (Amanda) of Morton Grove, Ill., and Jessica R. Beck (fiancé John R. Daley) of Cranberry Township, Pa. Mrs. Weisman graduated with honors from Girls’ High School of Rome and Northwestern University School of Dental Hygiene. At Northwestern she was elected to the Sigma Phi Alpha Honor Society for outstanding scholarship. In Rome, she was a Sunday school teacher and a member of the Rome Symphony as a violinist and of the Lindale Band on the piccolo. Mrs. Weisman is a life member of Hadassah, the Auxiliary of the American Association of Endodontists, and the Sisterhood of Adas Yeshurun Synagogue, where she served as an officer and on multiple boards. She was the past president of the Evergreen Garden Club. She was also a member of the Walton Way Congregation Children of Israel and its sisterhood. She served on the Georgia Board of Dental Examiners for dental hygienists. Graveside services were held at Magnolia Cemetery on Sunday, March 19. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in memory of Shirley Weisman to the Adas Yeshurun Synagogue, 935 Johns Road, Augusta, GA 30904.
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
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ARTS
Feiler Finds Modern Love With Adam and Eve
Jaffe: You write, you appear on TV, you give voice to Judaism. What is the
real base of your talent? Feiler: I am an experiencer, where I go to far-off lands like the Mideast or join the circus, then I am an explainaholic. I want to tell you about it.
Jaffe’s Jewish Jive By Marcia Caller Jaffe mjaffe@atljewishtimes.com
Jaffe: You were diagnosed with sarcoma (femur) and wrote “The Council of Dads: A Story of Family, Friendship & Learning How to Live” about how your friends might pitch in to rear your children if you were not able to do so. How is your health now? Feiler: I have been cancer-free for nine years. When all that happened, I had to change my focus and write
about family matters instead of exotic travel. This book about Adam and Eve heralds my return to good health.
Jaffe: You tapped into the very hot topic of gender bending. The chapter on Hemingway dressing like a woman when his wife became masculine is very far out. Infidelity, letting in the evil Lilith. The chapter on modern, female Kohenet priestesses was very edgy. I never took LSD but imagine it may be like this. You hint that an extramarital affair can be a catalyst to reconnecting. Where are we leading with all this confusion? Feiler: Part of the motivation of the book was looking at how men and women relate. Is nothing worth preserving? Adam and Eve are important in today’s dating … and sexual world. Women are justifiably angry about Eve being a victim of the greatest form of character assassination. People
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Jaffe: You end the book with six elements of romantic love that people can relate to in the here and now. Feiler: In this hyperconnected world, we have a crisis in connecting. Some say it’s just social science. I say the Bible taught us 3,000 years ago: Real eye-to-eye, face-to-face contact is the key. ■ Who: Bruce Feiler What: Page From the Book Festival on “The First Love Story” Where: Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30 Tickets: $10 JCC members, $16 others; www.atlantajcc.org/bookfestival or 678-812-4005
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My three most admired authors and explainers are Tom Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Feiler. If you have not listened to Feiler’s CD best sellers “Walking the Bible” and “Abraham,” it’s not too late to check them out at the library. Feiler’s Oprah PBS TV series, “Sacred Journeys,” also is a must-see. Feiler will be interviewed by Valerie Jackson at the Marcus Jewish Community Center on Thursday night, March 30, about his new book, “The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us.” Don’t be fooled into thinking this is biblical dogma. Feiler goes back to the original story to bring us into modern-day love and relationships.
