GIFT GUIDE
BRIGHT SPOTS
We help you get serious about the fun task of making Chanukah special for all on your list. Page 16
TORAH TIME
Beth Shalom cherishes a Daffodil Project planting and the restoration of a Holocaust Torah scroll. Page 18
To learn more and request an at-home screening kit, visit JScreen.org
Torah Day School prepares to complete and dedicate its second Torah in a community celebration. Page 23
Atlanta WWW.ATLANTAJEWISHTIMES.COM
VOL. XC NO. 44
NOVEMBER 20, 2015 | 8 KISLEV 5776
Atlanta Stands With Paris By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com
H
undreds of people — some French, many not — crowded into the lobby of Buckhead Tower at Lenox Square on Sunday morning, Nov. 15, to show solidarity with France after the coordinated Islamic State terrorist attacks that killed at least 129 people two nights earlier in Paris. Many members of the Jewish community, including leaders from the American Jewish Committee’s Atlanta Chapter and Israeli Deputy Consul General Ron Brummer, attended the somber event, organized by the French Consulate General and held in the building that houses it. “We know how attentive the French community is to the needs of the Jewish community and Israel,” said AJC Atlanta Regional Director Dov Wilker, who noted that an AJC delegation met with French Consul General Denis Barbet earlier in the week of the terrorist attacks. “We appreciate them standing with us, and we stand with them,” AJC Atlanta President Greg Averbuch said. Barbet, who insisted that he spoke not as a government official but only as a French citizen, referred in his remarks to the January terrorist killings at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris. He said
OPENING DOORS
After the Reform movement’s vote to welcome transgender congregants, SOJOURN’s Robbie Medwed offers guidance on enacting that vision. Page 13
Jewish support for France at the rally includes AJC Atlanta First Vice President Melanie Nelkin.
he had hoped that the march through Midtown Atlanta on Jan. 11 in response to those attacks would be the last time such a gathering would be necessary. “We are all journalists. We are all policemen. We are all Jews,” Barbet said. “We are simply French.” Barbet spoke in French and English. The rally’s other two speakers, French Foreign Trade Adviser Dominique Lemoine and Michèle Olivères, stuck with French, with one exception: Lemoine closed his remarks by declaring, “We are not afraid.” A sign in the crowd reading “Pas peur” (not afraid) echoed that thought. Other signs supported France and criticized the terrorists, and artist Florence Beauredon displayed a painting created in response to the slaughter Friday night, Nov. 13.
FINAL CHAPTER
On the closing weekend of the Book Festival, Atlanta marketing whiz Joey Reiman plans to open eyes to the power of an open hand. Page 26
Photos by Michael Jacobs
The full emotional impact hits home after the singing of the French national anthem at the French Consulate rally in the lobby of Buckhead Tower on Sunday morning, Nov. 15.
Most of the carnage occurred at the Bataclan theater, which had been owned by Jewish brothers until two months ago and had long faced protests for hosting many pro-Israel events. The American band performing that night, the Eagles of Death Metal, had played in Tel Aviv in July. “We know all too well that attacks don’t end with the Jewish community, and here we were able to see that they were attacking a democratic way of life,” Wilker said. “France is one of our closest allies in the world,” Brummer said, and, like Israel, is facing the “radical Islamic cancer.”
“We hope Europe’s leaders realize it’s time to fight this cancer by all means possible,” he said. Barbet said France recognizes it must wage a war to preserve a society devoted to diversity, liberty and openness. It will be a long fight, he said, “and we won’t give up.” ■
INSIDE
Calendar 2
Education 20
Candle Lighting
Book Festival
3
24
Remember When 6
Cartoon 26
Health & Wellness 8
Business 27
Israel 9
Obituaries 28
Opinion 10
Crossword 30
French Consul General Denis Barbet (right) and French Foreign Trade Adviser Dominique Lemoine join in the singing of “La Marseillaise” at the end of the rally.