High Holidays Are Here! Get your “HOLIDAY GREETING ADS” in NOW!
BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS, PAGES 20-24 HOPE YOU DANCE SPA LADIES
POWER AGE
Heart surgery, new joints and other signs of aging don’t stop weight training. Page 20
Studies show that creative, fun endeavors, from painting to dancing, aid healing. Page 21
Several AJT writers sample day spas to help you navigate the path to relaxation. Page 22
Atlanta
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Woman, 25, Is Missing A vigil was scheduled for Tuesday night, Aug. 29, at Congregation Shearith Israel amid the search for Jenna Van Gelderen, who was last seen Aug. 18. Van Gelderen, 25, Jenna Van who lives in Northeast Gelderen Atlanta and is the daughter of Leon Van Gelderen and Roseanne Glick, was housesitting at her parents’ Druid Hills home on Oakdale Road while they were in Canada. When her brother, William, went to the house Aug. 19, the door was locked, and she was gone, according to information shared through social media, including a Facebook page, Help Find Jenna Van Gelderen. Also gone were her car, a dark-blue 2010 Mazda 6 sedan, Georgia license plate No. PWH-502; her cellphones; her suitcase; and a World War II tapestry that appeared to be torn from its frame. But many of Van Gelderen’s personal items were still in the house, and no one has heard from her since she texted a friend about 2 a.m. Aug. 19, the family told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Van Gelderen is 4-foot-11 and 140 pounds with long, dark hair. Anyone with information should call the DeKalb County police at 770-724-7475. ■
The Jewish Recovery Triangle
Bringing Family Joy to the Community Levi (left) and Avidan Frank, the sons of Jewish Fertility Foundation Executive Director Elana Frank, are having a good time during the open-house celebration JFF held at Brilliant Sky Toys and Books in Sandy Springs for supporters and families who have overcome fertility changes. The event Sunday, Aug. 27, served as a fundraiser and as a fun way to hold the foundation’s annual meeting, which featured new board Chair Elie Engler. More, Page 16
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The opening of the Berman Center and Derech Homes completes “Atlanta’s Jewish Recovery Triangle” in response to the Jewish Heroin Triangle detailed in stories in the AJT over the past year. “We recognized it will take all of us coming together to fully address addiction in our community,” Jewish Family & Career Services CEO Rick Aranson said Monday, Aug. 28, at the open house for the Berman Center, opening Sept. 5. The three legs of the triangle are the Berman Center, an intensive outpatient center in Dunwoody; Derech Homes, a Jewish transitional or sober living facility; and the array of services provided by JF&CS and its HAMSA program as a stepdown referral base for people after or in conjunction with intensive treatment. Alyza Berman, a therapist and Temple Sinai member, is opening the Berman Center as part of the Jewish answer to the opioid addiction crisis that is killing tens of thousands of Americans per year. (More about the center, Page 14.) ■
Helping Houston
More than 3,000 people have been rescued, thousands more are homeless, and an unknown number are dead after Hurricane Harvey parked along the Gulf Coast of Texas for five days and poured more than 4 feet of rain on some spots in the Houston region. An estimated threequarters of Houston’s 63,000 Jews live in the areas hardest hit by flooding. Among the Jewish options for relief are the Jewish Federations of North America, bit.ly/2gmaVG4; Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster, nechamaharvey. funraise.org; B’nai B’rith, bit.ly/1EKPgws; and United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, www.uosh.org/payment.php. ■
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MA TOVU
Welcoming an Israeli No-Longer-Stranger them in their two-bedroom apartment. When I was growing up, strangers often lived in our basement. Graduate students. Newcomers to Canada. People who needed a place to stay until they got on their feet. Today, my children make fun of
Taking Root By Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder rabbiruth@gmail.com