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CLOSING THOUGHTS
In Nisan, the Moon Is Our Timepiece
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
Rosh Chodesh Nisan begins Tuesday, March 28. The first day of Nisan remains a historic day. Two weeks before the Exodus, Hashem showed Moses the sliver of the crescent moon and instructed him in the observance of sanctifying the new moon each month. This gift of mastery over time has allowed our holidays to stay on schedule, within the same season and phases of the moon each year. Nisan is the beginning of our months of the year. Passover starts at sundown Monday, April 10, the 15th of Nisan. The full moon on the night of the 11th is called the Full Pink Moon, from the flowers of spring, which include the abundant pink moss or wild ground phlox. Nisan is the one time each year when we perform the mitzvah of blessing the flowering trees when we first see them. The Festival of Freedom celebrates our release from slavery in Egypt. We view the journey as if we ourselves had come out of Egypt. We recognize the symbolism in the Exodus. The actual boundaries and restrictions of our ancestors become lessons in expanding our consciousness in the present. It’s said that we all possess superpower qualities during Passover. It’s our spiritual task to use them to transform and transcend our perceived restrictions. One way to achieve this is to be outside in nature, connecting with the grid of Mother Earth and linking ourselves as a conduit between the past and future. We witness the seasonal renewal and strive to increase our wisdom and deepen our souls. During Nisan, especially with daylight saving time, we have the opportunity to use the energy of increased light for new growth and beginnings. We can also sit in meditation, observing the phases of the moon, as we focus on the 10 sephirot, or qualities of divine attributes, through which Hashem is revealed to us in the physical and metaphysical realms. We have the potential to undergo higher vibrational tuning, like turning the pegs on a violin. The intentions we set this month to overcome our struggles last throughout the year. Regardless of the chaos in the 54 world, the moon, our ancient time-
piece, rhythmically appears and disappears in the sky. We align ourselves with the waxing and waning energies, the phase in which it’s hidden from sight, and its return to full brightness. The zodiac sign of Nisan is Aries; Hebrew letter, hey; ruling planet,
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Mars; tribe, Judah; sense, speech; and controlling limb, right foot. Those born under the sign of Aries can be spontaneous, courageous and energetic. They may also possess negative characteristics of being impatient, headstrong and impulsive. In preparation for Passover, when we search for the hidden breadcrumbs by candlelight, we must also search our souls. The Hebrew letter hey is a release of breath to let go of negativity. Hashem used the sound of this letter to speak the world into being. Mars, the red or warring planet, rules at this time, so from the new moon to the full moon on Passover, our wars and conflicts are determined for the coming year. It has been such a year of contention and divisiveness. Consider what your part has been in this emotional expression. Consciously choose how you’ll respond in the year ahead. Nisan’s first tribe, Judah, means “to give thanks.” The sense of speech is prominent. Our president and the media have been warring over words written and spoken. On Passover, we fulfill the mitzvah of telling the story of our people through reading the haggadah, which means “telling.” The controlling limb is the right foot. Taking steps in the right direction allows forward movement, but there must be balance between the right and left. As of now, there is not. Meditation focus: Be still and consider the various ways in which we are enslaved in our current world. Are you a perpetrator or victim of negative beliefs? Do you enslave or are you enslaved as a woman, a person of color, a person of privilege, a person of a particular sexual orientation, gender or religion? Be free and free others. ■
