Atlanta Jewish Times, No. 39, October 16, 2015 by Atlanta Jewish Times

HAPPY PRIDE

Over 300 people and 40-plus organizations combine to help the Jewish community show its Pride. Page 14

BOOK FESTIVAL APPETIZER

woodruffcreateATL.org

Our 16-page pullout helps prep your palate for November’s literary feast with a tasting menu ranging from ambassadors to an artist and from reporters to Dr. Ruth. Pages 17-32

Atlanta VOL. XC NO. 39

WWW.ATLANTAJEWISHTIMES.COM

Inside: Education

OCTOBER 16, 2015 | 3 CHESHVAN 5776

Dunwoody Spars Over Menorah

Pages 33-39

By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com

Bound by New Friendships

Photo by Michael Jacobs

Students from the Marist School, which is Catholic, and the W.D. Mohammed School, which is Muslim, join Weber School students in the Weber sukkah Thursday, Oct. 1, for a Peace by Piece session combining religious, ritual and cultural education with teenage socializing and bridge building. Page 35

ISRAEL VIGIL

The community will gather for prayer and solidarity at Congregation Beth Tefillah, 5065 High Point Road, Sandy Springs, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 15.

SEARS’ LEGACY

Ponce City Market, a mixed-use development driven by two members of the Jewish community, is open for business intown. Page 40

INSIDE

Israel 3 Education 33 Health & Wellness 6 Business 40 Calendar 8 Obituaries 43 Candle Lighting

9 Crossword 44

Opinion 10 Cartoon 45 Books 17 Marketplace 46

ince 1996, Light Up Dunwoody has brought the community together to welcome the holidays. But controversy flared when the Dunwoody Preservation Trust, which plays host to the event, refused an initial request by the Dunwoody Homeowners Association to include a 6-foot-tall menorah. The trust’s board was scheduled to meet to vote on the request Tuesday, Oct. 13, after the Atlanta Jewish Times’ deadlines. Visit www.atlantajewishtimes.com to learn the organization’s decision. “We approached them last year about putting up a 6-foot-tall menorah on the property to go with the 35-foot Christmas tree that is paid for by the DHA,” Dunwoody Homeowners Association President Robert Wittenstein said. “The bottom line was that we approached them way too late. This year we contacted them many weeks ahead of time, but when I met with the two copresidents of the Dunwoody Preservation Trust a few weeks ago, they gave me the impression that they didn’t feel comfortable putting up the menorah.” Wittenstein, a member of Temple Emanu-El, added that the trust’s co-presidents are not in a position to decide on the request; it is a decision for the board. Representatives of the trust did not return calls requesting comment. As in years prior, a small lighted menorah will be placed inside an upstairs window of the Spruill Farm House, where Light Up Dunwoody is held. ■

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ISRAEL NEWS

Israel Pride: Good News From Our Jewish Home

Digitizing the brain. Professor Idan Segev of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is a member of the Blue Brain Project, an international team of scientists creating a digital reconstruction of the brain. The team just completed a first-draft computer reconstruction of a piece of the neocortex and simulated its electrical behavior. Satellite to bring Africa online. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced that an Israeli-made AMOS-6 satellite will be launched in 2016 to bring the Internet to the poorest parts of the world. Facebook and Eutelsat will lease the satellite from Israeli global satellite services provider Spacecom. Hong Kong delegation. Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is bringing a delegation of industry leaders and academics to Israel. They will visit top politicians, innovation and technology enterprises, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv University, the IsraelAsia Chamber of Commerce, and the desalination plant in Sorek. A bigger force in the cloud. Kfar Sababased Silicom has bought U.S.-based ADI Engineering for $10 million. ADI’s high-performance Intel equipment will allow Silicom to expand its products for providers of network services. Turning polluted water into beer. Israeli-founded water purification company Desalitech has teamed up with Boston-based Harpoon Brewery to channel the once-famously polluted Charles River into a new beer. Desalitech is using its patented technology to provide water for Harpoon’s Charles River Pale Ale. Lunar team secures launch. Tel Avivbased SpaceIL is one stage nearer its goal of becoming the first privately funded mission to the moon and winning the $20 million Google Lunar XPRIZE. SpaceIL has booked a place on a SpaceX rocket due for launch in the second half of 2017.

Ford hackathon for Israeli developers. U.S. car manufacturer Ford is holding its own hackathon, the Ford AppLink Challenge, for Israel’s tech community to develop technologies for Ford Sync Systems in the company’s new models. Winners get a choice of cash or a Ford Fiesta. Toyota and Hyundai ran similar events recently. Ford also plans to install Israel’s HearMeOut in its vehicles. HearMeOut posts audio clips on social networks. The largest desalination facility in North America. In a few weeks San Diego will open the Carlsbad desalination plant, piping around 50 million gallons of water a day to households across Southern California. The facility was designed by Tzoran-Kadima-based IDE, which has designed 400 desalination facilities in 40 countries.

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Mexico buys Israeli super-drone. The Mexican government has purchased an advanced intelligence-gathering drone made by Yavne-based Aeronautics Ltd. The Dominator XP is based on a DA-42 twin star commercial plane and is designed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. MasterCard prize for Israeli innovation. For the fourth year, MasterCard is offering a $25,000 prize for an Israeli startup to help the international giant improve its electronic payments and financial services. The winner may join the MasterCard Start Path global program, the company’s financial technology accelerator. Golan Heights oil discovery. Afek Oil and Gas chief geologist Yuval Bartov said the oil strata discovered in the Golan Heights is almost 400 yards thick — over 10 times the average discovery. It’s estimated that the discovery will make Israel self-sufficient in oil for many years. Tennessee wooing Israeli businesses. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has returned from taking an 18-person delegation to Israel, accompanied by Atlanta-based Consul General Judith Varnai Shorer. He said there have been second and third connections since the business trip in August. Compiled courtesy of verygoodnewsisrael. blogspot.com and other news sources.

Advice. Beyond Investing. Evan S. Fishman Senior Vice President–Wealth Management 1200 Abernathy Road, Suite 1850 Atlanta, GA 30328 678-441-1020 800-241-7258

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Lifesaving transplants. In August, Israeli charity Ezer Mizion’s Bone Marrow Donor Registry facilitated 25 lifesaving transplants. They included stem cell donations by five Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

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LOCAL NEWS

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Georgia on His Mind

Birthright guard visits Atlanta group By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com

gt. Arie Partouche of the Golani Brigade completed his three-year commitment to the Israel Defense Forces in May. Unsure of what to do once out of the Army, the 21-yearold signed on to be a security guard for Taglit-Birthright Israel. As his first assignment, Partouche was matched with a tour group from Atlanta. Partouche was so affected by the friendships he made on that trip that the Israeli decided to come to the United States to visit the group just a few months after the tour. “We spent so much good time together, I promised I would go to see them here,” Partouche said during a recent visit to the Atlanta Jewish Times’ offices. “I would have never thought to visit Atlanta, but I really love this place. I need to come back again sometime.” Partouche stayed with one of his closest friends from the trip, Brett Gelfand. The Atlanta native was happy to show Partouche everything Atlanta has to offer. The friends attended a Braves game, took in Buckhead nightlife, went to a shooting range in Sandy Springs and got all 24 participants from the Birthright trip together for dinner to reminisce about their 10-day trip. “The first time we walked up to the bus to meet with our tour leader, we all thought Arie was like 30 years old,” Gelfand said. “No one knew how young he was, and we didn’t know he would fit in to our group the way he did. He was our guard, but it was pretty much like he was hanging out with us the entire time.” Partouche, whose family made

Top: This is the Atlanta Birthright group Arie Partouche guarded. Middle: Arie Partouche (left) and Brett Gelfand are all smiles at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Bottom: Arie Partouche (left) and Brett Gelfand attend a Braves win over the Washington Nationals on Sep. 30.

aliyah from Paris when he was young, said he plans to spend the next six months in Australia working before attending college in Israel. ■

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10 Years Ago Oct. 14, 2005

■ A lulav crisis is developing as the start of Sukkot approaches Oct. 17. The problem is a suddenly decreased supply of palm fronds from Egypt, the source of the palms for most lulavs in the United States and Israel. As many as 1 million lulavs a year are exported from Egypt’s northern Sinai, but the Agriculture Ministry says overharvesting is damaging the trees. As a result, prices are up $8 per set. ■ The bar mitzvah ceremony of Robert Gabriel Freedland of Atlanta was held Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005, at Temple Sinai. He is the son of Neil and Sarina Freedland and younger brother of Hallie. 25 Years Ago Oct. 19, 1990

■ Dr. Kenneth W. Stein, former President Jimmy Carter’s current primary adviser on Middle Eastern affairs, will be the keynote speaker and scholar in residence at Temple Beth El’s 50th anniversary celebration. He will speak to the Dalton congregation and guests at services at 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 20. A new Torah and refurbished ark will also be dedicated. ■ Jennifer and Harry Winograd of Atlanta announce the birth of a son, Joseph Asher, on Oct. 4. 50 Years Ago Oct. 15, 1965 ■ The Soviet Union regards adherence to Judaism as incompatible with loyalty to the state and for that reason is attempting to eradicate the Jewish religion, according to a report issued this week by the U.S. Senate subcommittee on internal security. A typical slogan in the Soviet press is “Judaism kills love for the Soviet motherland.” ■ Mr. and Mrs. Saul Alhadeff of Montgomery announce the engagement of their daughter, Esther Alhadeff, to Joel Nerenbaum, son of Mr. and Mrs. I. Nerenbaum of Atlanta.

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POSTMASTER send address changes to The Atlanta Jewish Times 270 Carpenter Drive Suite 320, Atlanta Ga 30328. Established 1925 as The Southern Israelite Phone: (404) 883-2130 www.atlantajewishtimes.com THE ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES (ISSN# 0892-33451) IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY SOUTHERN ISRAELITE, LLC 270 Carpenter Drive, Suite 320, Atlanta, GA 30328 © 2015 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES Printed by Gannett Publishing Services MEMBER Conexx: America Israel Business Connector American Jewish Press Association Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce Please send all photos, stories and editorial content to: submissions@atljewishtimes.com

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

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13 Lucky for Cancer Fight

hirteen teams and nearly 100 registered participants raised more than $20,000 for the American Cancer Society at the Relay for Life of Ruach Atlanta on Sunday, Oct. 11, at North Springs Charter High School in Sandy Springs. Three new teams, representing Congregation Dor Tamid, Young Israel of Toco Hills and Atlanta Council BBYO, joined the fundraising event in its fourth year. Relay for Life itself is 30 years old; Ruach Atlanta is the only Re-

lay held on a Sunday to accommodate observant Jews. Temple Beth Tikvah had the strongest support at the event, followed closely by Temple Kol Emeth. Both have been part of Ruach Atlanta since its beginning. Whole Foods sponsored a reception to honor cancer survivors and their caregivers. Entertainment included music by Rik & Ruby, line-dancing lessons by Rose Haven and juggling by Mark Kipf. Games 2 U kept kids busy

with inflatables, especially the hamster balls. People walking laps around the North Springs track had excellent weather during the event, which started at 1 p.m. and ended at 4 instead of the originally scheduled 8 because of reduced turnout compared with previous years. Ruach Atlanta this year had conflicts with the Atlanta Pride parade and festival, a Falcons home game and the Columbus Day holiday weekend and came a week after the annual two-

day breast cancer walk. Holly York, a Relay for Life community manager, expressed disappointment that more synagogues didn’t sign up after organizers reached out to all the local congregations. She said Ruach Atlanta needs community support, including new volunteer committee members, to keep the event part of the annual calendar.

Photos courtesy of Ruach Atlanta

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Left: The Ruach Atlanta banner highlights this year’s sponsors. Right: Atlanta Council BBYO is one of three new teams at this year’s Relay for Life of Ruach Atlanta. Bottom: The American Cancer Society’s Cathy Longino holds a luminaria in honor of Ruach Atlanta founder Sheryl Blechner, a former Temple Beth Tikvah president.

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OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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CALENDAR THURSDAY, OCT. 15

Conference on race and ethics. Emory University’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and Center for Ethics hold a conference on Race With Jewish Ethics from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Room 162 of the Center for Ethics, 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta. Free; js.emory.edu/events/RacewithJewishEthics.htm. Caregiver help. Federation and the Meyer Balser Naturally Occurring Retirement Community present a series of six weekly classes teaching powerful tools for caregivers and using “The Caregiver Handbook,” starting today at 4:30 p.m. at the Meyer Balser NORC inside the Zaban Tower, 3156 Howell Mill Road, Buckhead. Free but registration required; agda-vis@meyerbalser.org or 404-355-5696.

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Dealing with elderly parents. AJT contributor Nancy Kriseman leads a workshop at the Renaissance on Peachtree, 3755 Peachtree Road, Buckhead, at 5 p.m. on approaching such sensitive care topics as moving a parent into assisted living, giving up driving, going to the doctor despite resistance, and overcoming resistance from someone with dementia. Free; rmatthews@arborcompany.com or 404-237-2323.

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Infertility support. The Wo/Men’s Infertility Support Havurah holds its monthly meeting, this time focusing on providing group support, at 7 p.m. at Temple Sinai, 5645 Dupree Drive, Sandy Springs. Free; www.wishatlanta. org, wish@templesinaiatlanta.org or 404-252-3073.

SUNDAY, OCT. 18

Super Sunday. Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta holds its phonathon for the Community Campaign from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Davis Academy, 7901 Roberts Drive, Sandy Springs; www.jewishatlanta.org/supersunday or 678-222-3721. Churchill discussion. Fred Lehrer talks about Winston Churchill and his friendship with the Jewish people over brunch at 9:30 a.m. at Temple Sinai, 5645 Dupree Drive, Sandy Springs. Free for Sinai Brotherhood members and $10 for others; templesinaiatlanta.org. Fall fun. The Marcus Jewish Community Center offers a petting zoo, bounce house, face painting, crafts and more from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Brook Run Dog Park, 4770 N. Peachtree Road, Dunwoody. Admission is $20 per family for

JCC members or $32 for nonmembers; www.atlantajcc.org. Kosher barbecue contest. The third Atlanta Kosher BBQ Competition & Festival runs from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Brook Run Park in Dunwoody, with $1 tastings, additional food for sale, children’s activities, and Atlanta Jewish Music Festival entertainment. Free; TheAtlantaKosherBBQ.com. Pet blessings. The Marcus Jewish Community Center and My Pooch Face work with Congregation Or Hadash Rabbi Analia Bortz at the Blessing of the Pets from noon to 2 at Brook Run Dog Park, 4770 N. Peachtree Road, Dunwoody. Free; www.atlantajcc.org. Human trafficking discussion. Ahavath Achim Synagogue, 600 Peachtree Battle Ave., Buckhead, and Awareness and Action Against Child Trafficking for Sex (AA-ACTS) host a discussion on the sexual exploitation of Georgia children at 1 p.m. Panelists include CNN’s Lisa Cohen, GBI Director Vernon Keenan and state Sen. Renee Unterman, as well as two survivors of sex trafficking. Free; aasynagogue.org. Shul dedication. Congregation Beit

Yitzhak celebrates the opening of its new building, mikvah and night kollel program at 7 p.m. at the King David Community Center, 5054 Singleton Road, Norcross. Free.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21

Israeli author appearance. Etgar Keret reads from his memoir, “The Seven Good Years”; screens some of his short films; and talks with Emory psychologist Marshall Duke at 7 p.m. at Congregation Or Hadash, 7460 Trowbridge Road, Sandy Springs. Free; RSVP to communication@or-hadash.org.

THURSDAY, OCT. 22

Lunch and learn. Rabbi Analia Bortz leads a discussion about dysfunctional families in the Book of Genesis at noon at the Marcus Jewish Community Center, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Bring a dairy lunch or purchase food at the center. Free; www.atlantajcc.org. Baking bread. The Marcus Jewish Community Center and the Shabbat Project hold the Great Big Challah Bake. 7 p.m. at the JCC. Advance registration; atlanta.theshabbosprojectusa.org. Torah talk. YJP (Young Jewish Professionals), Midtown Atlanta, holds a take-

CALENDAR CANDLE-LIGHTING TIMES

Shabbat During Sukkot Parshah Noach Friday, Oct. 16, light candles at 6:45 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, Shabbat ends at 7:39 p.m. Parshah Lech Lecha Friday, Oct. 23, light candles at 6:36 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24, Shabbat ends at 7:31 p.m.

FRIDAY, OCT. 23

Chabad retreat. Chabad Intown and Chabad of Cobb hold a Shabbat weekend retreat through Sunday at the Kaplan Mitchell Retreat and Conference Center at Camp Ramah Darom in Clayton. Fees start at $195 per adult; www. chabadofcobb.com or 404-931-6449.

SATURDAY, OCT. 24

Photography presentation. The Center for Israel Education presents Israeli photographer Adi Nes and his work at 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Or Hadash, 7460 Trowbridge Road, Sandy Springs. Free; RSVP required at www.israeled. org/adi-nes-rsvp. Havdalah concert. The 2015 Shabbat Project in Atlanta wraps up with Havdalah, including a concert by New York band Zusha, at 9 p.m. at Atlanta Jewish Academy, 5200 Northland Drive, Sandy Springs. $10; theshabbosproject. org/atlanta or 678-812-4161.