me for talking with strangers, but it has led to some amazing connections. My friend from clay class with whom I go on culinary adventures. My friend from Trader Joe’s who is now in L.A. chasing her musical dreams. When we arrived in Atlanta two years ago, the Southern hospitality swept us up in Shabbat dinners and coffee dates, making us feel at home. Our country has a long tradition of welcoming strangers, people whose customs, garb, language and food are foreign to “us.” From that tradition, we have reaped countless benefits, innovation in culture, cuisine, medicine and technology. That which is strange can open up possibilities we would never imagine on our own. Which is why I saw opening our home to an Israeli teen not as a burden, but as an opportunity. Lior Bar arrived in late August as an emissary of the Jewish Agency’s Shin Shin program, which sends pairs of young people for a year of volunteering in a community, sharing knowledge of Israel and Hebrew and being a positive force in communal spaces. This is the first year that the program has extended to Atlanta, and we were excited to help host one of the two eager volunteers. Having her in our home does mean feeding another mouth and making space in the guestroom. It also means a smiling, positive presence engaged in family life. In the short time since her arrival, we have had an eclipse adventure in Nashville, made some extraordinary challahs and reacquainted her with Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. There is more Hebrew in our home and lots of interesting conversations. No longer strangers, we are glad to have opened our home. ■
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Why would you do that? I would never do that. Really? Those were some responses to news that our family would be hosting a young Israeli for the coming months. There were, of course, others who thought it cool, interesting and exciting, but I was surprised at the number who expressed concerns. I viewed the chance to welcome someone into my home as an opportunity. After all, as I pointed out to those who asked, we were already hosting another young person over the summer, a close friend of my son’s doing an internship in Atlanta. Besides, opening the doors is very Jewish, American and Southern. In the Bible, Abraham, still healing from his adult circumcision, sees three strangers coming toward his encampment and quickly has Sarah prepare a meal of welcome. This easy openness became the base of the Jewish tradition of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests), for, after all, once you open your doors to strangers, they stop being strangers and become guests, a real flesh-and-blood people. According to legend, King Solomon sent traders to India to bring back spices. Their boat crashed on shore, stranding them on rocks through the night. Local people came in the morning and rescued them, welcoming the traders into their homes and communities. That welcome persuaded the traders to stay and make India their home for the next 2,000 years. For thousands of years, the Jewish community survived by opening doors. Keeping kosher was a given, as was traditional Shabbat observance. Jewish travelers relied on Jewish strangers to open homes and share food at stops along the way. Surely some made payments, and others did not. But either way, the impact was the same: connections forged between strangers strengthened ties across divides. After the founding of the state of Israel, my mother, who was a young child, and her father often delivered candies to the displaced people in the refugee camps. On one such trip they encountered a family my grandfather had known in Zagreb before the war. They brought the family to live with
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THURSDAY, AUG. 31
Submarine warfare. Retired Navy captain and submariner Barry Benator talks about life on subs and their role in major U.S. wars at the meeting of the Edgewise group at 10:30 a.m. at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Free for members, $5 for others; www.atlantajcc.org or 678-812-3861.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 1
Book Festival. Tickets for the Book Festival of the Marcus JCC, set for Nov. 4 to 20, go on sale at atlantajcc.org/bookfestival or 678-812-4002 (see the schedule at bit.ly/2wdMIam).