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Dr. Terry Segal tsegal@atljewishtimes.com
“Play Ball!”
By Yoni Glatt, koshercrosswords@gmail.com Difficulty Level: Challenging
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New Moon Meditations
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
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30. Zaftig, with a bit of muscle 31. Actress Sheedy 32. Where BRZE is traded 33. YU or Stern locale 34. Current playoffs org. 35. Aaron might make one for the team? 37. Kol 40. (Jason) Schwartzman’s mom 42. He bullied River in “Stand by Me” 45. (Kosher) caribou kin 47. Eilat swimmer 50. Some Jews headed north to it in 1492 52. “No Exit” writer JeanDOWN 1. MGM’s “___ in Toyland” Paul 55. Reads the Torah in 2. PayPal money Braille 3. Post-___ (“Achshav!”) 4. Common Caribbean fruit 57. Greek false deity 58. Prepare challah 5. Compete, like Marty 59. Disraeli and Sandwich Glickman 60. Chabibi to a pirate 6. Has some matzah 61. ___ fairy (like Kudrow 7. Budget rival on “Friends”) 8. Props for Marty 62. Part of a new year Glickman greeting 9. South Florida city, 63. He played Harrison’s familiarly son on film 10. Pre-Tisha B’Av dip 11. Joseph’s lineup locale? 66. Harel Skaat’s genre 67. Juda follower 12. Like a yenta 13. Has a bit of Kiddush 18. Oil option, but not for LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION Chanukah A P T S H O D E L S M O G 22. Aka D O Z E E X I L E A I D E Rav Shlomo E G E R R E V U P C R E D R I G A N A T E V K A Yitzchaki S E R E C O B 24. Selfie, e.g. T O T E N I M E A C T G O L D E 26. E S L S H O L E M W E S T Homecoming T R A D I T I O N for Ike Davis? C O P E M O S T E L P S A 28. Like the O V E N S A N D A I D status of most W A R E E L S S T U B S Jews in most C H A V A L E H O P E countries for A C H E E M I L E P E R I most of the H A I R N A D I A O R I N Middle Ages T R E A T L S A T A R K S 60. Like the Jews crossing the Red Sea 62. Knowledge and Life 64. Jewish girl of song? 65. Console that might get a schlub off the couch 66. Samson’s role on a baseball team? 68. Rainbow curve 69. Shape of one who has had too many sufganiyot, perhaps 70. Aka Jacob 71. “Shalom” 72. Gives a parnasah 73. Adjusts the Talmud
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MARCH 24 â–ª 2017
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BOURBON AND WHISKEY BOURBON AND WHISKEY
1.75L
PRIMARIUS KENDA PRIMARIUS KENDALL NEW AMSTERDAM ROEDERER CHANDON BACARDI ELIJAH JACK EFFEN KNOB BOMBAY CAPTAIN CAPTAIN CAPTAIN BACARDI BACARDI BUSHMILLS BUSHMILLS BUSHMILLS LARCENY LARCENY LARCENY MAKERS MAKERS MAKERS ELIJAH CRAIG ELIJAHCRAIG CRAIG JACK JACK KNOB KNOB OREGON FETZER RISATA CH ST MICH CARNIVOR ECCO DOMANI LA MARCA JACKSO OREGON JOEL RISATABOURBON CH ST MICHMARK CARNIVOR ECCO DOMANI LAVODKA MARCACREEK MORGAN RUM BLACK BUSH SINGLE BARREL WOODFORD VODKAMORGAN RUM SAPPHIRE ABSOLUT KETEL ONE SVEDKA VODKA DANIEL GREY GOOSE DEEP EDDY STOLISILVER VODKA MORGAN RUM SILVER SILVER JACKSON VR BENVOLIO ESTATE BRUT RUFFINO BLACK BUSHFETZER BLACKBOURBON BUSH BOURBON MARK SINGLE MARK BARREL SINGLE BARREL DANIEL DANIEL CREEK CREEK WOODFORD WOODFORD PINOT NOIR 1.75L GERTZ MOSCATO CABERNET CHARDO 1.75L 1.75L1.75L PINOT GRIGIO PROSECCO 1.75L 750ml 1.75L 1.75L 750ML 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 750 1.75L CHARDONNAY 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L GERTZ 1.75Lml1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 750ml 750ml1.75LGRIGIO 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L 1.75LPROSECCO PINOT NOIR GOTT MOSCATO1.75L CHARDONNAY CABERNET PINOT PROSECCO CHARDONNAY BRUT CLASSIC PROSECCO 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 750M