SUNDAY, OCT. 25

VFI potluck picnic. Volunteers for Israel (www.vfi-usa.org) holds a picnic at 1 p.m. at 2276 Fair Oaks Road, Decatur, to share information about volunteering on an Israel Defense Forces base for two to three weeks. Free; contact Stephen Prestwood at 470-331-7241 or vfi_georgia@bellsouth.net. Clowning around. Israeli master clown Ofir Nahari plays Dionysus in a workshop of a new Kennesaw State-7 Stages co-production, “The Followers,” from 2 to 4 p.m. at 7 Stages, 1105 Euclid Ave., Atlanta. Free, donations accepted.

MONDAY, OCT. 26

Women’s financial empowerment. The Jewish Women’s Fund of Atlanta presents “Take Your Seat at the Table: A Jewish Woman’s Guide to Financial Empowerment and Protection,” featuring lawyer Abbey Flaum, accountant Lisa Haynor and financial adviser Emily Sanders, at 10 a.m. at the Selig Center, 1400 Spring St., Midtown. Free; www.jewishatlanta.org/takeyourseat or 678-222-3716. JELF happy hour. The Jewish Educational Loan Fund invites people to have a drink, meet and hear from a JELFie (an interest-free loan recipient), and make some friends from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Ribalta Restaurant, 1080 Peachtree St., Suite 9, Midtown. Entrance $18, which includes one drink; bring two friends for free admission. Information: www. jelf.org or jshulman@jelf.org.

ONGOING

Hollywood in the camps. “Filming the Camps — John Ford, Samuel Fuller, George Stevens: From Hollywood to Nuremberg” runs through Nov. 20 at the Atlanta History Center, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Buckhead. Admission to the museum is $16.50 for adults, $13 for students and seniors, $11 for children 4 to 12, and free for members and younger children; www.atlantahistorycenter. com or 404-814-4000. Leo Frank exhibit. The Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History, 2829 Cherokee St., Kennesaw, in cooperation with the Breman Museum, presents “Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited” through Nov. 29. Museum admission is $7.50 for adults, $6.50 for seniors, $5.50 for ages 4 to 12, and free for ages 3 and under and Southern Museum and Breman members; www.southernmuseum.org.

The future is in your hands. Meet Spencer Brasch, a student at Yeshiva University. On a pre-med track, Spencer is an Honors student pursuing a dual major in biology and music, who also finds time to compete on YU’s NCAA Division I fencing team. His commitment to Torah study is actualized as he delves into shiur with distinguished Roshei Yeshiva in our world class Beit Midrash. Individual attention and career planning are important to him, so Spencer chose Yeshiva University because it enables him to balance his academic goals with his religious commitment. This is the essence of Torah U’Madda and what sets YU apart. Picture yourself at YU. #NowhereButHere

Corrections & Clarifications

An article on the first Conexx Professional & Business Seminar session of the year in the Oct. 9 issue gave the wrong date for the next session. It will be Oct. 28 and will address key considerations for Israeli companies that want to do business in the United States. The third session, on new business models for Israeli startups, will be Nov. 11. Contact Barry Swartz at bswartz@conexx.org for details. Send items for the calendar to submissions@atljewishtimes.com.

www.yu.edu | 212.960.5277 | yuadmit@yu.edu

www.yu.edu/apply

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

home Torah discussion on the crisis in Israel at Chabad Intown, 928 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. Shmoozing is at 7:30 p.m. and discussion at 8:15; www.yjpmidtownatlanta.com or 404-898-0434.

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OPINION

Our View

Read in Red

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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here’s an old joke that was never funny: What’s black and white and read all over? The answer is a newspaper. But U.S. reporting about the rash of terrorist attacks on Israelis could justify changing “read” to “red”; our media colleagues have blood on their hands. Sadly, we’ve grown used to headlines like “Palestinian Killed by Israelis” and “6 Palestinian Teens Die Amid Unrest” — you know, the kind that emphasize the deaths of the Palestinians without mentioning that they died while attacking and often killing Israelis. Such headlines have been a daily feature of the violence in Jerusalem and other cities. But the “standards” applied by two of the last bastions of newspaper quality have been shocking even in comparison with typical bias and carelessness. The Washington Post saw a tweet from a Reuters correspondent about a secondhand report that undercover Israeli security forces incited and participated in Palestinian stone throwing against Israeli troops, just to give those troops an excuse to attack. It’s an outrageous charge, but rather than investigate or ignore it, the Post built a story around the correspondent’s nonexistent eyewitness report. In another case, The New York Times published a lengthy article that questioned whether a Jewish Temple ever existed atop the Temple Mount — something that’s at least as certain as some white men signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. The reporter clearly gathered scholars’ opinions about whether the exact location of the Holy of Holies is known, then applied the comments to questions about the Temple’s very existence. Note that the article didn’t get around to the evidence of that giant Herodian retaining wall in Jerusalem until the fourth-to-last paragraph — and never questioned whether Muhammad actually ascended to heaven from the site of the Dome of the Rock. Denial of the Temple Mount’s legitimacy isn’t academic; it’s used to fuel rage over false rumors of Israeli plans to open the site to Jewish worship. To be clear, the person responsible for a terrorist attack is the terrorist, and the incitement by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah causes more deaths than all the biased and inaccurate reporting in the world. But we should also make no mistake: Palestinian leaders are talented at playing the propaganda game. They’ve learned through two intifadas and Israel’s repeated wars with Hamas and Hezbollah that what they can’t win on the battlefield they can capture on the diplomatic and legal fronts. They know that every misleading headline or out-of-context story about Palestinian deaths feeds their narrative. They are willing to sacrifice people to drive the view that Israeli occupation sparks violence and death. They also recognize that their most important allies against Israel aren’t BDS-supporting celebrities or Arab nations or even terrorist-funding Iran, but the Times, the Post and the BBC. We can only hope that soon the mighty media outlets will get the message and then will do the morally right thing and stop playing a part in the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians alike. ■

A Question of Discrimination

tent stopped and stared, but she hesitated before unday, Oct. 11, proved to be an uplifting day venturing inside, where MACoM’s Alice Wertheim with a slightly deflating landing. had taken the place of Max and his owner. On the positive side, I attended my first The passing woman finally decided to join us. Atlanta Pride festival. The Atlanta Jewish Times was one of 44 Jewish organizations that joined SOJOURN I prepared to pitch the SOJOURN handouts and the email sign-up for tent sponsors. I never got a chance. in sponsoring the Jewish community tent, and, new“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” the bie that I am, I signed up to staff the tent at the same woman asked me, and, given the good mood and my time as the parade. Next year’s to-do list includes communal obligaeither walking with 300-plus tions, I said yes and Jewish community members or resisted the urge to staking out a good spot to watch Editor’s Notebook point out that she and photograph the whole thing. By Michael Jacobs had just asked a Because it was my first time, mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com question. I don’t know whether the posi“Do you find it’s tive vibe was traditional or an harder to be gay or extension of the celebration of Jewish?” She wonthe June Supreme Court decision dered which caused me more discrimination. legalizing same-sex marriage. But everybody was I don’t think I paused too long before answerhaving a good time, even if they didn’t take up the ing, “Well, I only know about one. I’m Jewish.” pot-lollipop guy on his sales offer. No, that wasn’t the awkward part. Sure, it’s silly The Jewish community tent was perfectly placed to assume that everyone at Pride is gay, but it’s not as for people watching, and that alone was a sport if she was trying to set me up on a date. more entertaining than watching the Falcons win The awkwardness came as she proceeded to another game at the same time at the Georgia Dome. explain her admiration for the Jewish people. Unlike We also had one of the day’s great draws: a friendly some minority groups, we don’t complain about black-and-white mutt named Max, whose presence discrimination; we just get on with life. may have been just as illegal as the pot-lollipop guy’s How was I supposed to respond, especially at wares and definitely brought more joy to the masses. an event whose purpose was to loudly support the Three native Israelis, including Yuval Bronshrights of a group whose members are likely to face tein, who according to the Hendon Mob database more discrimination in a week than I’ve experienced is No. 7 all time among Georgia residents for career in my life for being Jewish (being Southern, especiallive poker tournament winnings with $1.31 million, ly in New York and New Jersey, is another matter)? stopped by the tent and talked about their crazy, Perhaps proving the woman’s point, I just awkward Uber ride to Piedmont Park. Their driver grinned, nodded, remained calm and carried on. But was a Palestinian, complete with a keffiyeh, and he during an otherwise wholly enjoyable trip to Midrefused to talk to the trio, one of whom, Itay Yarden, town, I can’t help feeling that I missed an opportuwas sporting a Super Jew T-shirt. nity to do — something. I don’t know what. My awkward moment came about an hour later If you have any suggestions in case such a conwhen the tent was quiet while most people were versation ever happens again, send me an email. ■ along the parade route. A woman walking by the

OPINION

Brainwashed! “You want to do what?” I seethed, my words chiseled from a colossal glacier. So much for good intentions. “When did you make this momentous decision? Don’t you think your mother and I should have been consulted? How dare you! You’re going to college NOW, and that’s final! Israel can wait!

Shared Spirit By Rachel Stein rachels83@gmail.com

This is your life we’re talking about!” “I know, Dad,” Jeff said in a maddeningly deprecating tone. “It’s my life. That’s exactly right. And if you can’t support my decision, then I’ll find a way to do it on my own.” Tossing the rake into a leaf pile, Jeff about-faced and walked into the house, slamming the door behind him. Dazed, I watched the carefully crafted mound scatter as leaves floated back over the bare lawn. “Did you hear your son’s ingenious idea?” I sputtered to Eileen, who was sitting at the table sipping her midafternoon coffee. Lifting an eyebrow, she put down her newspaper and focused on me. “He’s getting brainwashed by that Orthodox rabbi he used to learn with. I’m sorry we ever started up with him,” I said. “He wants to postpone college and go to Israel for a year! Do you have any idea what that means? He’ll come home from Israel wearing a black yarmulke with those dangling strings hanging out of his pants, and we won’t recognize our own son. We have to stop this in its tracks.” Eileen took another sip. “Well, don’t you have anything to say?” I demanded, wanting her support like nothing I’d ever wanted. Together we could fight this war. “I’m not sure what the right approach is,” Eileen ventured, wiping her eyes tiredly and wondering why life had a way of throwing curveballs. “Jeff is our son, and any time we’ve ever backed him against a wall, a wedge forms between us. I don’t like the idea any more than you do. But I don’t want to lose him.” ■ Do you have solutions for Barry and Eileen? Please email your ideas for possible inclusion in the next column.

The future is in your hands. Meet Lee Sahar, a current student at Yeshiva University. Pursuing degrees in Accounting and Finance, this summer Lee interned at the New York accounting firm Cohn-Reznick. A member of YU’s Business Leadership and Finance clubs, Lee also enjoys tutoring fellow students, and participates in a mentorship program through Deloitte. Career preparation is very important to Lee. She chose Yeshiva University because it enables her to balance academic goals with her religious commitment, offering her the dual curriculum in Jewish and General studies. This is the essence of Torah U’Madda and what sets YU apart. Picture yourself at YU. #NowhereButHere

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OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

carlet and orange leaves swirled in an invigorating fall dance, and my mood was calm and upbeat as I welcomed the new season’s arrival. Great day for some yardwork, I decided, vigorously raking the leaves into an increasing pile. “Hi, Dad,” my son, Jeff, greeted me, and I marveled at my man-child. Tall, strapping and good-looking, he towered over me, exuding energy and youthful exuberance. Shaking my head, I wondered how this happened. “Need some help?” Jeff offered, and I was grateful to be holding the rake or I might have fallen over from surprise. Maybe he really is growing up. “Sure,” I replied, as I watched him scoop the leafy mounds into a black garbage bag. “So,” I drawled, wanting to connect in some way, “did you finish your college application?” A flicker of something undefined rushed across Jeff’s features. “That’s actually something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, Dad. Um, is now a good time?” “Good a time as any,” I replied, wondering if he needed some help with the technical aspects of the application process. Sometimes forms can be daunting. Or maybe he needs money to pay the fee; well, that’s no problem, I decided. What doesn’t a parent do for his child? “I’ve been talking to Rabbi Hillel — you know, my old bar mitzvah teacher?” I nodded, and Jeff swallowed, his cheeks beginning to resemble the sanguine hue of some of the fallen leaves. “Well, we decided that if I really want to pursue my Jewish education, the coming year is the perfect opportunity. Once I’m in college, I’ll be too busy, and then I’ll have to get a job and maybe get married — you know how life happens. I just figured that while I’m unencumbered, I should spend a year in Israel and find out who I am and what being Jewish is all about.” Jeff was raking harder now, afraid to meet my eyes. A tsunami of emotion whirled within me, and I wondered how our yard would look amid the devastation after my eruption. Get a hold of yourself, Jeff. Blow-ups are not conducive to relationship building. Count to 10, slowly.

AJT 11

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OPINION

Are We Our Brother’s Keeper?

hen Pope Francis, in his speech before Congress, declared his commitment to the principles of social justice, I told myself: Isn’t it about time for the church to become humanitarian and declare what we Jews did almost three millennia ago, that the quality of life depends on accepting that we are our brother’s keeper? But then, of course, the church was the justifier of both Middle Ages cruelties and later the economic and social cruelties of crass capitalism. Judaism, in contrast, reminded its believers of the social teachings of the prophets, and two millennia of being massacred led us to seek justice for the poor, the downtrodden and the powerless. Our historical experiences with pogroms, with expulsions and with life without rights led us to support those who advocated the right of the poor and powerless to gain a chance to life. After the horrendous pogrom of 1903 in Kishinev, The New York Times reported: “There was a well laid-out plan for the general massacre of Jews on the day following the Russian Easter. The mob was led by priests, and the general cry, ‘Kill the Jews,’ was taken up all over the city. The Jews were taken wholly unaware and were slaughtered like sheep. The dead number 120 and the injured about 500. The scenes of horror attending this massacre are beyond description. Babes were

literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob. The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically

One Man’s Opinion By Eugen Schoenfeld

deserted of Jews.” In response to this pogrom, Chaim Nachman Bialik, whom I considered our national poet, wrote a most powerful poem, “In the City of Slaughter.” After enumerating eons of Jewish suffering, he suggests that we enter “the house of studies” and there amid the myriad of well-worn books find the source of our strength and the place where our people’s soul is rooted. In the old synagogues we forged our values and worldview, a worldview that emphasizes justice and the right of all people to a chance to life. Above all, our books tell of the value of each human being and our duty to help establish a high quality of life. Surely, we Jews cannot support a political perspective that fails to emphasize the universal values incorporated into the Jewish ideals of tzedek (justice) and gemilut chasadim (acts of lovingkindness), especially the view that human life is of value by itself.

Instead, we support parties that claim to abhor injustice. For Jews, the political party that represented this view was Lincoln’s party, the Republican Party. But the Republican Party changed during World War I, and since then, especially since FDR, Jews were drawn to the party we saw as advocating help for the poor and powerless, the Democratic Party. A story illustrates the Jewish commitment to socialism in Europe. A rabbi whose name I have forgotten was the first Jew elected to the Silesian parliament. Silesia was a semiautonomous state bordered by Bohemia, Germany and Poland under Austrian Hapsburg rule. When the rabbi entered parliament, everyone wondered where he would sit. The seats were arranged in a horseshoe with a walkway in the center. One could sit to the left or right of the center aisle. All advocating a liberal view sat to the left. All advocating a conservative view — including the priests, ministers and titled nobility — sat to the right. Would the rabbi, a man of G-d, join the Christian men of G-d and sit to the right? To everyone’s surprise, the rabbi seated himself at the extreme left with nonreligious socialists and even Communists. At the end of the session, the priests asked the rabbi why he seated himself with all those nonbelievers instead of on the right side with them. Because, the rabbi responded in German, Juden haben kein recht — a play on words by which the rabbi

declared that Jews do not have any rights (or a commitment to a conservative party). Our commitment to social justice is not a new wrinkle in religious politics. Social justice was enunciated millennia ago in the Torah and by the prophets. One of the young girls who was brought to have a papal audience asked, “What does G-d want of us?” Clearly, she was not aware of Deuteronomy 10:12, where G-d declares that He wants to be loved and to have us follow the moral commandments dispersed throughout the Torah. And she was unaware of Isaiah, who tells us what our duties are to society: to do justice, to love mercy and to practice humility. Isaiah, long before Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and thousands of years before the present pope’s declarations, told us, “So said G-d: Observe justice and perform righteousness.” Isaiah also asks: Have you given your bread to the hungry? Have you brought the suffering poor into your home? Have you seen the naked and given him clothes to cover himself? Have you hidden yourself from your needy kin? Isaiah repeats what G-d declared early in the history of man: Yes, Cain, we are our brothers’ keepers. This is a lesson that is absent from the conservative political viewpoint. I am glad that the pope finally declared a philosophy that has been central to Judaism for over three millennia. ■

Atlanta Millennials Bring Progress

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

here seems to be a 1980s revival in America, and it’s not just Donald Trump. A “Ghostbusters” sequel is in the works 30 years after the original. If the film is anything like this summer’s blockbusters, it will feature haircuts and fashions inspired by the 1980s. The shaggy fratboy haircut may have more product than it did when I was in grade school, but it still reminds me of Polo cologne. Bicoastal film and marketing executives are clever, but in the South preppy never went away. Sorority girls wear the vintage designer handbags not only because vintage is 12 cool, but also because the bags were

AJT

given to them by their mothers. To be clear: These girls do not color-coordinate their outfits to the extent that their grandmothers did. The bag does not have to match the shoes, and at home pillows do not have to be made of the same fabric as the sofa.