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Contributors This Week RABBI RUTH ABUSCH-MAGDER RACHEL FAYNE RABBI DAVID GEFFEN GEDALIA GENIN YONI GLATT JORDAN GORFINKEL JEFF GULLER LEAH R. HARRISON MARCIA CALLER JAFFE ALLEN LIPIS KEVIN C. MADIGAN EUGEN SCHOENFELD COLE SEIDNER SHOSHANNA SOLOMON ELI SPERLING PATRICE WORTHY
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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 © 2017 ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES Printed by Walton Press Inc. MEMBER Conexx: America Israel Business Connector American Jewish Press Association Sandy Springs/Perimeter Chamber of Commerce Please send all photos, stories and editorial content to: submissions@atljewishtimes.com
CANDLE-LIGHTING TIMES
Shofar blasts. Rabbi Brian Glusman blows the shofar at 11 a.m. daily, Monday through Friday, on Main Street at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Free and open to all; atlantajcc.org or 678-812-4161.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 3
Women’s event. The Kehilla in Sandy Springs, 5075 Roswell Road, gathers mothers and daughters to bake challah, pray and learn from Rebbetzin Elisheva Ingber at 8 p.m. Admission is $5; www.thekehilla.org or 404-913-6131.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 5
ELI Talks. The first night of the Federation-sponsored, TED-style talks about Jewish ideas features Billy Planer, Ilana Kurshan, Madison Jackson, Samantha Hauptman, Sara Kupfer and Tzivie Pill at 7 p.m. after a 6 p.m. reception at the Breman Museum, 1440 Spring St., Midtown. Tickets are $18; www.thebreman. org/Events/09-05-2017-Eli-Talks.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 6
Kollel event. Georgia Tech basketball coach Josh Pastner speaks at the Atlanta Scholars Kollel’s annual networking event, “Hoops, Judaism & Life,” at 6 p.m.
Ki Tetze Friday, Sept. 1, light candles at 7:45 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 2, Shabbat ends at 8:39 p.m. Ki Tavo Friday, Sept. 8, light candles at 7:35 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, Shabbat ends at 8:29 p.m.
Corrections & Clarifications
Harry Maziar will appear at the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7. The date and time were inccorrect in the Aug. 25 issue. at Congregation Or VeShalom, 1681 North Druid Hills Road, Brookhaven. Tickets are $30 in advance, $36 at the door; www.atlantakollel.org. ELI Talks. The second night of the Federation-sponsored, TED-style talks features Aharon Ariel Lavi, Dovid Bashevkin, David Gottlieb, Dena Schusterman, Moshe Hecht and Zelig Golden at 7 p.m. after a 6 p.m. reception at the Breman Museum, 1440 Spring St., Midtown. Tickets are $18; www.thebreman. org/Events/09-06-2017-Eli-Talks. Cooking class. Israeli cooking instructor Zehavit Kaidar-Heafetz shows how to make a range of classic Israeli dishes at 7 p.m. at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Tickets are $50 for JCC members, $65 for others; www.atlantajcc.org/pldb-live/israelibeer-37010 or 678-812-4000. Resisting Fascism film series. Emory Cinematheque presents 1940’s “The Mortal Storm” at 7:30 p.m. in White Hall Room 208, 301 Dowman Drive, Atlanta. Free; www.filmstudies.emory. edu or 404-727-6761.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 7
Survivor and spy. Holocaust survivor Marthe Cohn, 97, who spied on the Nazis for the French, tells her story for the
Intown Jewish Academy at 7 p.m. at the Buckhead Theatre, 3110 Roswell Road. Tickets start at $20; bit.ly/2umD9a1. ELI Talks. The final night of the Federation-sponsored, TED-style talks features Bradley Caro Cook, Jhos Singer, Lauren Tuchman, Sharon Weiss-Greenberg and Susan Horowitz at 7 p.m. after a 6 p.m. reception at the Breman Museum, 1440 Spring St., Midtown. Tickets are $18; www.thebreman.org/ Events/09-07-2017-Eli-Talks.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 8
Shabbatluck in the Park. InterfaithFamily/Atlanta, In the City Camp, PJ Library, Jewish Kids Groups, the Marcus JCC and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta’s Overnight Camp Initiative host families for a picnic at 6 p.m., a music-filled Shabbat experience at 6:30, free King of Pops popsicles at 7 and a screening of “An American Tail” at 8 at 830 Willoughby Way, Old Fourth Ward. Free; www.facebook. com/events/152110958686838. Acoustic Shabbat. The Marcus JCC, supported by the Weber School and the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival, hold a celebration of Shabbat at 7 p.m. at Alon’s Bakery, 4505 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, Dunwoody. Free; www. facebook.com/events/475513459481310.