$21.09
Citi Wine & Spirits
1.75L 1.75L 1.75L750ML $19.99 $22.97 $20.97 $29.99 1.75L $25.99 $38.97750ML $59.97750ML $59.97 750ML 750ML $12.99 750ML $17.97 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 1.75L 1.75L$37.99BRUT 1.75L 1.75L $33.97 1.75L 1.75L 1.75L BRUT ANDRE $62.97 $40.97 $36.99 $49.97 $29.99 $31.99 $65.98 $69.98 $29.99 750ML $49.97 750ML $49.97 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML 750ML $43.97 $36.99 $41.97 $9.99 $135.97 $13.99 $19.99 $3.97 $62.97 $29.99 $62.97 $40.97 $40.97 $36.99 $29.99 $31.99 $31.99 $65.98 $65.98 $69.98 $69.98$29.99 $29.99 1.75L 1.75L MOET
1.75L 1.75L 1.75L DRY
1.75L
1.75L 1.75L PERIGNON
228-4260 (404)(404) (404) 228-4260 228-4260
SCOTCH
Mon-Thurs: 10AM to 11PM Fri. & Sat.: 10AM to 11:45PM GLENLEVIT Sun: 12:30PM to 8PM 12YR SCOTCH 1.75L
Mon-Thurs: Citi Wine & Spirits 10AM to 11PM Fri. & Sat.: 5861 Roswell Road 10AM to 11:45PM Sandy Springs, GA 30328 Sun: 12:30PM to 8PM
(404) 228-4260
TEQUILA
1.75L
1.75L NV 1.75L BRUT
$43.97 $41.97 $9.99 $135.97 $13.99 $19.99 $3.97
MARCH 24 ▪ 2017
$13.99
Citi WineCiti & Spirits Wine & Spirits THE THE THE CAPTAIN SIERRA BACARDI BUSHMILLS LARCENY MAKERS ELIJAH CRAIG VEUVE JACK AVION KNOB 5861 Roswell Road, ROEDERER KORBEL MACCALLEN GLENLEVIT LAPHROAIG BUCHANAN’S DOS EQUIS HEINEKEN 5861 Roswell 5861 Road, Roswell Road, GLENLEVIT GLENLEVIT MACCALLEN MACCALLEN LAPHROAIG LAPHROAIG AVION AVION BUCHANAN’S BUCHANAN’SMARK MORGAN RUM SILVER BLACK BUSH BOURBON SINGLE BARREL DANIELSILVER CREEK WOODFORD ESTATE DOM GRUET DOUBLE 12YR 10YR 12 YR. TALISKER DEWARS GLENFIDDICH ALTOS CLICQUOT 24 PK1.75L EXTRA 24GA PK30328 BOTTLES VEUVE KORBEL Sandy Springs, GA DOUBLE DOUBLE 12YR 12YR 10YR 10YR SILVER 12 YR. 1.75LROEDERER 12 YR. 1.75L TALISKER TALISKER DEWARS DEWARS GLENFIDDICH GLENFIDDICHALTOS ALTOS 1.75LNEVADA 12PK1.75L 1.75L 750ml 1.75L SILVER 1.75L Sandy Springs, Sandy GA Springs, 30328 30328 CAST SCOTCH 750 SCOTCH SCOTCH BRUT BRUT NVTEQUILA DRY PERIGNON BRUT MOET ANDRE DOM GRUET CAST CAST SCOTCH CLICQUOT SCOTCH STORM OLD 750 OLD OLD 750 OLD TEQUILA TEQUILA SCOTCHOLD OLDESTATE SCOTCH STORM STORM SCOTCH SCOTCH YEAR TEQUILA TEQUILA TEQUILA 12 YEAR 1212YEAR EXTRA 1.75L
56
$10.9
BEER
Mon-Thurs: Mon-Thurs: Mon-Thurs: 10AM to to 11PM 10AM to 10AM 11PM 11PM Fri. & Sat.: Fri. & Sat.: Fri. & Sat.: BUD OR BUD 10AM to 11:45PM SWEET WATER 10AM to 10AM 11:45PM to 11:45PM LIGHT 30 PK 12PK Sun: 8PM Sun: 12:30PM Sun:12:30PM 12:30PM to 8PMto to 8PM
RUM
$7.87
TEQUILA BEER
$9.27
750ML $35.99
$10.97$12.47 $8.97 $19.99 $9.27 $13.97 $7.87 $10.99 $11.97 $12.99 $11.97 $11.97 $10.97 $5.47
TEQUILA
$8.97
BOURBON AND WHISKEY
SCOTCH SCOTCH CHAMPAGNE
SCOTCH
$11.97 $5.47 $10.97
750ML$20.97 750ML 750ML$59.97 750ML 750ML 750ML $20.97 $17.97 $38.97 $59.97 $17.99 $22.99 $49.97 $22.98 $25.99 $20.97 $17.97 $17.97 $38.97 $59.97 $59.97 $59.97 $59.97
TEQUILA CHAMPAGNE
750ML 750ML$37.99 750ML$33.97 750ML $25.99 750ML $29.99 $29.99 $33.47 $15.97 $29.99750ML $29.99 $37.99 $37.99 $33.97 $33.97 $25.99 $25.99 $38.97
Mon-Thurs: Citi Wine 10AM&to Spirits 11PM Fri. & Sat.: 5861 Roswell Road 10AM to 11:45PM Sandy Springs, GA 30328 Sun:Citi12:30PM to 8PM Wine &
(404) 228-4260 Spirits
Citi Wine & Spirits
THE Allen Park5861 Roswell Road, MACCALLEN LAPHROAIG AVION BUCHANAN’S 10YR SILVER 12 YR. TALISKER DOUBLE DEWARS GLENFIDDICH ALTOS Sandy Springs, GA 30328 CAST OLD 750 TEQUILA STORM SCOTCH OLD YEAR WeSCOTCH reserve the 12 right to limit quantities TEQUILA and correct pricing errors. It is illegal to sell alcohol below cost in the State of Ge 1.75L
1.75L
1.75L
1.75L
1.75L
$62.97 $29.99 $49.97 $40.97 $31.99 $65.98
1.75L
$69.98
I-285
1.75L
750ML
$29.99 $36.99
(404) 228-4260
We reserve the right to limit quantities and correct pricing errors. It is illegal to sell alcohol below cost in the State of Georgia. We apologize for any pricing errors, but cannot sell below our purchase price.