Guest Column By Jordan Barkin

As for today’s boys, they would not know a can of spray starch if it fell on their iPhones. Miraculously, many Southern teens still have drawls and use re-

gional terms like “yessur.” Households maintain Southern traditions despite constant exposure to homogenized mainstream media. Better yet, millennials are retailoring traditions to suit their generation. They embrace diversity and environmental issues. They venture into parts of downtown Atlanta that had fallen into disrepair. Recipes passed down through generations are now made with organic ingredients that more closely resemble the home-grown variety. And few things are as free-range as a deer you shot yourself — during the designated season, on designated land. Gone are the gracious, formal issues of Southern Accents magazine. Newly arrived is Garden & Gun magazine, so curiously authentic as to be

hipster. Family photos are often taken in a more casual style, with more natural light and fewer neckties. But if you look closely, you can still detect a level of caring perfectionism that is the trademark of a Southern woman. Volunteerism is on the rise. According to Philanthropy News Digest, “Millennials are more committed to volunteering than were young Americans a generation ago.” United Way of South Carolina concurs: “One in five of those defined as ‘Millennials,’ those of ages 16-31, (21.7 percent) volunteered.” Millennials are helping ensure times in Atlanta change with grace. ■ Jordan Barkin divides his time between his home in South Alabama and his family’s home in Atlanta.

OPINION

Plight of the Refugees The great tragedy of the Palestinian people is that the rulers of the Muslim world have never cared about their needs. When the United Nations proposed dividing 20 percent of Britain’s Palestinian Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state — 80 percent had been used to create Transjordan — those rulers said the Arabs of Palestine didn’t need a state; they were simply southern Syrians. Their families settled in Palestine after Zionist activity began to improve the economy in the 1880s. When the Arab-initiated 1948 war resulted in 800,000 Arab refugees and 800,000 Jewish refugees, the Jews were absorbed and uplifted by Israel. The Arabs and their descendants were reclassified as a distinctive group and denied citizenship and economic opportunity throughout much of the Muslim world. The Palestinians are the only group allowed to pass refugee status from one generation to the next. The U.N. agency created to serve them, the U.N. Refugee Welfare Agency, has colluded in keeping them poor and stateless, allowing them to be fed a diet of anti-Jewish hatred for decades. Although the Palestinians receive the most humanitarian aid per capita of any refugee group, little of the money reaches the people; it lines accounts of corrupt rulers or is diverted into the war against Israel and her people. Yasser Arafat flatly rejected Ehud Barak’s proposal for a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank, with the possibility of a shared Jerusalem (2000-01); Mahmoud Abbas did the same to Ehud Olmert’s slightly more generous proposal in 2008. Abbas says Israeli settlements in the West Bank prevent him from establishing a state. Yet those settlements cover only 2 percent of the West Bank and provide much-needed employment for Palestinians, both in construction and in businesses (think SodaStream before it relocated). Thus, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is just another effort to impose victimhood on the Palestinians. Many of the migrants risking their lives to get into Europe aren’t fleeing directly from Syria; they have been sitting in refugee camps for several years. Is their flight impelled by a fear of being trapped in limbo as the Palestinians have been for nearly 70 years? Has the refusal of the Muslim world to uplift the Palestinians caused today’s migrants to despair of being rehabilitated in the Middle East’s Muslim nations? — Toby F. Block, Atlanta

Palestinians Fail Peace While your editorial of Oct. 9, “Two Leaders,” makes some valuable points, it makes the remarkable assertion that Palestinians responded to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iran obsession with a wave of violence designed to grab his attention. Netanyahu is not to blame for the upsurge in violence. The clear cause is incitement by Palestinian leaders. Mahmoud Abbas said recently that “Jews desecrate the Temple Mount with their filthy feet.” He went onto say, “We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem.” Of course, this is nothing compared with the anti-Semitism spewed by his religious and political officials. All this is readily available in translation at palwatch.org. The failure of leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been almost all on the Palestinian side. Palestinian leaders such as Yasser Arafat and Abbas have rejected every peace plan, with or without U.S. involvement. They have refused to accept the principle of two states for two peoples, rejected the notion of Israel as a Jewish homeland, and consistently disputed Jewish links to Jerusalem, even denying the existence of a temple there. They have made it clear that a Palestinian state in the West Bank will not end the conflict but instead be used as a base for further hostilities against a weakened Jewish state. The tragedy of the Palestinian cause is that its real goal is not to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank (in addition to majority-Palestinian Jordan), but to negate and destroy Israel. Until this changes, Israel has to defend itself. Rather than the easy option of blaming Israeli leadership, Jews worldwide need to face up to this reality and to publicize the rejectionism and incitement of Palestinian leaders. — Doron Lubinsky, Atlanta

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OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Letters to Editor

Where’s the Line? I assume that Rabbi Malka Packer would not discriminate against a rabbinical student married to a Jew for Jesus or Messianic Jew (“Seminary Right on Non-Jewish Spouses,” Oct. 9). Would Rabbi Packer’s “radical hospitality” ideal call for allowing a Jew for Jesus to become a rabbi? I mean, if the individual’s morals, values, Jewish practices and family observances meet the litmus test, and the only difference is that the individual happens to believe that Jesus is the son of G-d and the Messiah, why should he or she be excluded from the rabbinate? What say you, Rabbi Packer? — Lee Pearlman, Atlanta

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LOCAL NEWS

Full of Community Pride

ore than 300 people represented the Jewish community in the 45th annual Atlanta Pride parade Sunday, Oct. 11, according to estimates from SOJOURN, which organized Jewish participation in the parade and the weekend festival at Piedmont Park. SOJOURN, the Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender and Sexual Diversity, had 44 synagogues and other Jewish organizations as co-sponsors for the parade entry, including a float, and an informational tent. The Atlanta Jewish Times was one of the co-sponsors. The Jewish community tent, the size of four standard tents in the festival, offered information about SOJOURN and the other Jewish organizations, especially regarding activities in support of LGBTQ people.

Photo by Jamie L. Collins/SOJOURN Jewish community representatives gather for the parade from the Civic Center MARTA station to Piedmont Park.

SOJOURN Executive Director Rebecca Stapel-Wax has some fun after the parade.

Photos by Michael Jacobs unless otherwise noted

Sophomores Camille Levin (left) of the Weber School and Ariel Mesnick of North Springs Charter High School hang out in the Jewish community tent.

Stopping by the Jewish community tent are Israelis (from left) Edo Ohuyon, Yuval Bronshtein and Itay Yarden, who said they got the silent treatment on the way to Piedmont Park from their Palestinian Uber driver.

Metro Atlanta Community Mikvah representatives Alice Wertheim (left), who heads the board of directors, and Abby Horowitz, the executive director, staff the Jewish community tent.

Congregation Etz Chaim Rabbi Shalom Lewis and his wife, Cindy, share a laugh with Congregation Bet Haverim Rabbi Josh Lesser (left) after the parade.

A well-disguised Jan Levy tells the fortune of ModernTribe owner Jennie Rivlin Roberts, who ran a pop-up store next to the Jewish community tent.

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no mistaking the Ahavath Achim affiliation of this Pride participant.

Congregation Bet Haverim Rabbi Josh Lesser relaxes between the parade and his brief speech from the main Pride stage a couple of hours later at the festival.

OCTOBER 16 â&#x2013;Ş 2015

Sporting the official Jewish Pride T-shirts, Congregation Or Hadash Rabbis Analia Bortz and Mario Karpuj pause after the parade.

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Photos courtesy of Temple Sinai Temple Sinai Rabbis (from left) Brad Levenberg, Ron Segal and Elana Perry lead a congregational contingent that traveled to Pride by the busload.

Making an appearance in the parade are the words of Jewish Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan from the case legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide in June.

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LOCAL NEWS

Sexploitation for a Happy Meal Panel exposes the realities of human trafficking

uman trafficking is a problem in any American city or neighborhood, and it’s not going away. That’s according to Paula Zucker, the president of Greater Atlanta Hadassah, in her introductory remarks at a panel discussion Wednesday, Oct. 7. The event at Congregation B’nai Torah presented viewpoints from locals who are dealing with the issues of exploitation of children. Dalia Racine of the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office explained what human trafficking actually means: “In Georgia it’s anyone who is under 18, or an adult, who is being coerced or deceived into being sold to the sex trade for sexual servitude.” Sold can mean a number of things. “We’ve had cases where a 14-year-old was being sold to the cable man in exchange for connection in an apartment. It’s for a Happy Meal at McDonald’s. It’s for a car payment. That’s enough (to qualify) as human trafficking,” Racine said. “There are different ways that kids are being exchanged for goods and services and as a commodity, and exploiters have no problem with looking at our own children as something to trade or benefit from.” While anyone can become a victim of human trafficking, the most vulnerable targets are women and children, particularly runaways and homeless youths, Zucker said. She cited figures from the Department of Justice claiming that 300,000 children are at risk of being trafficked every year in the United States, where the average age to enter prostitution is 12 to 14 for girls and 11 to 13 for boys. “Wrap your mind around that,” said Racine, a mother of three. “I think of the mental capacity of a child that age, how easy it is to manipulate them, how easy it is to coerce them.” One of the biggest risk factors is homelessness, the panel agreed, and most runaways are approached by an exploiter within 48 hours of leaving home. “It’s always striking to me, the number of young people impacted by trafficking,” said Lorie Davidson, the clinical director of Covenant House, a shelter for homeless youths. “It’s deeply disturbing how quickly these traffic teams will move victims all across the United States. They have a very sophisticated operation. We’ve had people

rimeter, Racine said. “When who have tried to recruit we make an arrest, the mawithin Covenant House, so jority of the time he’s got a we have to be hyper-vigilant.” family, kids, he’s got a good Exploiters use social job. We don’t care. We’re gomedia to lure children. “Ining after him nonetheless.” stagram has become a way Davidson also tried to that individuals are being counter misconceptions. recruited with what appear “It’s not always a man; it’s to be legitimate jobs,” Davidrarely a scary-looking man. son said. “They show up for It may somebody who is a job interview and instead your boyfriend or girlbecome a victim.” friend or your soccer coach Racine agreed, adding or your best friend’s mom. that the top seller of chilWe really want to give our dren is a website “where young people an accurate you can buy a car, a fridge picture of what they may or a 14-year-old. It used to (From left) Dalia Racine from the Human Trafficking Unit of encounter and then give be Craigslist until they shut the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, Lorie Davidson of Covenant House, Pamela Perkins Carn of the Interfaith Children’s them the tools.” down their erotic services. Movement, and Paula Zucker of Greater Atlanta Hadassah “The best way we can The Internet is the No. 1 way form the panel for the human trafficking discussion Oct. 7. combat this is through eduthat children are being sold.” cation, and stop turning Racine added: “Who are our pimps and exploiters? It’s not play with. They’re your bosses, your our heads from what is right in front of who you would typically think. Quite co-workers. If you think about it, you our faces,” Racine said. “We can no lonfrankly, they are your neighbors. They can’t be a pauper to go and buy sex. You ger give it a pass and say it’s the oldest profession in the world, not when it’s are the people who go to your doctor’s must have some disposable income.” office and to your schools. They are A study found that 42 percent of destroying families and communities the parents of the kids that your kids purchasers were from north of the Pe- for generations to come.” ■

WE’LL TAKE CARE OF YOUR PARENTS EVEN IF THEY’RE A HANDFUL. OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

By Kevin Madigan kmadigan@atljewishtimes.com

Jeffrey Taratoot & Lester Czuper

LET’S TALK HOME CARE.

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AJT 15

ART CONTEST Chanukah

We’re looking for a festive Chanukah illustration for the cover of the Atlanta Jewish Times December 4th issue. If you’re age 15 or under, send us your Chanukah-themed artwork by Friday, November 20 Size: 9.5 inches wide by 8 inches high Materials: Anything that shows up bold and bright, such as crayons, please. We suggest taping your artwork to cardboard to protect it. Do not fold artwork. Digitally produced art is accepted. Artwork may be submited in JPEG or PDF format on the website. To enter: All work must be recieved at the Atlanta Jewish Times oﬃce, 270 Carpenter Drive, Suite 320, Atlanta, Ga 30328 ATTN: Art Contest, or submiteted through the website. (One entry per child, please.) All work must have an entry form attached on the back: Deadline is 3 p.m. Friday, November 20th, 2015. Artwork may be picked up in January at 270 Carpenter Drive, Suite 320, Atlanta, Ga 30328 during regular business hours. Categories: There are four age categories: 6 and under, 7 to 9, 10 to 12, and 13 to 15.

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OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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BOOK FESTIVAL

Book Festival Set to Open Cover on 24th Edition

he Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center officially opens with an appearance by former NBC “Meet the Press” host David Gregory on Thursday, Nov. 5, but the work that makes the nearly threeweek festival possible started within a month of the end of the 2014 festival. “It builds on itself every year,” said Susan Tourial, a Congregation Or VeShalom member who is in her second year as festival co-chair. She’s joined by Congregation B’nai Torah member Deborah Jacobs, who is in her first year as co-chair. The planning for the festival involves 14 committees and more than 100 volunteers, many of whom travel to New York to do “author speed dating,” spending a few minutes with each of hundreds of authors hitting the Jewish book circuit in November. In a democratic process, a vote of volunteers eventually sets the wish list for authors. In addition, the festival’s director, Pam Morton, works long-developed publishing industry contacts to track the big names releasing books and persuade them to come to Atlanta. Sometimes, as with Dr. Ruth Westheimer, whom the festival had sought for some time, the successful pursuit of an author can turn on a chance encounter at a book expo. Tourial and Jacobs said the size and reputation of the Atlanta festival make it a desirable destination for most authors. Authors know they’ll get good crowds and sell books here. Plus, they’ll get specially decorated cookies from Ali’s Cookies. Those cookies are a big enough hit that author Brad Meltzer ordered 150 boxes of them one year to hand out as gifts, and Jennifer Weiner ordered enough to give them to her entire audience. Authors also are treated well by the volunteer staff. About 70 people have signed up to work during the festival, and more are welcome. Just visit www.atlantajcc.org/bookfestival, the landing place for all your festival information and ticketing needs. The festival drew 13,000 attendees last year, and sales of series passes are running about 20 percent ahead of last year’s pace, Morton said. Two programs enhance festival attendance and enjoyment: community partners and book club insiders. The festival is working with 35

“When the child masters the book, synagogues and other organizations as partners, each of which pays $360. he gets to keep it,” Jacobs said. “It keeps Those groups can co-sponsor festival them reading and rewards effort.” Project GIVE collected more than events, and they get $18 back for every 2,000 books last year. Like the festival series pass they sell. books themselves, Book clubs the donated chilthat sign up for the dren’s books don’t insiders program have to be by or choose at least about Jewish peoone of 11 book club ple. picks to read, get So what qualigroup discounts fies a book for on tickets and rethe festival? The served group seatorganizers said it ing, and can meet simply has to be the authors. Photo by Heidi Morton a book or author Tourial and JaBook Festival co-chairs Susan Tourial our book-loving cobs also are excit(left) and Deborah Jacobs flank Knesset community will be ed about the return member Michael Oren, who was featured at the festival’s prologue event interested in. After of Project GIVE. Oct. 7 with his latest book, “Ally.” all, it’s not the JewBins set up Oct. ish Book Festival; 1 at the entrance to the JCC are collecting gently used it’s the Book Festival of the Marcus JCC. In addition to Gregory and Weschildren’s books for the Atlanta Jewish Coalition for Literacy, which uses the theimer, the keynote authors this books to tutor kindergartners through year are Judy Blume, Dennis Ross, second-graders at public schools eli- the Kellerman clan (parents Faye and gible for the federal government’s Title Jonathan and son Jesse with a pair of books), Mitch Albom, Arlene Alda (apI program.

pearing with her husband, actor Alan Alda), Alan Dershowitz, and Ted Koppel, who’s closing the festival Sunday, Nov. 22. “I think we have a nice balance of things,” Tourial said. Eight of the 44 authors this year are locals, which makes festival organizers happy. The downside is about 60 locals applied to participate. “That’s the worst part of this job, turning authors away,” Morton said. The demand for and from authors to be part of the festival has led to special events throughout the year. Already scheduled for the spring are two cookbook events: Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart with their “Mastering the Art of Southern Vegetables” on March 20 and Paula Shoyer with “The New Passover Menu” on April 17. When Koppel signs the last book of the night Nov. 22 to end the 24th edition of the Book Festival, Jacobs and Morton will be able to thank Tourial for two years of a job well done, catch up on their sleep, then get started a month later to try to make the 25th festival even better. ■

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By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com

AJT 17

BOOK FESTIVAL www.atlantajewishtimes.com

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Oren: Israel, U.S. Are Allies a World Apart By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com The United States and Israel have experienced rough relations because of their fundamental differences on Iran, but Knesset member Michael Oren is confident that both countries will continue to rely on each other. “There is no substitute for the United States for Israel,” said Oren, who held the job he had dreamed of as a teenager growing up in New Jersey

when he was Israel’s ambassador to the United States during President Barack Obama’s first term. “There is no substitute for Israel for the United States.” Oren spoke in a packed Atlanta Jewish Academy auditorium Wednesday, Oct. 7, at the prologue to the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center. He explored some of the difficulties between Obama and Israel, just as he does in his latest book, “Ally.” The differences often result from conflicting worldviews, Oren said. He