Send items for the calendar to submissions@atljewishtimes.com. Find more events at atlantajewishtimes.com/events-calendar.
Remember When
25 Years Ago Aug. 28, 1992 ■ An all-out effort is being made to increase Jewish participation in the Hunger Walk, an Atlanta Community Food Bank event being held Sunday, Sept. 20. The Atlanta Jewish Federation, part of an interfaith drive to involve more members of religious communities, anticipates a threefold increase in Jewish participation. Other religious groups involved include the St. Vincent de Paul Society and Christian Emergency Help Ministries. ■ The bar mitzvah of Dan Delman of Marietta, son of Michael and Arlyne Delman and Betty Delman, was held Saturday, Aug. 22, at Temple Kol Emeth. ■ Beth and Joel Arogeti of Atlanta announce the birth of a daughter, Sarah Rebecca, on Aug. 11.
50 Years Ago Sept. 1, 1967 ■ The launch of a $2 million fundraising campaign to build a new Jewish Home in Atlanta was announced this week. M. William Breman, the president of the Central Board on Care of Jewish Aged, said the home will be on Howell Mill Road at Margaret Mitchell Drive. The 120-bed facility will replace the 60-bed home on 14th Street, built in 1951. ■ The assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, 49, the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party, near the Nazi headquarters in Arlington, Va., ended a career characterized by violent anti-Semitism and admiration for Hitler. Rockwell was killed by rifle fire from a rooftop while he was in his car, despite his stormtrooper-type bodyguards. ■ Mr. and Mrs. Dave Kaplan of Atlanta announce the engagement of daughter Janice Marilyn Kaplan to Robert Zivitz, son of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Zivitz of Birmingham.
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CALENDAR High Holidays
The AJT maintains on our website a list of free and low-cost options for people seeking High Holiday services. Visit atlantajewishtimes.timesofisrael. com/2017-high-holidays. To add to the list, email editor@atljewishtimes.com.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 10
Women’s health forum. Hadassah Greater Atlanta and partners hold a Gender Equity in Medicine program, including a panel discussion, at 12:30 p.m. at Congregation Or Hadash, 7460 Trowbridge Road, Sandy Springs. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door; www.hadassah.org/events/gem2017. Maximizing Medicare. Jewish Home Life Communities’ London Family Age Smart Lecture series continues with a discussion on Medicare featuring Dan Munster, Anita Alvarez Richards and Debbi Dooley at 2 p.m. at the William Breman Jewish Home, 3150 Howell Mill Road, Buckhead. Free; bit.ly/2uZbqsj.
veteran Cary King makes a special presentation in commemoration of 9/11 at 1:30 p.m. at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Free and open to all; atlantajcc.org. Confederate monuments. The Atlanta History Center’s Margaret Mitchell House, 979 Crescent Ave., Midtown, hosts a panel discussion on “Confederate Memorials: De-Mythologizing the Iconography of the South” at 7 p.m. Free; reservations at bit.ly/2pxGBsH. Bat Mitzvah Club. Chabad of North
Fulton, 10180 Jones Bridge Road, Alpharetta, holds the first of 16 roughly biweekly sessions of its club for sixthand seventh-grade girls. Annual tuition is $300; www.chabadnf.org/bmc for registration and details.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 12
Dive into the Days of Awe. Rabbi Judith Beiner leads conversations to prepare for the High Holidays at 7:30 p.m. at MACoM, 700-A Mount Vernon Highway, Sandy Springs. The requested donation is $5; RSVP by Sept. 8 to info@ atlantamikvah.org or 404-549-9679.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 13
Resisting Fascism film series. Emory Cinematheque presents 1942’s “Casablanca” at 7:30 p.m. in White Hall
Room 208, 301 Dowman Drive, Atlanta. Free; www.filmstudies.emory.edu or 404-727-6761.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 14
Women’s event. Filmmaker, philanthropist and Jewish mother Nancy Spielberg speaks at the fall event of the Federation Women’s Philanthropy at 7 p.m. at the InterContinental Buckhead, 3315 Peachtree Road. Tickets are $72 (no minimum Federation gift required); bit.ly/2vALaVv. Book talk. Jewish author Gabrielle Zevin talks about her new novel, “Young Jane Young,” at 7 p.m. at the Atlanta History Center’s Margaret Mitchell House, 979 Crescent Ave., Midtown. Tickets are $10; bit.ly/2pxGBsH.