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Policy differences grew worse cited Winston Churchill: Obama removed a bust of Britain’s World War II when the Arab Spring arrived in 2011: • Israel worried about the Musprime minister from his office; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lim Brotherhood; the United States hung a picture of Churchill in his office thought it would mellow in power. • Israel did not see Turkish Presito always be looking over his shoulder. The president made it clear in May dent Recep Erdogan as a good guy; the 2009 when he first met with Netanya- United States considered him a reliable hu that the longtime “no surprises, no partner against militants. • Israel daylight” policy hoped for U.S. for the allies was intervention in no longer in efSyria; Obama fect, Oren said. was determined Security to avoid new coordination is military comstronger than mitments in the ever, Oren said, Middle East. and the president The key difcame through in Photo by Heidi Morton ferences, howDecember 2010 Michael Oren speaks at Atlanta Jewish Academy on Oct. 7. ever, involved when a forest fire Iran. looked unstopThe Iranian nuclear program, pable because Israel has no firefighting planes or fire retardant. When Oren which now has legitimacy to produce made an emergency request, Obama weapons in 13 to 15 years, presents a tritold his aide to “get Israel whatever it ple threat to Israel, Oren said. In addineeds,” and eight planes, 11 fire jump- tion to the danger from Iran itself, once ers and all the necessary retardant ar- it has nuclear weapons, Hezbollah will rived to put out the fire and save Haifa. have them, and all of the other regional But on policy matters, Obama powers will obtain them. “The Iranian nuclear program to chose from that first meeting to air demands and differences in public, Oren us is not about politics. It’s not about said. “Daylight is just daylight in the Democrat or Republican. It’s about survival,” Oren said, explaining that while Middle East, and it can be searing.” The burn grew worse in June 2009 the United States is huge and far from when Obama spoke in Cairo to reach Iran, Israel is tiny and close by. The distance is getting smaller, at out to the Muslim world. The speech made the most public U.S. embrace of least in terms of the military, Oren said. the Palestinian cause and condemna- The week he spoke, Iran moved 1,500 tion of Israeli settlements. But more troops into Syria near Israel’s northern important, Oren said, the speech for border. Iran also is providing kits for the first time recognized the right of Hezbollah to convert its 100,000 dumb Iran — the world’s leading state spon- rockets into smart cruise missiles, imsor of terrorism — to pursue a peaceful pervious to Iron Dome. “Welcome to the new Middle East,” nuclear program. “We had no warning whatsoever,” Oren said. “This is what the Middle East Oren said, and Israel never got a heads- looks like without the United States in it right now.” ■ up about U.S. policy statements again.

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Join us for a unique opportunity to learn and connect at Temple Sinai’s Scholar in Residence Weekend. Dr. Ron Wolfson, is an accomplished author, inspiring speaker and professor whose work focuses on the power of making connections to strengthen your Jewish experience. Learn, meet, schmooze and reflect with us as he shares his insights with our community. Imagine Sinai: A Weekend of Connections Scholar in Residence Weekend with Dr. Ron Wolfson Friday, October 23 Shabbat Services, 6:30 pm All Ages Set the tone for the weekend and hear Dr. Wolfson at services, “Envisioning the Relational Synagogue of the 21st Century.” Cost for this event. Schmooze after Services, 7:30 pm 20 somethings Evening continues over dinner. No cost for this event. Saturday, October 24 Torah Study, 10:00 am All Ages Study the Torah with Dr. Wolfson, “Lech Lecha - Hearing the Call of The Seven Questions You’re Asked in Heaven.” No cost for this event. Book Talk & Dinner, 6:00 pm 65 and over A book talk on Dr. Wolfson’s book, “The Best Boy in the United States of America: A Memoir of Blessings and Kisses.” Cost: $18 Temple Sinai members/$25 non-members Drinks, Dessert & Conversation, 7:30 pm 40’s - 60’s Havdalah & conversation, “The Power of Connections.” Cost: $18 Temple Sinai members/$25 non-members Sunday, October 25 Parents Connect, 10:00 am Parents with kids of all ages A discussion on “Keeping Judaism Relevant in our Families through the Years.” Cost: $5 Temple Sinai members/nonmembers

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BOOK FESTIVAL

Riding the Mideast Merry-Go-Round Ross challenges assumptions in U.S.-Israel relations By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com

merican policy toward Israel seems to confirm George Santayana’s warning that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Fortunately, as the title of his latest book shows, Ambassador

Dennis Ross has found in his study of U.S.-Israel relations since the Truman administration that the relationship is “Doomed to Succeed” despite that forgetfulness. Time and again, presidents and their national security teams have made the same mistakes regarding Israel and the Middle East, yet they never

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seem to question the assumptions that Ross shows. For example, the preface of the book depicts a videoconference lead to those errors, Ross said. That pattern is more striking, he call in March 2011 involving Obama, said, because new administrations so British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor often take office cerAngela Merkel and tain that, in the MidFrench President dle East and many Nicolas Sarkozy in other places, “they which the three Euroget the world in a way pean leaders launch that their predecesan unexpected, unresors do not.” lenting, viciously perFor President sonal diatribe against Barack Obama, as Israeli Prime Minister with George H.W. Benjamin Netanyahu. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Obama stands Richard Nixon and up for the Israeli, Dwight Eisenhower, with whom he has one fundamental ashad many public dissumption has been agreements. that a confrontation“I thought it was al approach to Israel interesting to tell would improve U.S. the story because it’s relations with the Dennis Ross has served five somewhat ironic,” Muslim nations of the Middle East and presidents, four of them as a political given Obama’s perappointee, but says he doesn’t expect ceived anti-Netanyaultimately benefit Isto be in the next administration. hu feelings, Ross said. rael itself. “Here he was actually But history has proved that Israel and the Palestin- defending Netanyahu.” The story of that conference call, ians are at best secondary concerns for their neighbors, who have their own not published before, is an example of problems they want the United States the firsthand knowledge Ross provides to address, “Doomed to Succeed” dem- about nearly four decades of U.S. policy toward Israel, either because he was onstrates. “There’s almost something psy- part of the administration he writes chological about how these assump- about or he could call on longtime tions are embedded,” Ross said. “It’s friends in the United States and Israel hard to uproot them. One way is to ex- who were there. The situation was different for pose them.” That’s what Ross attempts to do the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, in his book, released early enough, he Johnson and Nixon administrations, hopes, to inform and affect the can- however, and Ross said he talked to his didates running to succeed Obama as book editor from the start about the challenge of delivering the same qualpresident. Ross draws lessons from seven de- ity and insights for those years. “He cades of history to give the next presi- made the suggestion at the time that one of the things I might want to do dent a head start. That president might be Hillary is concentrate on creating the connecClinton, with whom Ross worked un- tions between the past and succeeding der Obama while she was secretary of administrations.” state. She comes across as more openminded about the Middle East than Obama’s national security adviser, Doomed to Susan Rice, who favors being comSucceed bative and keeping Israel in the dark, By Dennis much like national security adviser in Ross the Carter administration (Ross’ first), Farrar, Straus Zbigniew Brzezinski. and Giroux, “If we want to affect Israeli behav496 pages, ior,” Ross said, “that’s the least likely $30 way to influence Israel in a positive At the fashion.” festival Obama himself is not anti-Israel, Nov. 9

BOOK FESTIVAL Ross thus finds the threads that run through the full history of U.S.Israel relations and explores the policy echoes. One moment in the book that he hopes doesn’t echo comes from the Carter administration. As the youngest, lowest-level analyst in a meeting, he questions the approach of his colleagues to a discussion about a 10-year plan for arms sales to Israel. He writes that he could see the thought running through the others’ minds: “He must be Jewish.” There’s a risk that his advice in “Doomed to Succeed” will be received the same way, and Ross said he’s sure some people will criticize the book without reading it. But he has approached history analytically and wants criticism to be based on facts. “People frequently act without thinking it through,” he said. “I am highlighting this, showing how assumptions guided policy and how policy is not based on reality.” He noted that the U.S.-Israel relationship is due for a reality check when Netanyahu visits Obama in Washington on Nov. 9, the day Ross will speak in a free event at The Temple as part of the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center. He said he expects some fence mending because both men want to defuse the tensions and Netanyahu has an interest in changing his overly partisan image amid the increasing violence in Israel. “I think they’ll manage,” Ross said, although he expects that any qualitative improvement in the relationship will have to wait for the next administration. Still, he noted that there’s no question mark in his book title, and he’s optimistic about the long term. “I do think fundamentally the trajectory of the relationship is on a certain path. It can’t be taken for granted,” Ross said. But given the dynamics of the Middle East and the problems of so many nations there, “Israel stands in such stark contrast. Israel is such a pillar for us.” ■

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This week the AJT offers a 16-page preview of the Book Festival. We invite you to pull out this section (just be careful of the staples) and keep it with you to plan your festival attendance. If you can, join AJT Editor Michael Jacobs in conversation with Anthony David, author of “An Improbable Friendship,” at noon Monday, Nov. 16. (See an interview with David on Page 32.)

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Festive Season

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BOOK FESTIVAL

Heroic Generation

Klein sees great things from troops home from war By Kevin Madigan kmadigan@atljewishtimes.com

ime columnist Joe Klein, known as the author of “Primary Colors” and other books, is out with a new work of nonfiction, “Charlie Mike: A True Story of Heroes Who Brought Their Mission Home.”

He spoke to the Atlanta Jewish Times by phone ahead of his appearance at the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center on Nov. 8. AJT: I want to ask you first about the presidential race. How do you think Hillary Clinton’s campaign is going? Klein: Well, I have opinions, but I

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An Improbable Friendship

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Tess Gerritsen Playing With Fire

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Killing a King

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don’t make endorsements. I’ve known her for nearly 30 years now. She has a lot of experience, and I think she has a lot of sound judgment, and she also has some problems. So it’s going to be interesting to see whether she can overcome them (laughs). I don’t know how she is appealing to my kids’ generation, who are now voting. They were not around when her husband, Bill Clinton, was president, so they don’t know her. Jeb Bush is running into some of the same problems on the Republican side, but I’m a flaming moderate, and they’re not moderate people.

AJT: There have been horror stories recently about the Department of Veterans Affairs and patients having to wait months AJT: You wrote in a Joe Klein, who told a fictional for doctors’ appointversion of Bill Clinton’s first ments and their treatnew Time column that people are scared of campaign in “Primary Colors,” ment in general. thinks it will be interesting Klein: Those stoDonald Trump, includto see how voters who are ries are true, and if you ing your own (Hispanic) too young to remember look at the way the VA daughter-in-law. Does the Clinton administration relate to Hillary Clinton. treated Clay Hunt durhe stand a chance? ing the course of the Klein: He might. I’ve seen some crazy things happen. book, you can see exactly what the This is my 11th presidential campaign. problem is. But there are answers to the I certainly don’t hope that he stands a problems. And there’s this whole other chance. I’ve spent a lot of years study- story about veterans who are out there ing these issues — they’re complicated, doing stuff. People who get involved and he doesn’t live in a complicated with these kinds of organizations reworld. He lives in a world of himself. In ally are inspired by it, and I wanted to fact, that’s a good segue to the book be- be sure that this generation of service cause it’s about the exact opposite sort people got the credit they deserve. The New York Times did a cover of person from Trump and the kind of people who can lead us creatively in the story a few weeks ago about the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Marines. Jake and future. Clay were members of that battalion, AJT: What will you be addressing but it wasn’t about all the good that had been done since they came home. in Atlanta? Klein: I’m trying to promote the It was about suicides in that battalion, ideas that are inherent in the book. In a and Clay was featured in it. But Jake, way this is a summation of 30 years for who has saved more lives, both through me as a journalist — things that I really direct disaster relief and by giving vetbelieve in. The message of the book is erans something profound to do, was that we can learn something from these barely mentioned in the piece. We tend people in the military. This magic tran- to concentrate on the blood and the sition that happens when you move problems, and therefore we give a disfrom active duty to veteran status, you torted view of who these people are. ■ can go from being a warrior to a basket case. That’s how veterans are perceived. So it’s really important to show that not Charlie Mike only is that an oversimplification, but By Joe Klein also these people have stuff we can use. They have a quality to them that a Simon & Schuster, 320 pages, $27 lot of us have lost. They know what it feels like to be part of something larger At the festival Nov. 8

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BOOK FESTIVAL

‘Devil’ Educates in the Brutal Details

aomi Ragen writes fiction to inform and effect change, not necessarily to entertain, which is important to know before you pick up her first true-crime novel, “The Devil in Jerusalem.” It is sharply written, educational, hard to put down and well worth reading, but the tale of a Haredi family succumbing to horrifying abuse is not an easy or pleasant experience. “This book took so much out of me,” Ragen said. “It was a horror to go through that court testimony and read what those kids went through. It was a very difficult book to write.” The court testimony related to the case of Elior Chen, a self-proclaimed Jerusalem rabbi who was convicted in 2010 of horrific abuse of eight children through the manipulation of his disciples, including the children’s mother. The case connected with questions Ragen had long pondered. “What has happened to the Jewish religion the past 40 to 50 years since I was going to day school in Far Rockaway? All anybody talks about is Kabbalah and wonder-working rabbis and praying to graves and angels. What has happened to this rational, beautiful religion that I was taught and grew up with?” She approaches that real-life mystery through her novel’s investigation into what happened to two boys brought to a hospital hours apart after suffering life-threatening abuse. At the heart of the fictional mystery is the behavior of the young mother, who shows no emotion about her suffering sons and breaks her silence only to lie to the police and to ensure that her other children say nothing. Ragen said a challenge for her as the writer and for readers is to get past hating the mother for failing to protect her children. She said she and her police protagonist, Detective Bina Tzedek, had to go through the same process to understand that the mother also was a victim and that she was neutralized by classic cult mind-control techniques. It’s also important to understand that although the abuse in “Devil” occurs within the setting of Jerusalem’s Haredi community, the culprits are part of a cult, not ultra-Orthodoxy. The techniques and the violence could occur in any cult. “Any time you stop using your brain, it’s not a religion; it’s a cult. If you can’t question things, that’s not Juda-

ple who are intelligent ism, and you should enough to search for run in the opposite disomething beyond the rection as fast as you ordinary. can,” Ragen said. “If Ragen hopes that this book doesn’t do her storytelling helps anything else, I hope save people from fallit does that.” ing victim to cults. One of the iro“A novel can only nies she learned in touch people’s hearts researching the novel and try to inform is that cults, which Naomi Ragen says it has taken a demand that people lot of time to recover emotionally them,” Ragen said. “I’m from writing this book. not a social worker or not use their brains, psychologist. I wrote find the most fertile recruiting ground in institutions such a work of fiction. I do hope that their as Harvard and Yale. Cults prey on peo- minds will be alerted to the predators

Come See For Yourself!

that are lurking around, the predators of holiness. When you send your kids to Israel for year programs, be forewarned. These kinds of predators are out there.” ■

The Devil in Jerusalem By Naomi Ragen St. Martin’s Press, 320 pages, $25.99 At the festival Nov. 9

For more information, or to schedule a tour, contact Bonnie Cook, Director of Admissions bcook@atljewishacademy.org or 404.843.9900 www.atljewishacademy.org

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By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com

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BOOK FESTIVAL www.atlantajewishtimes.com

NOVEMBER

Free 7:45 p.m. Esther G. Levine Community Read Dr. Ruth Westheimer, The Doctor Is In In conversation with CNN correspondent Holly

THURSDAY

7:30 p.m. David Gregory, How’s Your Faith? In conversation with WXIA-TV anchor/reporter Melissa Long $18 member/$24 nonmember

6 7

FRIDAY

Noon Nomi Eve, Henna House $9/$14

SATURDAY

8 p.m. Judy Blume, In the Unlikely Event In conversation with former Atlanta Journal-Constitution book columnist Greg Changnon $26/$31 (includes first edition of book)

SUNDAY

7:30 p.m. Joe Klein, Charlie Mike In conversation with former CNN Executive Vice President Gail Evans $13/$18

MONDAY

Noon Naomi Ragen, The Devil in Jerusalem $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Dennis Ross, Doomed to Succeed In conversation with Emory University professor Ken Stein At The Temple, 1589 Peachtree St., Midtown Free; RSVP required via www. atlantajcc.org/pldb-live/dennis-ross-idoomed-to-succeed-i-br-29929

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

AJT 24

WEDNESDAY

12:30 p.m. Archie Rand, The 613 In conversation with artsATL.com Executive Editor Catherine Fox $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Michael Bar-Zohar, No Mission Is Impossible $13/$18

10:30 a.m. Mike Wien, The Specific Edge Free 2 p.m. Rabbi Avraham Weiss, Open Up the Iron Door $9/$14

Firfer $18/$24

TUESDAY

12:30 p.m. Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Single Jewish Male Seeking Soul Mate Ronald H. Balson, Saving Sophie $9/$14 7 p.m. Besser Memorial Kristallnacht Commemoration Guest speaker Dr. Ruth Westheimer