Holocaust talk. Henry Lewin talks about his parents, who were from Lithuania and survived the Holocaust, at 2 p.m. as part of the Bearing Witness series at the Breman Museum, 1440 Spring St., Midtown. Free; www.thebreman.org or 678-222-3700. Benefit musical. “Falsettos” — the story of a dysfunctional Jewish family in New York in the late 1970s that stars Jenny Levison of Souper Jenny, is directed by Mira Hirsch and benefits the anti-hunger nonprofit the Zaide Project — shows at 3 p.m. after a 2 p.m. dessert reception at the Atlanta History Center, 130 W. Paces Ferry Road, Buckhead. Tickets are $50; www.souperjennyatl. com/shop. Laugh and read. Comedian Carol Leifer, author of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying,” performs her one-woman show at 7:30 p.m. at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. Tickets are $20 for JCC members, $25 for others; atlantajcc.org/ bookfestival or 678-812-4002.
Tribute to 9/11. U.S. Army Vietnam
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
MONDAY, SEPT. 11
Senior Day. Active older adults are invited to participate in their choice of three activities and have lunch at Senor Day at the Marcus JCC, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody, co-sponsored by Jewish Family & Career Services, Jewish Home Life Communities and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with free transportation available from JF&CS Alterman/JETS. Admission is $5; atlantajcc.org/AMA or 678-812-4070.
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ISRAEL NEWS
A Summer in the Musical Jewish State Israel has historically been home to a robust local music scene informed by globally based artists. As a result, Israel is a prime destination for international touring acts. Summer 2017 has been no exception. This summer has proved that the calls of certain high-profile artists associated with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to discourage acts from performing in Israel are often unanswered. Radiohead, Britney Spears, Guns N’ Roses, Lil Wayne, Sean Paul and Regina Spektor are a few of this summer’s acts in Israel. One of Israel’s largest concerts ever was performed by Paul McCartney. He drew over 40,000 people to Yarakon Park in Tel Aviv in 2008. The concert, beyond being a treat for fans of the Beatles and McCartney, represented a historic shift in governmental attitudes toward international pop acts performing in Israel. The early years of the state, especially under David Ben-Gurion (prime
minister from 1948 to 1954 and from 1955 to 1963), were a time marked by state-centered, government-regulated
Guest Column
Photo by Yuval Erel
Paul McCartney poses with Israeli police before his performance in 2008.
By Eli Sperling
approaches to most aspects of society. In this period a government-led effort tried to design many aspects of culture and public spaces. This project involved keeping certain international-cultural elements from Israelis. Many decisions were made by the Israeli government’s Interdepartmental Committee for Authorizing the Importation of Foreign Artists. In 1963, British pop star Cliff Richard performed in Israel. A resounding success, the performance attracted thousands of young Israeli fans. The committee and the Israeli government were concerned that Western pop music had the potential
to corrupt the youth of Israel. After young Israelis’ “hysteria,” the committee decided to more strictly regulate who could come and perform. So in 1964 the committee rejected a proposal to let the Beatles perform for their Israeli fans. Despite appeals from concert promoters, the decision held. McCartney did not perform in Israel for another 44 years. Today, the statist cultural aspirations of Ben-Gurion are far from the
• israelsdocuments.blogspot.com/2013/12/israel-bans-beatles.html • www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jul/19/radiohead-perform-israel-gig-despiteopposition-from-activists • www.rollingstone.com/music/news/paul-mccartney-on-israel-show-music-can-helppeople-calm-down-20080917
Today in Israeli History
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Eli Sperling is the Israel specialist and assistant program coordinator for the Center for Israel Education (www. israeled.org).
For Further Reading
The March of the Million brings more than 450,000 Israelis into the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities Sept. 3, 2011.
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reality in Israel. On any given night in Israel’s cities, one can see a variety of performers who cross genres, languages, nationalities and demographics. One of the richest music scenes in the world, Israel is growing as a market for top-tier, international acts. ■
Items provided by the Center for Israel Education (www.israeled.org), where you can find more details. Sept. 1, 1915: Chaim Weizmann, the future first president of Israel, is working as a chemist in Manchester, England, when he is appointed to the British Admiralty as an honorary technical adviser on acetone supplies. Sept. 2, 1935: Some 80,000 mourners, approximately a quarter of the Jewish population of Palestine, line the streets of Jerusalem for the funeral of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, who died the day before from cancer. Sept. 3, 2011: Demonstrating against the rising cost of living and economic inequalities in Israel, more than 450,000 protesters fill the streets throughout the country for the March of the Million. It is the largest demonstration in Israel’s history.
Sept. 4, 1975: In Geneva, Israel and Egypt sign their Second Disengagement Agreement (Sinai II) after the October 1973 war. Israel withdraws from the Abu Rudeis oil fields and the Mitla and Gidi passes. The deal also calls for a U.N.-monitored buffer zone. Sept. 5, 1972: During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, 11 members of the Israeli team are killed after being taken hostage by Black September, a Palestinian terrorist organization affiliated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah and the left-wing terrorist group the Red Army. Sept. 6, 2007: In Operation Orchard, Israel’s air force secretly destroys a reactor at Al Kibar, a Syrian military facility thought to be a nuclear site constructed with the help of North Korea. Sept. 7, 1907: David Gruen, who in 1910 would change his name to David Ben-Gurion, and his girlfriend, Rachel Nelkin, arrive in Jaffa with a group of other young adults immigrating to Palestine from Plonsk, Poland.
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ISRAEL NEWS
Israel Pride: Good News From Our Jewish Home
White or wheat? Scientists from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have proved that everyone can have a unique bloodsugar reaction from eating white and whole-wheat bread. The bacteria in the gut determine the reactions. Researchers spent two weeks feeding 20 study participants six meals of bread a day. In the first week, 10 participants received three meals of white bread and three of white bread plus butter. The other 10 were fed the same pattern of meals, but instead of white bread they got whole-wheat sourdough bread. A two-week washout period followed so the participants could reset their guts, followed by a week when they flipped roles. Throughout the bread eating, the researchers measured the participants’ glycemic responses. When the researchers looked at the data in aggregate, they found that the breads produced similar glycemic responses when averaged across the study group. Sharing water tech in Montana. A delegation of Israeli water experts met with Montana leaders in June to explain the leading Israeli technologies developed to address water shortages. The Israelis observed Montana’s water practices, from irrigation to municipal consumption, and met with state leaders in Butte before stopping in Missoula to discuss water scarcity. Drone delivery. Tel Aviv-based tech firm Flytrex has launched in Iceland what it says is the world’s first commercial food delivery route based entirely
on unmanned aerial vehicles. The company has partnered with the ondemand goods service AHA to provide the service in the capital of Reykjavík. So far, AHA has reported a 60 percent reduction in delivery costs compared with land and sea alternatives. Granddaughter of Nazi in IDF. Hans Beretele was so disgusted with his father’s Nazi past that he immigrated to Israel and converted to Judaism. His 20-year-old daughter, Gaya, now serves in the Israel Defense Forces as a squad commander in the elite Bardales (Cheetah) Battalion. Johann, Gaya’s grandfather, was a sworn Nazi. “He worked with the party to strengthen the ideology of the Third Reich,” she said. On the other hand, her mother’s grandmother is a Holocaust survivor, and “my grandfather would turn over in his grave” if he knew about it. Her father, now a well-known pastry chef, enlisted in the IDF at the age of 26. Compiled courtesy of ynetnews.com, israel21c.org, timesofisrael.com and other sources.