THURSDAY

10:30 a.m. Chana Shapiro and Meta Miller, Fruitfly Rabbi In conversation with Rabbi Brian Glusman Free 12:30 p.m. Michael Solomonov, Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking In conversation with “Atlanta Eats” and 680 the Fan host Steak Shapiro Includes lunch prepared by Goodfriend’s Kosher Grill from the cookbook $22/$27 7:30 p.m. Faye Kellerman, The Theory of Death Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman, The Golem of Paris In conversation with Greater Impact Communications President Nadia Bilchik $18/$24

FRIDAY

Noon Daniel Torday, The Last Flight of Poxl West Alexis Landau, The Empire of the Senses $9/$14

SATURDAY

8 p.m. Eva and George Stern

Lecture Mitch Albom, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto $26/$31 (includes first edition of book)

www.atlantajewishtimes.com SUNDAY

10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Family Reading Festival Appearances by Joanie Leeds and Drummer Dan, Rabbi G and the Shabbat Dinosaur, and the Atlanta Hawks cheerleaders $10/$13 ($3 more at the door; free for parents and infants under 6 months old) 3 p.m. Dan Ephron, Killing a King In conversation with “This American Life” producer Nancy Updike Mike Kelly, The Bus on Jaffa Road In conversation with Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Bill Nigut $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Arlene Alda (with Alan Alda), Just Kids From the Bronx In conversation with radio and TV personality Mara Davis $18/$24

MONDAY

Noon Anthony David, An Improbable Friendship In conversation with Atlanta Jewish Times Editor Michael Jacobs $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Tess Gerritsen, Playing With Fire In conversation with WABE-FM hosts Lois Reitzes and Spivey Soiree $13/$18

TUESDAY

Noon Jo Ivester, The Outskirts of

Hope In conversation with Etgar 36 founder Billy Planer Andrew Feiler, Without Regard to Sex, Race, or Color $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Judith Viorst, Wait for Me … Dani Klein Modisett, Take My Spouse, Please Hosted by Punchline Comedy Club owner Jamie Bendall $13/$18

WEDNESDAY

12:30 p.m. Shulem Deen, All Who Go Do Not Return In conversation with CNN correspondent Holly Firfer $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Steve Katz, Blood, Sweat, and My Rock ’n’ Roll Years

$13/$18

THURSDAY

10:30 a.m. Robert Weintraub, No Better

Friend Harry Lembeck, Taking on Theodore Roosevelt Free 12:30 p.m. Stephen Silverman, The Catskills $9/$14 5 p.m. Film screening, Inheritance The story of Monika Hertwig, Jennifer Teege’s mother Free with ticket to see Teege; otherwise, $5/$10 7:30 p.m. Jennifer Teege, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me In conversation with actress Jasmine Guy $13/$18

FRIDAY

Noon Jami Attenberg, St. Mazie Jillian Cantor, The Hours Count $9/$14

SATURDAY

Alan Dershowitz, Abraham In conversation with WXIA-TV anchor Vinnie Politan $26/$31 (includes first edition of book)

SUNDAY

Josh Levs, All In In conversation with Greater Impact Communications President Nadia Bilchik Free Free baby sitting; 678-812-3830 or beth. feagain@atlantajcc.org 2:30 p.m. Laurie Ann Levin, Life in Life Joey Reiman, Thumbs Up! Moderated by “Connect With Conn” host Conn Jackson $9/$14 7:30 p.m. Ted Koppel, Lights Out! In conversation with TV and radio host Dana Barrett $18/$24

Information and tickets: atlantajcc.org/bookfestival 678-812-4005, bookfestival@atlantajcc.org

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Better Than Sex

Dr. Ruth reveals personal triumphs and tribulations

r. Ruth Westheimer, the country’s most trusted sex therapist, will use her unmistakable accent to charm and enlighten Atlantans about her life of tragedy and challenges, helping others, and having fun when she comes to the Book Festival on Tuesday, Nov. 10. “The Doctor Is In: Dr. Ruth on Love, Life and Joie de Vivre” tells her story with dramatic twists about marriage, faith, celebrity and life’s unlimited possibilities for happiness. And, of course, she offers sound, nonjudgmental advice along the way. Her book is this year’s Esther G. Levine Community Read, honoring the longtime festival volunteer. “I am thrilled that Dr. Ruth is the speaker for this year’s Esther G. Levine Community Read. We all know her for her frank discussions about love and life, but in this memoir we learn about her fascinating life — as a child of the Holocaust, an orphan in Switzerland and as a sniper during Israel’s War of

Independence,” Levine said. Share my down-to-earth talk with the legendary Dr. Ruth. Jaffe: Why write this book now at 87? Was it cathartic for you? Westheimer: I want to make sure that people know about my back-

Jaffe’s Jewish Jive By Marcia Caller Jaffe mjaffe@atljewishtimes.com

ground and philosophy. I had a sad beginning as an orphan and chose to take life with both hands. Coming out of the Holocaust, I was committed to tikkun olam. And, let’s face it, who wants to talk about sex all day long? Jaffe: Because of your size, you said that you were a scout and sniper in the war. Did you ever pull the trigger and kill anyone? Westheimer: No, I did not. On

in the South? Westheimer: Yes, I just left Birmingham, Ala., with my play “Becoming Dr. Ruth.”

June 4, 1948, in Israel’s War of Independence, I was badly wounded in both legs. That ended my military career. While in the hospital there, I tried to make the most of it and spread cheer to others. Jaffe: Besides appearing in Clairol commercials, what do you do in your free time? Westheimer: I was a super skier but gave that up at 80. Now I hike, especially in the Swiss Alps. I take the family to the mountains there. I live in Manhattan, so concerts, Lincoln Center, theater. I’m so busy at night.

In addition to appearing at a ticketed event in conversation with Holly Firfer at the Book Festival, Jaffe: What do your Dr. Ruth will speak at the grandchildren call you? Besser Holocaust Memorial Are you a bubbe? Garden to commemorate Westheimer: No, Kristallnacht at 7 p.m. they call me “Omi,” an Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Jaffe: Examples of your nightlife? Westheimer: Tonight I am going to an event with the Israeli consul general. Last night I attended a function with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, then another night an event honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Last week I visited with Hugh Heffner at the Playboy Mansion. Jaffe: I saw Playboy picked you as the 13th most influential person in sex. You and Madonna, to name two. Westheimer: Yes, and Heffner recently commended me for helping set the foundation for contemporary free speech in America.

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Jaffe: You’ve been a widow for 18 years and married three times. What advice can you give folks about how to get marriage right? Westheimer: First, our religion allows divorce. If your first marriage doesn’t work, don’t give up hope. Keep trying. But don’t ever think you can change a partner. Young people today work too hard and need to make time for evening dates or things to do together that are pleasurable to both.

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Jaffe: Tell our readers something no one knows about you. Westheimer: Hmm. I talk to journalists to get the word out about living life to the fullest at any age. But some things I keep private.

Jaffe: What’s your secret to staying so youthful? Westheimer: I walk, walk, walk. Even when I’m on the phone, I’m walking. I don’t cook or watch what I eat. I do have three meals a day. At my age, I am very grateful for good health. Jaffe: Do you like visiting us folks

endearment for oma, grandmother in German.

Jaffe: You span generations. You have a keen interest in children. Westheimer: I wrote a children’s book also translated into Hebrew. It’s about a turtle who teaches that to grow up, you have to take risks. The turtle could get hurt if it sticks its neck out of the shell, but it has to move. Jaffe: I read in your book that you speak German to Wolfgang Puck and French to designer John Paul Gaultier. In what language do you dream? Westheimer: (Pause) English. I speak fluent Hebrew too. Jaffe: My mother learned to email at age 87. Do you tweet? Westheimer: Yes, I have over 80,000 followers @AskDrRuth. Jaffe: When you come to Atlanta, you and I could share shoes, as my sister and I have tiny feet. Westheimer: I wear a Size 4 and mostly buy children’s shoes. Ferragamo used to make shoes for me. Now all I care about is comfort. Remember, I walk, walk, walk! ■

The Doctor Is In By Dr. Ruth Westheimer Amazon, 191 pages, $24.95 At the festival Nov. 10

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Viorst Isn’t Waiting For a Wonderful Life By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com

er writers ever retire,” she said. “I’ve been writing since I was a little girl. I don’t know how not to write.” t 84, Judith Viorst is a long way Still, half the book takes up the from the horrible, terrible, no question of how a husband and wife good, very bad days of child- will find each other in the afterlife. The hood and is well into the joys of being a wife in the poem “Wait for Me” is an grandparent. obsessive planner and wants to have But the writer known as the cre- a conversation to set a meeting place. ator of a miserable boy named Alexan- The husband wants to do anything else. der shows that life is still full of bitterFor those who want to see the sweet moments and loving frustrations Viorsts as the characters in “Wait for in her new book, “Wait Me,” she noted that she for Me … And Other has dark hair, while the Poems About the Irritawoman in the poem is tions and Consolations shown as a blonde. of a Long Marriage.” The book’s illus“I wanted to linger trations, by Stephen a bit on this time of life Campbell, are integral after 55 years of marto the poetry’s storyriage,” Viorst said. “I telling, but they’re a wanted to think about departure for Viorst, what was important, whose books typically what was still anfeature one-color line noying, what made it drawings. Campbell’s worthwhile and wonvibrant, colorful art derful.” looks like he painted, Judith Viorst says that being The book starts Viorst said. “I love these a grandmother is major with the irritations, drawings so much.” part of her happiness. such as interrupting Remarkably, she each other and hearing the same sto- has never met or talked with Campries over “and over” (repeated 16 times), bell. They worked by email. She would then acknowledges the consolations of throw him a phrase such as “celestial familiarity and togetherness. meadow” or “galaxy ballroom,” and “It’s wonderful,” Viorst said of hav- he’d take it from there. ing a partner in life for more than half Viorst said she and her husband a century. “The ties that hold people haven’t talked about where to meet together through a shared history that after death. “The closest I’ve gotten to long can be very powerful. It’s incred- any kind of imagining,” she said, “I’ll be ibly comforting to know and be known with the people I love.” by someone intimately.” That’s something she gets to do in She expects her contemporaries, this life, both with Milton, with whom especially women, to relate to that spe- she goes on more dates these days, and cial connection, but it doesn’t take 55 with her children and grandchildren. years to appreciate a spouse. “I have al- She noted that the real Alexander, the ready heard from women my kids’ age inspiration for the boy eternally havor even younger talk about the irrita- ing the horrible day, now has three chiltion. They tell the same story of being dren of his own. When they act up and interrupted. … Younger readers have he wonders where they get that behavfound those points of connection.” ior, Viorst said, she smiles and offers a She dedicates the book to 13 loving “nah-nah” taunt. ■ couples who were married at least 40 years, but one of the spouses, in most cases the husband, has died. Those Wait for widowed friends inspired the saddest Me poem in the book, “The Widow,” for By Judith which Viorst drew on her conversaViorst tions with and observations of those Simon & friends, who sometimes struggle to reSchuster, 96, $16.99 tain their dignity and fill their lives. Fortunately, she and her husband, At the Milton, are in good health, and both festival Nov. 17 continue to write. “I don’t know wheth-

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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613 Reasons to Study

Artist provides colorful interpretations of all mitzvot By Susanne Katz

udaism and art have always had a tenuous relationship. From the prohibition to make images or likenesses of man or beast, to the requirement to make beautiful adornments for religious observance, the do’s and don’ts have not revealed a clear picture of just what Jewish art is. Bible stories were communicated to somewhat illiterate churchgoers through paintings and sculptures on the walls, ceilings and pedestals of churches. Jewish spiritual art included embellishment and iconography meant to enhance rather than to educate. Later artistic embellishments included illuminated manuscripts, marriage contracts, haggadah manuscripts and megillot. Sculptures and relief were the most objectionable art forms, according to Talmudic law. Archie Rand believes that painting is a means of biblical interpretation

that, when seen through the Jewish lens, takes it beyond iconography. His images are not literal but are his own artistic commentary, meant to engage and entertain the viewer. His goal is to be provocative and to entice the viewer to look at and to talk about what he sees. In his new book, “The 613,” Archie Rand has created a page-by-page visual interpretation of each commandment, or mitzvah, in a comic-book-type format accompanied by the location of the text in the Talmud. Rand’s pairings of bright images with the 613 mitzvot, with line-by-line translations, are unorthodox, playful and in your face. Each painting highlights an idea of the text. He asks us to look at these mitzvot differently — or, at the very least, to just look. Rand ordered 700 canvases and started to work on this project. He made his own acrylic paint, which he mixed with resins and additional pigments. The gold borders he crafted

from gold and acrylic paints. The entire process took five years. This is an ambitious project, but, as he explained, “This is not my first engagement with enormous projects.” Rand, born in 1949, lives in Brooklyn and is the presidential professor of art at Brooklyn College. In an interview, Rand recalled his secular Jewish existence in Brooklyn, complete with after-school Hebrew training and a bar mitzvah. He has produced paintings and murals that have been exhibited around the world. Rand’s large-scale project “The Letter Paintings,” completed between 1968 and 1971, incorporates the names of African-American musicians. The paintings have been shown individually in galleries and together in an exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in 1983. Rand’s large-scale projects exploring Jewish themes include: • The B’nai Yosef murals, 1974, Brooklyn, known as the Painted Shul. • “Twelve Tribes” stained-glass win-

dows, 1980, Anshe Emet Congregation, Chicago. • “The Patriarchs” stained-glass windows, 1981, Temple Sholom, Chicago. • “Seven Days of Creation” murals, 1984, Jerusalem Women’s Teachers’ College. • Beth El Congregation murals, 2003, Fort Worth. • Congregation Beth-El mural, 2005, San Antonio. • “The 613,” a freestanding painting, at 1,700 square feet considered one of the largest ever made. Rand was inspired by Judaism and influenced by the feisty Jewish humor of Lenny Bruce and Mel Brooks. Jewish humor and the Jewish imagination enthralled viewers and readers with comic books, Mad magazines and the ever-present superheroes. Rand’s characters, he said, are neither Jewish nor superheroes. They are generic and user-friendly, and they have much value to a Jewish audience. Looking at these paintings will inspire

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thinking about and familiarity with the mitzvot rather than prompting observance of them. Mitzvot are found in the Talmud, but the Talmud does not provide us with a listing. The 12th-century sage Maimonides (Rambam) was the first person to write a systematic and comprehensive listing of the code of Jewish law in his “Mishnah Torah.” The 613 mitzvot consist of 248 positive and 365

negative commandments — the do’s and don’ts. There are also seven rabbinic mitzvot. A mitzvah is a good deed, to be done with joy and enthusiasm, and it is every Jew’s obligation to study each mitzvah, to learn about it. The 613 relate to family, the poor, gentiles, dietary laws, business practices, agriculture, clothing, vows, and just about all the possible rules to living that could be

Rand had intended. “The point is to be provocative and make folks want to read the texts,” Rand said. “The Jewish religion requires argument. I want these images to be entertaining, to invite the viewer to look at it and talk about it. It won’t make the viewer more observant, but it will make them think and be more familiar with the mitzvot.”

I had studied a few of the 613 but had never learned the significance of some mitzvot that, for me, brought up more questions than answers. I have more studying to do to understand the following: • No. 14, “To love converts.” • No. 62, “Not to engage in astrology.” • No. 127, “A man cannot remarry his divorced wife.” • No. 420, “To be seen at the Temple three times a year — Passover; Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks; and Sukkot, the Festival of Booths.” I asked Rand what he learned by studying and visualizing these 613 mitzvot. His answer: “I would not have read them all!” ■

The 613 By Archie Rand Blue Rider Press, 640 pages, $45 At the festival Nov. 11

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Left: Mitzvah 1 is “To know there is a G-d.” Middle: The cover of Archie Rand’s “The 613” depicts Mitzvah 328, “Unclean persons must not enter the Temple Mount area.” Right: Mitzvah 501 is “Not to insult or harm anybody with words.”

followed in a lifetime. I had plenty of time on my recent trip to and from Cuba, so while on the various planes, I looked at each of the 613 paintings and the first introductory painting and read each of the 613 texts. What I learned, by just looking and reading, was what

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Meet the Faith

Gregory takes readers on a spiritual journey By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com

V journalist David Gregory was facing the most difficult moment of his professional career in August 2014. He was unceremoniously ousted from his position as the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” amid ratings that had been slipping since he took the job in 2008. Gregory, who grew up as a selfdescribed cultural Jew in Los Angeles, said he got through the difficult time because of the lessons from a spiritual journey he had embarked on nine years earlier. The exploration of his Jewish roots, his interfaith marriage to Beth Wilkinson and the fallout with NBC are detailed in his first book, “How’s Your Faith? An Unlikely Spiritual Journey.” On Thursday, Nov. 5, Gregory will present his book at the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center. He talked to the AJT by phone.

AJT: Take me through the title of this book. How did it come to you? Gregory: It was almost a decade ago. I had been covering the (George W. Bush) administration from the beginning, and I had started studying with a Modern Orthodox scholar named Erica Brown. The president’s mutual friend of a friend had heard about this, and when I got the job at “Meet the Press,” (Bush) asked me, “How’s your faith?” It may seem startling to hear about the president of the United States asking a reporter that question that’s covering him, but as I say in the book, there is some context. I told him it was strong but still taking shape, and I wanted to study to deepen my faith and to better connect to the traditions of my Christian wife. I wanted to be a better husband and father. He was really encouraging and told me about his own faith journey and how it really strengthened him during the more difficult parts of his presidency.