Photo courtesy of Israel’s Government Press Office
Israel Photo of the Week
U.N. in Israel U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Aug. 28, during the U.N. chief’s three-day visit to Israel. The trip included a tour of Yad Vashem and a meeting with the families of soldiers being held in Gaza. Guterres was diplomatic in response to criticism from Netanyahu about U.N. bias against Israel; he acknowledged that Israel is mistreated sometimes and that Jews have a history in Jerusalem, reardless of what UNESCO says. But he would not blame one side for the failure to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Conan in Canaan. Conan O’Brien says he is in love with shakshuka, the iconic Israeli egg-and-tomato-sauce breakfast dish. “You gotta get yourself some shakshuka, and get it today,” he said on Facebook Live from the Jaffa seashore in Tel Aviv on Aug. 26, the end of his first full day in Israel. O’Brien is in Israel for the first time, filming an episode of his travel series, “Conan Without Borders.” He watched the Conor McGregor-Floyd Mayweather fight from Tel Aviv, drinking from a can of “the only Guinness in Israel.” On Sunday, Aug. 27, he visited the offices of Waze. O’Brien told interviewers, “I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the old sites, but like most of the travel shows, the best part is meeting the people, having these funny exchanges with other human beings around the world.” The Israel episode of “Conan Without Borders” is scheduled to premiere Sept. 19 on TBS.
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ISRAEL NEWS
Volunteers from Yatar patrol Israel’s border to prevent and respond to terror attacks.
Volunteers in ATVs Help Secure the Border By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
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“Saving lives matters, even if it’s just one,” Mireia Pons, Yatar’s director of public relations and fundraising, told the AJT about the organization’s elite volunteer counterterrorism unit, which strives to protect Israel’s borders against terror attacks. After six months of training, special forces volunteers and Israel Defense Forces soldiers are recruited by Yatar’s combat unit, which possesses the same rights as Israeli police but lacks the paychecks, to patrol Israel’s border and prevent conflicts related to war. “Terrorism is constantly changing, and we have to adjust our tactics,” Pons said. After knifings and other lone-wolf Palestinian terrorist attacks swept through Israel beginning two years ago, Yatar sought to increase security by purchasing anti-terror ATVs. “Each ATV can help save lives and prevent families from losing a loved one,” said Pons, who is raising money to purchase additional vehicles. Although Yatar has thrived under the border police, it continues to face monetary challenges that could stand in the way of thwarting terrorism. Pons said each anti-terror ATV can transport four people and can go offroad to reach dangerous areas. “The ATVs provide a fast response and can help fend off terrorists due to Yatar’s innate presence.” Although Israel has 8,000 border police and volunteers alternating shifts in the field, Palestinians continue to infiltrate Israel’s borders, Pons said.