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Gregory: I AJT: What was think there’s trethe turning point mendous sacrifice when you decided for the spouse that to explore your gives up his or her faith more deeply? religious traditions. Gregory: I deMy wife has tradiscribe a spiritual tions as an indilonging that goes vidual, but I think back to different she wants to share points of my life. It them with our famwas at a time when ily. Giving that up my wife, Beth, and has been painful. I I had young kids didn’t always recand were trying to ognize how big of a figure out our faith sacrifice that was. life together and Interfaith families when I was feeling require comproreally successful in mise. my life and career. I felt so grateful, AJT: Did your and I really began “Interfaith families require compromise,” departure from to wonder what else says David Gregory, the son in one is there? What else interfaith family and father in another. NBC spark your decision at all to write is expected of me? the book? What does it mean Gregory: No. I mean, I had been to be a person of faith? I really didn’t understand the answers to those ques- on this path of study and exploration even before I went to “Meet the Press.” tions. This was not about losing my job and AJT: What happened once you de- finding G-d. That said, there’s no question that going through a really humcided to delve deeper into your faith? Gregory: My main teacher is still bling setback in my life is something Erica Brown, and I’ve studied regu- that grounded me in my faith much larly with her for almost 10 years. At more deeply. There’s lots of ways that that time, though, I just reached out I feel insecure and lots of ways that I to other rabbis and thinkers, like my feel adrift, but I think I now have a rabbi at Temple Micah, Daniel Zemel. much deeper feeling that I’m not going I also learned from a lot of other reli- through it all alone. gious figures. In the book, I speak to AJT: What’s on the horizon for you Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, and Tim Keller, an evangeli- now? Gregory: Well, I’m focused on cal preacher in New York. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin is also someone that I’ve promoting the book right now. I’ve also been asked to do a lot of speaking. dealt a lot with. Those two things are taking up a lot of AJT: What aspects of your faith my time. I’ve been having some conversahave become more important to you as tions about how to write the next chapyou continue your journey? Gregory: It’s important to me to ter of my journalism career, and I’m deepen faith and grow in spirit over excited about where that’s going. ■ time. For me that involves study, prayer and a pursuit of a relationship with G-d. The Torah talks about loving G-d with all our heart, soul and might and G-d loving us. There’s also an emphasis on not only growth in spirit, but growth How’s Your Faith? in character. It’s one of the things I love By David Gregory about our tradition. AJT: You’re a part of an interfaith marriage, and you’re raising your children Jewish. What kind of sacrifice did that involve for your wife?

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2 Years, 3 Shots, 1 Shattered Dream ore than 100,000 people crowded Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv on the night of Saturday, Nov. 4, 1995. A rally in support of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization concluded with the singing of “Song of Peace” (“Shir Ha’Shalom”). Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was walking to his car when 25-year-old Yigal Amir, a law student, former soldier and religious nationalist, approached and fired three shots from a 9mm Beretta pistol. Two struck Rabin. The third wounded a bodyguard. Rabin died shortly after arriving at Ichilov Hospital. In his chest pocket was a Dan Ephron folded, bloodstained song sheet with the lyrics to “Song of Peace.” Dan Ephron was in the square, covering the rally for the Reuters news service. Needing to meet a deadline as the rally concluded, Ephron was walking to an apartment when he received a message on his beeper that shots had been fired in the vicinity of the prime minister. Ephron, who later served as the Newsweek and Daily Beast bureau chief in Israel, has reconstructed the lives of Rabin and Amir over the two years leading up to that night in Tel Aviv in “Killing a King,” a new book on the assassination. He will discuss the book at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, at the Marcus Jewish Community Center as part of the JCC’s annual Book Festival. The format will be a conversation with his wife, Nancy Updike, who is a founding producer of National Public Radio’s “This American Life” and herself a veteran of Middle East reporting. “That moment altered Israel’s trajectory. Israel today is not what Israel was then,” Ephron said in a C-SPAN interview in May (www.c-span.org/video/?326319-1/dan-ephron-killing-king). “It was a shock to the country, a trauma to the country, of course because of the assassination itself, but I would say

Amir a betrayal of Israel, a betrayal of Judaism.” The title of the book comes from a phrase used in a letter by Amir’s brother, Haggai, who served a 17-year prison sentence as a conspirator. Yigal Amir is serving a life sentence, plus 14 years for offenses related to the assassination. Ephron wrote the book with cooperation from the Rabin and Amir families. Other sources shed light on how those charged with protecting the prime minister — even in an environment of open hostility from the Israeli right, including calls for Rabin’s death — could not envision the threat that emerged. “The idea that a Palestinian might take a shot at a prime minister certainly was on the minds of Israelis who protected Rabin, but the idea that an Israeli or a fellow Jew would do that, even in this period of the peace process when there are threats against Rabin from the Israeli right, I think it’s very hard for the secret service people, for the bodyguards, to get out of the mindset that they’re looking for a Palestin-

ian,” Ephron told C-SPAN. In an email to the Atlanta Jewish Times, Ephron said that what surprised him most in his research related to the assassin himself. “I was surprised to learn how smart Yigal Amir was. He wasn’t a crazed assassin. He didn’t come from the margins of society. He wasn’t a ruffian. But he was a real extremist,” Ephron wrote. “In some ways, it’s easier for a society to cope with an assassination when the assailant is deranged. It exempts people from having to ask themselves the tough question: How did an intelligent person who graduated from some of Israel’s finer institutions commit such a horrible act?” ■ Killing a King By Dan Ephron W.W. Norton & Co., 304 pages, $27.95 At the festival Nov. 15

Atlanta History Center

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John Ford Samuel Fuller George Stevens

from Hollywood to Nuremberg

May 6 - November 20, 2015 Hollywood directors John Ford, George Stevens, and Samuel Fuller created American cinema classics, but their most important contribution to history was their work in the U.S. Armed Forces and Secret Services. An exhibition by the Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris, France.

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doubly because the assassin was a fellow Israeli and a fellow Jew.” The book’s two-year timeframe dates to Sept. 13, 1993, when Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat during an Oslo Accords signing ceremony on the White House lawn. Amir began planning the assassination the next day. He stalked Rabin for months. Video shot the night of the assassination showed Amir waiting near Rabin’s car. In the C-SPAN interview, Ephron described Amir as “a real extremist, an extremist through and through. He was exceedingly religious. Every word for Yigal Amir of the Bible, of the Jewish Torah, was literal truth. He was exceedingly radical politically. The peace process that Rabin had started was for

Samuel Fuller’s Bell & Howell Camera © Courtesy of the, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California, Coll. Christa Fuller

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An Uncomfortable Perspective on the Conflict By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

t’s easy to see “An Improbable Friendship,” Anthony David’s dual biography of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palestinian Raymonda Tawil, as pro-Palestinian, if not anti-Israeli. David never misses an opportunity to deflate popular beliefs about Israel’s foundations and founders. Instead of an outnumbered, outgunned Jewish people winning independence against the might of the combined Arab armies, he shows us Arabs driven from their homes before any foreign armies could act, and Jewish families seizing vacated mansions. Instead of the heroic Moshe Dayan winning battles against overwhelming odds, David focuses on the Dayan who destroyed villages, pillaged archaeological treasures, cheated on his wife and mistresses, and was something between an indifferent and cruel father. Instead of the Six-Day War as a glorious triumph, David presents a war in which Israel took advantage of Nasser’s empty bluster, then battered Jordanian and Syrian forces that had no desire and little ability to fight. David, an American historian who settled in Jerusalem after falling in love with life there while researching his dissertation, said he relied on revisionist historians to fill in the details behind the life stories of his two heroines. “I think the book captures the messiness of what happened,” David said. “For me, it did seem like a very fresh and accurate portrayal.” If you don’t want a revised view of the heroic era of modern Israeli history, if you don’t want to consider the Palestinian perspective of 1948 and 1967 and the failure of Oslo, don’t read “An Improbable Friendship.” It will leave you frustrated and angry. But if you’re interested in the unexpected perspectives of two women who spent decades near the center of Israeli-Palestinian events and you’re not expecting comprehensive history in 300 pages, David tells the story of what both sides have lost. Dayan, now 98, was born into a cosmopolitan society in World War I Palestine. She gave up the city life to be a farmer’s wife for Dayan. The woman she considers a kindred spirit, Tawil, was born almost a quarter of a century after her to a Christian Palestinian-American mother and a man whose wealth and influence led 32 the British to see him as a prince.

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The key to their parallel lives, which led to their meeting and bonding for life in 1970 in the West Bank, is that “they’re both trying to capture the Shangri-La of their youths,” David said. He acknowledged that the story he tells appears overly negative to some, but it is “as neutral as I could be.” David said the initial idea was to create a dual autobiography to express their views about coexistence. Dayan, for example, “doesn’t call herself a Zionist anymore, but she’s still an Israeli. She loves her country,” David said. She just wants some settlement, whether two states or one, that enables Arabs and Jews to live together. He decided to abandon the firstperson approach out of concern that Dayan’s daughter, Yael, would alter or block the book. It was a lesson he learned early in the work on “Improbable Friendship” when Dayan’s son Assi was arrested in a domestic violence case and charged with attempted murder of his girlfriend under a law Yael had championed in the Knesset. After observing Assi’s saga of jail and house arrest for eight months, David wrote a book about the case from his perspective, which downplayed the violence and criticized Moshe Dayan. “That book went nowhere,” David said. “Yael wasn’t going to allow me to publish the book in Hebrew.” Shifting the Dayan-Tawil book to the third person didn’t remove Yael from the process but did limit her ability to censor the story. Still, the perspectives of Dayan and Tawil are the book’s strength and weakness. “Most American Jews who support Israel, Ruth doesn’t identify with them. She really identifies with the world in which she was raised,” David said. “She has more in common with Raymonda than with us and with most Israelis.” As Moshe Dayan’s first wife, as the mother of people who played leading roles in Israeli culture and politics, and as a woman who vividly remembers key moments going back to the 1925 riots, Ruth Dayan is a woman worth knowing with stories worth hearing. But those stories don’t involve violence against Israelis. She lived away from the front lines, and her husband spent most of the War of Independence as an administrator in Jerusalem. “This doesn’t attempt to be a comprehensive account of the war,” David said. “The difficulty all along was how to tell the story of these two women without turning them into shadows of these men.”

Tawil’s family was torn apart in general — he offers a benign picture of 1948. Her father was ruined. Her home Arafat by ignoring negative rumors. Before becoming his mother-inwas lost. She wound up largely being raised in convent schools and eventu- law, Tawil had little contact with Arafat, so she romanticized him as a leader ally gave up her Israeli citizenship. The contrasting stories of these working for his people’s freedom. two women thus create a sense of Pal- That’s the man portrayed in the book. estinian tragedy and Dayan’s increasing disillusionment with her own country. “Ruth felt less and less that this was her country after 1967,” David said. She was happy that Israel won and that the victory allowed her husband to remove the borders dividing Jews and Arabs Anthony David provides a revisionist view of Israeli history. in Jerusalem and the West Bank. And she David is under no illusions about understood that mercy would not have Arafat. “Everything he did was catabeen part of an Arab victory. But Dayan hoped that Israel’s strophic,” the writer said. But “he took founding values, rooted in justice, a scattered people and made a nation would win out after the Six-Day War, out of them. That’s where his greatness David said, and that didn’t happen. was, not by what he did.” Tawil’s image of Arafat evolved af“She felt something essential was lost, this sense of virtue, and those socialist ter her daughter married him against her wishes. She got a closer look at how Zionist values were slipping away.” Dayan began to spend more time ineffectual he was as a leader, and she abroad, including an extended visit was frustrated in her efforts to make with Albert Schweitzer in Africa and women’s rights part of the Palestinian work across Latin America to estab- cause. She also was blocked from conlish businesses of women doing handi- tinuing her independent activism. “The disaster for her was her crafts, based on a model she established daughter’s marriage to Arafat,” David in Israel for Arabs and immigrants. She thus fades as a central charac- said. “She no longer played a role.” The era of Tawil and Dayan on the ter soon after forming the friendship in the title. She instead becomes almost a front lines of history ended on the cusp fairy godmother, appearing whenever of the Second Intifada, so little of the Tawil needs help with human rights past 15 years appears in the book. In the 1970s, Tawil traveled freely activism in Israel and beyond. Tawil is the dominant character through the West Bank and Israel, but from the mid-1970s through the mid- after 2000, such travel was impossible. 1990s. We see the conflict, the wars and Separation became the rule. “That negated everything Ruth the peace efforts through her perspective. We also fail to see the impact of and Raymonda stood for” and made them spectators, David said, and that’s Palestinian terrorism. Where Moshe Dayan is the domi- not the book he wanted. Right now, nant Israeli man in the book, the key “they’re definitely on the losing side.” ■ Palestinian man is Yasser Arafat. David acknowledged that Arafat’s portrayal offers an opening for the book’s critics. An Improbable Arafat eventually marries Tawil’s Friendship daughter, but Tawil lacks the firsthand By Anthony knowledge of Arafat and his activities David that Dayan has about her ex-husband. Arcade While David creates an ugly portrait Publishing, 312 of Moshe Dayan — he said he had to pages, $24.99 cut 100 pages, including some of the At the festival worst material, because he didn’t want Nov. 16 the book to become a biography of the

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Federation Ambassador Maps Path to Camp

ederation wants to see more children spend their summers at Jewish overnight camps, and to help make that happen, Sami Tanenbaum is taking her camp show on the road. Tanenbaum, the community camp ambassador for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, is holding Coffee and Camp sessions throughout the area from Oct. 22 to Dec 14 to spread the word not only about the value of Jewish summer camp, but also about the ways Federation can help families. That assistance can mean money to make camp affordable and expertise to ensure that a child chooses the right Jewish sleepaway camp. Tanenbaum’s efforts and her position at Federation, which she has held for about nine months, are the products of Federation’s recognition in 2012 that it had to increase the Atlanta community’s camp attendance. Going to an overnight camp is one of the best indicators of a strong Jewish identity. Summer camp alumni are much more likely to feel attached to Israel, to go to synagogue, to associate with Jewish friends and ultimately to donate to Federation. But while nationally 15 percent of Jewish youths attend overnight camp, Tanenbaum said, the figure was only 7.8 percent in Atlanta in 2012. Federation set a goal of 2,500 Jewish kids at overnight camp each year by 2022. “That’s why my position was created,” Tanenbaum said, and why she’s not waiting for families to find her at Federation’s Midtown headquarters. Federation has signed up 11 partner organizations — Jewish Kids Groups, Jewish Family & Career Services, and nine synagogues — to help market camp initiatives. Those partners get books and other handouts, promotional displays, and stipends. Tanenbaum is making appearances with those partners. For example, she set up in the lobby of Temple Kol Emeth on the afternoon of Yom Kippur during family and tot services. The grants available for attending Jewish overnight camps in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, the Carolinas and Florida are not insignificant. Under the One Happy Camper program, which provides 325 first-time awards each summer to children who live within 50 miles of Midtown, a first-

year camper can get $1,000, and a second-year camper can get $500. PJ Library alumni are eligible for another set of grants. Federation also offers need-based scholarships. But Tanenbaum offers more than financial aid. She’s ready to help families sort through the camps affiliated with the Foundation for Jewish Camp. That process starts over coffee with the five key steps to finding the right camp for your child, but it continues yearround with her free concierge service. She’s a phone call or email away to make the right camp connection. The opening two Coffee and Camp sessions are Thursday, Oct. 22, both in Sandy Springs Starbucks, first at Abernathy and Roswell roads at 10 a.m., then at noon at 6160 Roswell Road. Tanenbaum also is scheduled to stop in Dunwoody, Johns Creek, East Cobb, Roswell and intown in the next two months. You can find the details at JewishAtlanta.org/calendar, or contact her at stanenbaum@jewishatlanta.org or 678-222-3730. ■

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AJA Raising $10 Million

Capital campaign will unify K-12 campus in Sandy Springs By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

little more than a year after Greenfield Hebrew Academy and Yeshiva Atlanta High School merged in July 2014 to create Atlanta Jewish Academy, the only K-12 Jewish day school in Atlanta has embarked on a $10 million capital campaign to form a unified campus in Sandy Springs. The resulting enhancements to the former GHA campus at 5200 Northland Drive will enable the high school students to move from the old Yeshiva Atlanta site in Doraville. “For the last 30 years people have talked about merging these two schools,” AJA board President Ian Ratner said. “Around the country, you’ll see that K-12 is the winning educational model. So far, it’s been a very smooth merger. If there were weaknesses in one school, we have been able to take strengths of the other school. You’re taking two very good schools and trying to get to an excellent school.”

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The school has raised $6.3 million so far to add the upper school building, which will be on the south side of the Northland Drive property, behind the auditorium on land that the AJA soccer field occupies. The plan calls for the field to be turned sideways to accommodate the building. Highlights of the upper school addition include a state-of-the-art gymnasium, a weight room, a wrestling room, a science lab, and a separate, modern entryway. Gay Con struction, the company that built the new home for Young Israel of Toco Hills in 2014, has been

Top: This rendering shows Atlanta Jewish Academy’s proposed upper school entryway, which will be separate from the lower school. Inset: This site plan shows the proposed additions (dark gray) to Atlanta Jewish Academy’s Northland campus.

contracted to work on the addition at AJA. A date has not been set for construction to begin, though Ratner said the layout of the lower school on the 10-acre property has made planning for the build problematic. “We are having some challenges with the campus,” he said. “The existing building is not the most efficient use of space. We have a beautiful, 10-plus-acre campus here, but it’s a very difficult topography with a large ravine right in the middle. That creates a challenge. We have not rushed into any groundbreakings yet because we are trying to come up with the best way to get it all to work.” In June, AJA sold the former Yeshiva Atlanta property in Doraville to the Tapestry School but is leasing space there this year for the high school. AJA has received zoning approval from Sandy Springs for the additions at Northland Drive. Ratner and campaign director Natasha Lebowitz are at the administrative head of AJA’s capital campaign. Many naming opportunities remain for the addition, which will help form what Ratner said will be one of the premier Jewish learning centers in the United States. “This is going to be the most exciting Jewish educational entity in the Southeast,” Ratner said, “if not the country.” ■

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Shaking Up Religious Traditions

ontinuing an interfaith tradition that began in 2003 under the auspices of the Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta, the Weber School welcomed 15 students each from the Catholic Marist School and Muslim W.D. Mohammed School for a day of sharing traditions and building bonds through the Peace by Piece program. Weber students hosted their peers during Sukkot on Thursday, Oct. 1,

providing the opportunity to spread knowledge about the holiday, decorate the school sukkah, and get some shaking going with the lulav and etrog. Students have to apply to participate in the program, advised at Weber by Barbara Rosenblit and Drew Cohen. After a get-to-know-you program on neutral ground, the students take turns visiting one another’s schools. Engaging in interfaith dialogue

with their Catholic and Muslim peers helps Weber students strengthen their Jewish identity, Rosenblit said, because they must know how to answer questions about Judaism. Breakout sessions discussed religion, symbols and culture before the group came together for one of the things sure to unify the students: lunch. Although the program began long before he arrived as head of school last

year, Peace by Piece fits Rabbi Ed Harwitz’s vision of the school as a place that redefines what it means to practice and learn diversity in the 21st century and defies expectations for a Jewish high school. “We are committed to building powerful and lasting relationships with students from different religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds,” he said. ■

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

Photographs, from the left: Weber senior Abby Blum gets some interfaith help hanging paper chains in the school sukkah. Regardless of your faith, it’s fun to shake, shake, shake the lulav and etrog. After helping their guests prepare challah, Weber students explain the rituals of Havdalah, including the promise of a good week delivered by a satisfying sizzle from dousing the flame in the wine (or grape juice). Each visiting student took home his or her own handmade challah. All faiths can come together over food.

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BEN FRANKLIN ACADEMY

Left to right: Greg Shapiro and Abby Stein, Jessica Bachner, Lillian Brown, Zachary Chase

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he National Merit Scholarship Corp. recently announced the students in the Class of 2016 who scored high enough on the PSAT last fall to make the semifinals of the scholarship competition. The Weber School has one semifinalist, Jessica Bachner. About 90 percent of semifinalists will be named finalists, making them eligible for college scholarships. Two other seniors, Lillian Brown and Zachary Chase, just missed the cutoff and were named National Merit commended students, meaning they finished in the top 5 percent among 1.5 million students nationwide who took the PSAT as juniors last year. Atlanta Jewish Academy also has two commended students, Abby Stein and Greg Shapiro, who learned the news at an assembly called by Associate Head of School Paul Oberman. “Both Greg and Abby have been outstanding leaders almost since they set foot on campus,” Oberman said. “Abby is the co-president of student council this year, and Greg also serves on student council as vice president and is a peer leader. Greg consciously set out to have a good relationship with the younger students, and they idolize him. Abby and her co-president developed the idea for our recent three-day Maccabiah, a color war event, and implemented the whole thing. Abby and Greg have schedules littered with AP courses and achieve at the highest level in all of their classes, both in general and Judaic studies.” ■

Einstein’s Final Resting Place: Georgia Tech

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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Connecting learning to life at every level. paceacademy.org/icgl In July, students explored the Kalahari Desert during an Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) study tour to Namibia and Botswana. Photograph by ICGL Director TRISH ANDERSON

eorgia Tech will install and dedicate a larger-than-life bronze statue of Albert Einstein on the Midtown campus Friday, Oct. 23, at 3:30 p.m. as part of homecoming festivities. The 12-foot, 3,500-pound likeness of the Jewish physicist is the work of American sculptor Robert Berks, who crafted three versions based on a bust he sculpted in 1953 after spending two days with Photo courtesy of Georgia Tech Einstein in Princeton, N.J. The larger-than-life sculpture of Albert Einstein is A 22-foot version, dediexpected to be a center of attention at Georgia Tech. cated in 1979, is at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem has a 12-foot version. Tech’s version is moving from New York. The university raised $1.5 million in private donations to bring the sculpture to the campus. The Georgia Tech monument features a circular dais 19 feet, 7 inches in diameter. Einstein reclines on a rounded, stair-stepped bench and appears to gaze on a constellation of stars while holding in his left hand papers featuring the general theory of relativity, the photoelectric effect and the equivalence of energy and matter (E = mc2). The constellation illustrates the night sky Dec. 10, 1948, the date of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The dedication will be followed at 4:30 p.m. by a free discussion on “Albert Einstein and the Creation of the Modern World: A Gentle Introduction.” ■

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Film Reveals Campus Anti-Zionism as Anti-Semitism

tlantans have three chances to join the director at a screening of a half-hour documentary on the rising anti-Semitism brought to campuses by the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Jerusalem-based director Shoshana Palatnik is attending screenings Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 27 and 28, at Congregation Etz Chaim in East Cobb, then stopping at Young Israel of Toco Hills on Thursday, Oct. 29, for a final showing of “Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus,” a production of Jerusalem U. The film, an update of a documentary done in 2010, combines news footage, classroom videos, and interviews with college students and experts from organizations such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, and StandWithUs. From student organizers leading angry demonstrations equating Zionism and racism to a professor telling his students that it doesn’t matter whether Hamas is a terrorist organization because it provides good health care and kindergarten education, the film offers a chilling look at what Jewish teenagers risk confronting when they go to college. Incidents from the past couple of years in the documentary include the bitter fight over a BDS resolution at the University of Michigan, the arrests of four pro-Israel students at Ohio University for speaking out against a fake-blood protest by the student government president, the disruption of an appearance by former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of New Mexico, the distribution of fake eviction notices to Jewish students in a New York University dorm, and the painting of swastikas on the Alpha Epsilon Pi house at Emory University. An August report by the Israel on Campus Coalition found 1,630 anti-Israel incidents on 181 U.S. campuses last school year, as well as a 132 percent rise in BDS campus campaigns compared with the previous year. “We need to awaken people to the seriousness of this situation,” said Hadara Ishak, Jerusalem U’s director of international engagement and Atlantabased Southeast director. “By working together, we can tackle these critical issues.”

While the experts in the documentary connect the dots among the incidents to show the big picture of antiIsrael activism and how often it is just the socially acceptable form of modern anti-Semitism, the emotion comes from the responses of the students who faced verbal and sometimes physical attacks because they showed support for Israel or were openly Jewish. Ishak said the problem isn’t only that advocates of Israel are under attack. Jews who go to college without knowing the facts about Israel are vulnerable to being recruited by BDS advocates because the students’ impulse is to protect those who appear to be victims. “BDS has proven that ignorance is

power,” Ishak said. “What people don’t know leaves them open to anti-Israel propaganda.” The goal of the three programs in the Atlanta area is not only to educate students and their families about the threats, but also to provide the tools to respond. In addition to Palatnik, the discussions after the screenings are scheduled to include AEPi’s director of high school engagement, Jonathan Bridge; the Southeast campus coordinator for StandWithUs, Lauren Feibelman; and an Emory student, Joshua Ferenczi. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens is moderating the discussions at Etz Chaim. The Oct. 27 session starts at 7:30.

The Oct. 28 and 29 screenings are at 7 p.m. The Oct. 28 program is geared more toward teens, but everyone is welcome at any of the three programs. You also can watch the documentary on YouTube at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=tNDCcsH_wgU. As for tools, EndBDS.com provides legal help in response to BDS actions and harassment. Jerusalem U (www. jerusalemu.org) offers more educational materials, including the Step Up for Israel educational program (www. stepupforisrael.com), which Ishak said is available free to any Atlanta-area organization. Just use the coupon code “SUFIATL” at checkout when ordering either the teen course or the organization mini-course. ■

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Using soda cans filled to various levels with water, nuclear physicist Michael Slobodien, grandfather of Natan Slobodien Rodriguez, demonstrates how you can balance a can on its edge by finding the center of gravity.

Setting Epstein on Edge

ichael Slobodien, a nuclear physicist who is an expert in occupational and public radiological health and safety and was a first responder to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident in 1979, recently visited the Epstein School to lead a science lesson for Stephanie Lampert’s pre-kindergarten class, which includes Natan Slobodien Rodriguez, his grandson. Using soda cans filled to various levels with water, Slobodien demonstrated how you can balance a can on its edge by finding its center of gravity. He also showed how to balance a plate on a stick with the same center-of-gravity trick and explained that the same basic principles are used by a tightrope walker. ■

Extra! Extra! Eat All About It! Don’t miss the third

Atlanta Kosher BBQ Competition

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, and while you’re there, be sure to stop by the

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Meat the Press Newsstand to meet your AJT staff, grab a paper and a bite, and collect lots of giveaways.

www.atlantajewishtimes.com

Sports_AJA Soccer Team with Trophy The championship AJA boys soccer team consists of (from left), back row, Effie Herer, Noah Chen, Josh Anderson, Coach Daniel Samuels, Leead Silverstone, Jaren Linowes, Daniel Mordoch, Matthew Minsk, Sammy Rubin, Jacob Kassel and Manny Goldin; middle row, Evyatar Asulin, Elliot Sokol, Miki Covitz and Simmy Wilson; and front row, Yaakov Yosef Shifrin, Josh Asherian, Josh Alhadeff, Ezra Miller, Manny Glinsky, Binny Frenkel and Jonah Gordon.

AJA Wins Championships

he Atlanta Jewish Academy middle school boys soccer team and girls volleyball A team each won MAAC Division 2 championships this fall, while the girls volleyball B team finished third. Both volleyball teams were coached by Penny Eisenstein, the head of health and physical education and athletic director for AJA’s lower school. Each volleyball team had only one loss heading into the championships. “Our A-team players had an incredible work ethic,” Eisenstein said. “All (From left) Helena Asherian, Eliana but two of them were eighth-graders, Goldin, Eliana Horwitz, Sela Ratner and Aliza Moosai hold the so we had a lot of strength and experivolleyball championship trophy. ence on our A team this year. We also had exceptional leadership from our co-captains, Aden Dori and Sophie Steinberg. They were organized, they kept their cool, and they won the respect of their teammates.” Emory University student Daniel Samuels coached the boys soccer team to its first-place finish. ■

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JSU Connects Judaism to High-Schoolers By April Basler abasler@atljewishtimes.com

Neiditch said many high-schoolers BBYO, NFTY and USY. “JSU is the bigJSU Schools who attended Jewish day schools gest feeder to every Jewish program in Alpharetta High through eighth grade, such as the Ep- the city,” Rabbi Neiditch said. “So many Cambridge High he Jewish Student Union of At- stein School and Davis Academy, have of our teens cross over to other youth lanta was founded in 2007 by found that JSU helps them maintain organizations, and, not only that, the Centennial High Rabbi Chaim Neiditch, who saw their Jewish connections, while the or- presidents and international board Chamblee High a need for greater Jewish teen involve- ganization also helps kids who have at- members are all coming out of JSU.” Chattahoochee High ment in Judaism. Elizabeth Olshanskaya, 15, is a tended only secular schools. Dunwoody High The previous year Rabbi Neiditch “Every single kid from every sophomore at Chattahoochee High in Grady High attended a Jewish Federation of Great- single type of background benefits Johns Creek. She is Jewish but didn’t er Atlanta meeting on the 2006 popu- greatly from JSU,” Rabbi Neiditch said. know much about Judaism before atJohns Creek High lation study, which revealed that 90 “We build strong communities in the tending JSU. Lakeside High percent of Atlanta’s Jewish “It’s a great way to meet new school, so it’s a great way Lassiter High teens, about 9,000 kids, for kids to meet each other, people,” Elizabeth said. “At my school, Northview High were unaffiliated with make friends, as well as cel- for example, I don’t really know many Pace Academy Jewish programming. JSU ebrate Jewish holidays. The Jewish people. It gets me connected was a solution. teens have positive Jewish with them, and it allows me to become Riverwood International Charter JSU is a club operatexperiences in their school, friends with them and learn about the Roswell High ing at 14 Atlanta-area high which they can share with religion.” ■ UNDERLYING RATINGS: MOODY’S “Aaa” PROPOSED NEW ISSUE schools. It engages teens their friends. It helps bring STANDARD & POOR’S “AA+” with meaningful and ineveryone together.” teractive Jewish programTeens have the opporming before school, at tunity to be leaders in JSU. lunchtime or after school. They take charge by helpTeens participate at no ing out in their areas of cost. interest. For example, some Rabbi Chaim Neiditch JSU is not the only do graphic design for JSU Jewish program operating reaches up to 25 percent fliers and handouts, and of Atlanta’s Jewish teens at public and secular priothers promote JSU on sothrough the Jewish vate high schools. North cial media. Student Union. CITY OF SANDY SPRINGS PUBLIC Springs Charter, for exam“The kids step up to be FACILITIES AUTHORITY (GA) ple, has a vibrant Jewish Culture Club, leaders and really find it very meaningREVENUE BONDS and Chabad of Cobb works with several ful because they are contributing in a (CITY OF SANDY SPRINGS CITY CENTER PROJECT) Cobb County high schools. way that they want to contribute in an But JSU is the biggest, involving area that they are passionate about,” SERIES 2015 more than 2,500 teens — roughly 25 Rabbi Neiditch said. percent of the area’s Jewish teenagers. Daniel Sandfelder, 15, is a sophoAnticipated date of offering on or about Rabbi Neiditch said JSU in Atlanta is more at Centennial High in Roswell the largest citywide Jewish teen pro- and the president of JSU at his school. gram in the world. He works with Rabbi Neiditch to keep The offering of Bonds will be made only by the Official Rabbi Neiditch’s No. 1 goal is to the club running smoothly. have programming that teens find rel“He calls me, and we coordinate Statement, which describes the security for such issue evant and appealing. He also wants JSU stuff,” Daniel said. “We actually just and which may be obtained in any state in which the to be easily available to teens. recently talked about planning the allundersigned may lawfully offer such issue. “We started to eliminate barriers nighter at Andretti, which is the yearly of transportation, cost and schedul- thing that we do.” ing,” he said. “We became adjacent to JSU has grown each year through their school day. We went where they word of mouth, Rabbi Neiditch said, were. We made everything accessible and students at 35 additional high RETIREMENT GROUP to them to be able to get these kids schools have asked to bring in JSU. back involved and basically get our “As we build up more and more OF Jewish people, who were disappearing, supporters, our plan is to keep on exto become united again with the Jewish panding to more schools,” Rabbi Neicommunity.” ditch said. “Right now it’s a matter of The teens participate in activities manpower.” PETER D. CWALINA, CRPS®, AIF® FREDERICK M. ROSS, CFP® such as an “Iron Chef” matzah pizza JSU couldn’t operate without its Retirement Plan Consultant Certified finanCial Planner™ contest for Passover and challah mak- volunteers, mainly JSU alumni. The ing for Shabbat. Rabbi Neiditch likes volunteers set up and staff events, For Further Information Please Contact: experiential learning for the teens be- teach, work in the office, and shop for GEORGIA DAVIS cause he finds that hands-on, fun ac- the pallets of food JSU gives out during 770.673.2158 tivities are the most effective. The teens programming. They also call teens in georgia.davis@raymondjames.com learn while having a good time and so- the evening to recruit for the next day’s cializing with fellow students. club events. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation to buy any security. A credit rating of a security is not a recommendaJSU welcomes teens regardless of Many JSU teens are involved intion to buy, sell or hold securities and may be subject to review, revisions, suspension, reduction or withdrawal at any time by the assigning rating agency. A decision to purchase the Bonds is an investment decision that should only be their background or affiliation. Rabbi other youth organizations, such asmade after a complete review and understanding of the terms of the Bonds, including investment risks. No decision

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Open for Business at Ponce City Market By Leah R. Harrison

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

You need only set foot inside Ponce City Market to know you are in a special place. The structure is massive and solid. The rustic brick façade, rich hardwoods, concrete columns and original crank windows are painstakingly and beautifully restored, and the phrase “They don’t make ’em like this anymore” rattles around in your brain. Because of its central location and accessibility, Sears, Roebuck and Co. chose the Old Fourth Ward site for a regional warehouse and distribution center for its mail-order business and eventual retail store in 1926. Additions in 1929, 1947 and 1966 made the building more than 2 million square feet. The Atlanta BeltLine provides access where the old Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway tracks (commonly called the Southern Railway line), laid in the 1870s, brought merchandise. Times changed for Sears, and the building was sold to the city of Atlanta in 1990. But it wasn’t until Jamestown purchased it in 2011 that new life was breathed into the iconic structure. An

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adaptive reuse development comparable to Jamestown’s successful Chelsea Market in New York, Ponce City Market (poncecitymarket.com) officially celebrated its opening with Party at Ponce on Saturday, Oct. 10. In addition to offices, the market houses up to 260 apartments and a curated mix of retail shops, boutiques and food purveyors, including the Central Food Hall. A sense of community is fostered at the market, and events are frequent and encouraged. I sat with Jamestown CEO Matt Bronfman and Vice President of Development and Construction Jodi Lox Mansbach to discuss the market’s renovation and evolution. Bronf man has served on the boards of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Epstein School and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta and is a member of The Temple and Shearith Israel. Mansbach is a past executive board member of Federation and is Wexner Program alumni chair, a Shearith Israel member, and a Limmud Atlanta + Southeast co-founder. AJT: How did Ponce City Market

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come to be, and how was Jamestown able to acquire the building? Bronfman: In 2009, Mayor (Kasim) Reed smartly realized a few things. One was getting this building into private hands so that it could be on the tax books. … Second, this building was nothing but a cost to the city of Atlanta because they were paying every month to maintain it. … Third, the BeltLine is one of his signature projects and … is succeeding in residential, but there’s not much in the way of retail and office. … The mayor wanted to put this into the hands of somebody who would really redevelop it and create a hub on the BeltLine.

which is fascinating. Bronfman: Something else about this building that I think is important. Often if you buy a brand-new building, sort of like buying a brand-new house, it looks its best the day it’s completed. … The beauty of a building like this is, and I really mean this, is it’s going to evolve and get better over the next 20 years. We know that from Chelsea. … This building has a great future. … We’re just getting started here. AJT: Is there still retail space available? Bronfman: It’s predominantly leased, and what’s available we’re in no hurry to lease. Mansbach: Yes, for the same reason it’s good to live in a house before you decorate it. We’ve got all the big spaces full, and now it’s a matter of seeing what will complement.

AJT: Where did the idea originate? Bronfman: It probably started with me. I’ve wanted this building for a long time. You know, like everyAJT: How body else, I drove Top: Original columns complement rather than define office space at Ponce City Market. much of an emphaby … and this buildBottom: Hardwoods decorate the sis is on office leasing reminded me floors and the walls of the market. ing? of Chelsea Market, Bronfman: and I … felt it could really be something. Honestly, we didn’t Everybody sees this as a retail project know exactly what it was going to be because of the Market Hall, because when it grew up, but we believed that of Anthropologie, Frye Boots, etc., but this building had incredible potential … the office component’s the biggest porand that the BeltLine was going to be tion here. We have a little over 500,000 square feet of office space. transformative for the city of Atlanta. Mansbach: And I would say that, AJT: What does that compare to? I’ll speak for myself, the BeltLine has Bronfman: If you look at our total exceeded our expectations. We thought it was going to be transformative, but square footage here, retail, office and the use it’s getting, the way it changes residential, this building is comparable the way people view Atlanta, is even to the Bank of America building … one more impactful than I could ever have of the biggest buildings in Atlanta. imagined — that people want to get out of their cars, that they want to walk Shopping Options on the BeltLine and have this kind of urban experience. … This building is Anthropologie, Archer Paper Goods, sitting among the Old Fourth Ward, InBinders, Core Power Yoga, The Frye Co., Goorin Bros. Hat Shop, J. Crew, man Park, Cabbagetown, Grant Park, Karoo, Lily Rain, Lou Lou, Lululemon, Candler Park, and then you’ve got DruMadewell, Michael Stars, Mountain id Hills, Morningside, Virginia-HighHigh Outfitters, Onward Reserve, Q lands, Midtown. It’s in the center, and Clothier, Rejuvenation, Rye 51, West Elm, all these neighborhoods are spokes, Williams-Sonoma

Mansbach: So you’ve got it this way (horizontal), whereas Bank of America’s like this (vertical). But there’s an important distinction there when it comes to office environment, when you talk about floor plate, in terms of what people can do here. AJT: So how are you doing as far as office leasing? Bronfman: I thought office leasing would be harder than it’s been, and retail leasing would be easier than it’s been. It was the reverse. Retail was hard because … the east side of town was unproven from a fashion perspective, and so bringing the Anthropologies, J. Crew, Frye Boots, etc., to this side of town was more challenging. … On the other hand, I always believed our office would be successful here, but I thought it would take longer to succeed. Atlantans are so used to their glass towers; I thought it might take years for the office to catch fire. The exact opposite happened. We immediately started signing up big tenants. … Tenants would come and look at this space and say, … “This is the only interesting thing. This is the only innovative project in Atlanta. This is the only place we want to be.” Mansbach: And it speaks to their employees also. We ride the elevator every day with a bunch of millennials in jeans and T-shirts. … And skateboards. A lot of skateboards. … They live nearby, and they are walking to work, and they are biking to work. Bronfman: You know we have a bike valet. Do you know about that? We have a bike valet that will check your bike off the BeltLine. And last weekend we took in, I understand, over a hundred bikes. Mansbach: I like to call the BeltLine our front door. … I am optimistic that there will be a day that North Avenue will no longer be our front door, and the BeltLine will truly be the front door to the property, and that’s where the vast majority of the people will come in. That’s my hope and dream. AJT: So that would be a green aspect. Coming into this, I would have said, “How green can you make a building this old?” Mansbach: Very. The answer is very. It’s a green lifestyle. … A lot of the people that work here don’t own cars, and that’s unheard of in other parts of Atlanta. On top of that, the building is incredibly sustainable. … We are in the process of getting LEED certified. This type of work is called adaptive reuse, and it can be hard to make work with the LEED system, but it’s not impossible. A lot of the features of the building from the get-go are more energy-effi-

cient than a newer building would be. AJT: Efficient because of the thickness of the walls, for example, as insulation? Mansbach: Yes. … But we did put in all new systems. So once you take the structure that’s this solid and you add the new systems to it, you’re at an incredibly efficient building. AJT: How much were you able to preserve from the original structure? Bronfman: We kept almost everything. We’ve been really good at reusing things. Mansbach: Yes. The hardwood floors appear on the floor, and then in some places when we had to pick them up, we put them on the wall. … We’ve used them as decoration. We kept a lot of stuff that most people would have junked way early in the process. I call them the ARTifacts of the building. AJT: How long have you been working on this? Bronfman: Four years. Mansbach: The first office and residential tenants moved in last November. So what we’re really bringing online now is just the third part of mixed use when people talk about live, work, play. People could live here, and people could work here, but the play and the shopping and the eating is what’s coming online now, and it’s why we’re now viewed as being open. Whereas the reality is there were over 1,000 people coming here every day since November. This is our big moment. ■

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BUSINESS

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BUSINESS OBITUARIES – MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE A BLESSING

Ponce City Market Sits At the Core of Intown

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hat is it about Ponce City or grandparent got a first job there or Market that fascinates me whether they remember coming to the store for new shoes or a hat. These stoand so many others? For the past three years, I’ve been ries would live on as pure nostalgia, but privileged to work as a part of the de- each time I see amazement in the eyes velopment team responsible for the of the storyteller that the locus of this building’s transformation. As an urban memory is now something present, relplanner and a dedicated intown Atlanta resident, I have found that this project is the culmination of many Guest Column things that I have wished By Jodi Lox Mansbach for since I moved to Atlanta in 1996 and my family bought a house in Morningside. I have always believed in Atlanta’s evant and real. What does this mean to Jewish intown neighborhoods — VirginiaHighland, Midtown, Druid Hills, In- Atlanta? We should be proud that the building is a testaman Park and the ment to the busiOld Fourth Ward, to ness acumen of name a few. These Julius Rosenwald, neighborhoods the noted Jewish are experiencing a philanthropist who resurgence as resiled Sears, Roebuck dents are drawn to in the years leading an urban environup to the expansion ment. I feel blessed of the company and to live where my the building of the kids can walk to Atlanta distribution school, where I can center, along with bike to work, and several other garwhere it’s possible, gantuan regional though not always distribution ceneasy, to not use our ters. car all weekend. Second, we For too long, Jodi Lox Mansbach stands with should celebrate the vacant and obone of her preserved ARTifacts the many stores and solete Sears warein the Central Food Hall. restaurants owned house, renamed City Hall East, towered over the neighbor- and operated by members of our Jewhood but was not a part of it. Today, ish community. Check out Binders and Ponce City Market has been knitted Karoo and food establishments Farm back into the fabric of the community to Ladle and Marrakesh, all owned by with its direct connection to the Belt- creative and visionary members of our Line and at the nexus of so many great Jewish community. And we should acknowledge that intown neighborhoods. Secondly, I believe that preserv- with the resurgence of intown neighing and reusing an existing structure borhoods, there is significant growth — something Atlanta is not known for in the intown Jewish community, a — can be not only a statement of sus- community that does not wish to isotainability, but also one of authenticity. late itself as much as be a part of the Authenticity is not something you fully vibrant happenings around town, can create. It is cultivated when the including Ponce City Market. I look forward to running into developer respects the structure and retains key historic elements, but more many of you at Ponce City Market and than architecture and design give the celebrating our many communities together. ■ building authenticity. In the past three years I have never Jodi Lox Mansbach is the vice presiled tours through Ponce City Market and not had some people share stories dent of development and construction for about how the building meant some- Jamestown, the developer of Ponce City thing to them, whether they or a parent Market.

OBITUARIES OBITUARIES – MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE A BLESSING

Vicky Berman 80, Atlanta

Vicky Berman, age 80, of Atlanta died at home Monday, Oct. 5, 2015. Vicky was born in Washington, D.C., and was the daughter of Sylvia and William Lerman. Vicky was a graduate of the University of Maryland, where she received her degree in early childhood education and was a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. After graduation, Vicky married Philip Berman and moved to Baltimore, where she opened a preschool and taught until moving to Atlanta in 1969. An avid tennis player, Vicky won many awards for her talents on the court. In addition to her membership in ALTA, she was also a member of The Temple, ORT, B’nai B’rith and the Optimist Club, as well as a life member of Hadassah. Vicky enjoyed her weekly card games and mahjong with dear friends. She traveled the world and lived life to its fullest. Vicky is survived by her daughter Susan Gordon (Neil) and their children, David Gordon (Leah) and Allison Gordon, of Atlanta and her daughter Wendy Kaplan (Michael) and their daughter, Stephanie Kaplan, of Dallas, Texas. She was preceded in death by her husband, Philip Berman. Graveside services were held Wednesday, Oct. 7, at Arlington Memorial Park with Rabbi Loren Lapidus officiating. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.

Annamae Levenson Kaye

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87, Atlanta

Annamae Levenson Kaye, 87, of Atlanta died Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. She was born in Chicago on Dec. 4, 1927, to Samuel and Serine Feldman. She met Laurence S. Levenson, and they married Feb. 15, 1949. Annamae was a wonderful and loving wife and mother, and Larry was so supportive of everything Annamae did. She was the Westview Country Club women’s champion golfer for many years, but her passion was her art. Annamae was an incredibly talented artist and created art in many diverse media, from acrylics to metal sculptures. She, along with several other Miami female artists, formed the first Women’s Cooperative Gallery in the Southeast. After Larry died in 1985, Annamae was married to Perry Kaye until his death in 2010. She was the sweetest, kindest and most wonderful person in the world, and although Alzheimer’s disease robbed her of her mind, nothing could take away her kind and selfless spirit. Annamae also was predeceased by her loving brother, Monte, whom she adored from the moment she was born. She is survived by her daughter, Shari (Ron) Silvers; her son, Richard Levenson; grandchildren Stephanie (Rick) Schiller, Hilarie (Jed) Gates and Ryan (Caroline) Levenson; and great-grandchildren Jake Geiger, Nick Geiger, Jackson Gates, Patton Schiller, Hannah Gates and John Bodie Levenson, as well as her niece and nephews. She will be missed by all who knew and loved her, but we can still bask in her inner beauty through the art that she left behind for us to enjoy for a lifetime. A memorial service was held at Temple Emanu-El on Sunday, Oct. 11. Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. Donations can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or the American Cancer Society. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.

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Evelyn Kirshstein 98, Marietta

Evelyn Kirshstein, 98, of Marietta died Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. Survivors include her daughter and son-in-law Nancy and Charles Levy of Marietta, daughter and son-in-law Karen and Robert Schultz of Marietta, brother and sister-in-law Ralph and Rhalda Kahn of Dunwoody, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to a charity of your choice. A graveside service was held Sunday, Oct. 11, at Arlington Memorial Park with Rabbi Joshua Heller officiating. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.

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CLOSING THOUGHTS OBITUARIES – MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE A BLESSING

Why Jerusalem? Guest Column By Ariel Arnovitz Markose

hen getting into the Israel conversation or the bigger Jewish people conversation, a lot of major issues arise. Iran, BDS, assimilation — the list goes on. Jerusalem also comes up. What you hear about is whether the city should be divided between the Arabs and the Jews, the most recent round of violence, the lack of religious freedom, and conflicts on the Temple Mount. What you don’t hear about is the steady revival of a city that, after the Second Intifada, people had given up on. You don’t hear about the engaged, active and involved civil society that is changing the face of the city. You don’t hear about the power given to the young adults to effect positive change — the deputy mayor is 31 years old. You don’t hear about a battle that is being won. I got involved in New Spirit when my husband and I moved to Jerusalem from Herzliya a little over two years ago. I was immediately drawn to this

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fast-moving and innovative organization, which addressed problems from the ground up and used and empowered local talent to make a difference. It’s an organization with no political agenda, with a simple desire to take a city so important to Israel and to the Jewish people and turn it into a vibrant capital city. An organization constantly reinventing itself, going from challenge to challenge, as it makes waves in a complicated yet exciting city. Jerusalem is not a simple place to live, raise a family or make a living, but it is a place the Jewish people have yearned for and vowed to return to. It is not a place we ever gave up on. So despite the conflicts and the protests and the rounds of violence, there is something positive bubbling up from the ground, from thousands of engaged young people who are redefining their own reality to create a capital city they and the rest of the Jewish and Israeli people can be proud of. ■ Atlanta native Ariel Arnovitz Markose is the director of communications and resource development for New Spirit.

OCTOBER 16 ▪ 2015

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ACROSS 1. Auror who helped Radcliffe’s Potter 6. “Israel ___,” 2009 film 9. Makes likes Israel across the Sinai 14. Rabbi Isaac of Kabbalah renown 15. Cry when understanding E=mc2 16. Bar mitzvah fund, e.g. 17. Actor Zach whose middle name is Israel 18. NYC neighborhood of Cong. Kehilat Jeshurun 19. Tree for Canada, not Israel 20. Last seder round 23. Singer Loeb 24. Arch of Titus locale 27. ___ Paulo, home of Brazil’s largest Jewish population 28. Builder of 7-Down 30. Gershwin wrote some 32. “___ hath G-d” 34. Need for Nachman? 35. Actor who played (Danny) Tanner 36. “Under Siege” star 38. This clue about Eshkol has it 39. One might be filled before Shabbat 40. Ariyot abode 44. Closet fixture that might be rotated before a simcha 46. Country Ahasuerus’s empire extended into 47. Amt. when making hamantaschen 50. Joe’s jolt, briefly 51. Lender’s output 52. Where 7-Down was built 54. With Ram, a notable Jew 56. Make a yutz out of 57. Lashon ___ 58. You need it to get up Masada quickly 61. Convenient ways of storing Torah

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63. The Holy Land’s BBC 64. Five-time Olympic gold winner Kolati 68. Go under the chuppah again 69. Tamid preceder 70. Brandeis classmates 71. Paskesz item 72. He’Brew makes it 73. Eppes follower DOWN 1. Selig’s org. 2. ___ Lady of Perpetual Exemption, fictional church co-headed by Rachel Dratch 3. Moshav southwest of Jerusalem 4. With 37-Down, what was created at 7-Down 5. It’s west of Petah Tikva 6. Actress Prepon 7. Ancient biblical structure 8. Small amount for Susie Fishbein 9. Simon of “The Simpsons” fame 10. Work by the sons of Korah 11. Make like Absalom 12. Bully who might eat at Krusty Burger 13. Spots for incoming prime ministers 21. Letters before Kirk’s ship 22. It might cause a rip in a tallit 24. A friend 25. Major export from singer Ben Lee’s homeland 26. Star level of Harrison Ford 29. Home of Tempio Maggiore di Roma 31. Prison chanted by Pacino in a Lumet film 33. A Levi

washes one 36. What one might do at Maravi Beach 37. See 4-Down 41. Possible time for Purim in March 42. Nudge and then some 43. Chutzpah 45. Prominent Spock features 47. Fonzie wear 48. ___ of Worlds, Marvel character who has interacted with Ben Grimm 49. Hoffman in “Hook,” e.g. 51. The Fat Jew’s might be above 25: Abbr. 53. Composer Boulanger who taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School 55. Former Knicks teammate of Carmelo’s 59. Fey who sat shiva in a 2014 film 60. Samson’s hair covered it 62. Make a Shabbat table 65. It’s a miracle 66. “The lion’s shadow ___ himself”: “The Merchant of Venice” 67. Aaron Copland’s was 551-20-4475: Abbr. LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

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