The anti-terror ATVs provide a quick response to the threat created by such infiltrations. “Every second counts, and each minute which passes offers the terrorist a chance to escape,” Pons said. The ATVs also help Yatar’s volunteers extract more precise intelligence and other information and help carry units through Arab towns. “We are a target, and any type of equipment we can offer our volunteers means life,” Pons said. She said the ATVs are helping guard the border with Syria. “The situation is very volatile and something we face on a daily basis when we send our children to school or place them on the bus, but people can help by donating.” Each anti-terror ATV costs $65,000 and is purchased in the United States, then shipped to Israel with such equipment as a first-aid kit, special lamps, a radio transmitter and metal armor. Yatar relies on donations and does not receive any government assistance. “The individuals who donate become a part of us because there wouldn’t be a Yatar without them,” Pons said. Yatar has used its first ATV, donated by Americans United With Israel, to locate an autistic boy thought to have been captured, patrol Israel’s borders and navigate the recent crisis over security measures at the Temple Mount. Yatar hopes to acquire a fleet of 20 ATVs to patrol Israel’s borders. “There is no greater reward than saving a life or protecting a mother from missing her daughter,” Pons said, “which is why we rely on our donors and volunteers to protect democracy and keep Israel safe.” ■
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
ISRAEL NEWS
Ex-Atlantan Brings Innovation to IDF By Shoshanna Solomon The Times of Israel A 26-year-old oleh (immigrant) from Atlanta and his commander in the Israeli air force’s Innovation Unit are working to transform the Israel Defense Forces from a sprawling bureaucracy to a nimble, Google-like organization. The goal is to create a military culture of innovation, said Sgt. Ilan Regenbaum, who is on the project with his commander, Maj. Omer Yuval, so that organizational innovation will be considered as important as tech innovation. Israel’s military and defense industries are recognized globally for spinning off companies led by graduates of its elite technology units. But much more innovation can take place, said Regenbaum, who talks about the subject with Conexx missions visiting Israel. “We are the only air force in the world outside the U.S. that has the F-35. We are leaders in many areas, including creating the missile defense system the Iron Dome,” he said. “When you are talking about technology, it is here. There is no doubting that.” But as a military organization, the IDF has ranks, he said. “Ranks are very important when you are in a battlefield, and you need to know who needs to do what and what needs to be done and follow orders.” Ranks also “stifle innovation.” If 18-year-old privates notice problems, they raise them with their 20-yearold commanders, who bring the issues up with their 22-year-old commanders. Chances are the problems won’t get addressed, Regenbaum said. “When we talk about innovation, we mean creating the culture that allows for ideas to be heard and people to have a voice,” he said. Technology companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook have systems in place so that the voices of all employees can be heard, he said. “In the military, that is by design not the case. So our unit is trying to figure out, within the culture of the military, how to allow these ideas to rise up.” For now, the 10 soldiers of the Innovation Unit are limited to the air force, but the aim is the entire military. Meanwhile, the IDF is fighting to keep its best talent as career soldiers even as big tech companies are enticing them with salaries as much as five times what the army can offer. Israel’s shortage of engineers is heating up the competition for skilled personnel.
Photo courtesy of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit
Sgt. Ilan Regenbaum (right), who made aliyah from Atlanta, speaks with his commander, Maj. Omer Yuval, in the Israeli air force’s Innovation Unit.
“I can’t talk to the army’s bigger strategy,” Regenbaum said. “The army of course wants to keep good people. I was meant to do six months, loved what I do, and because of many other reasons, I decided to stay. To keep people, you need to be innovative.” The main reason for the Innovation Unit, he said, is to change the IDF culture so that the ideas will flow. The unit’s civilian-inspired initiatives include hackathons with participants from all IDF branches trying to develop ideas and product prototypes. In one such event, soldiers build
Smile
projects “that have zero practical applications,” Regenbaum said. Last year the teams built a trampoline that squeezed oranges for juice when people jumped. “The point is that you bring very smart people together, and they get to meet other very smart people and share ideas, and they also feel they are not in this very structured environment so they feel more open and free to share ideas,” he said. Some soldiers were sent to Tel Aviv University for a course on being innovative in a big organization. If you take a course like that, Regenbaum said, you are not just a 19-year-old with a bright idea, but someone who can approach a commander and say “this” should be done because it’s what Google does. The soldiers, he said, “become ambassadors for innovation.” Regenbaum, a finance and business management graduate who was born in South Africa but grew up in Atlanta, made aliyah three years ago after setting up three startups. He sold one of them, a photography business, to a relative, and it is still running. For his compulsory IDF duty, “I was expecting to be a truck driver or
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something, so I thought six months would be free ulpan, and I’d get to help the country a little bit and learn some Hebrew,” he said. “And then I met my commander at a startup conference and was invited to join the innovation department.” The Innovation Unit has set up an ideation platform to enable any soldier, regardless of rank, to submit ideas. Other soldiers rate the ideas, and the top submissions are developed. One project is an app to arrange rides for soldiers, who are prohibited from hitchhiking because of the risk of abduction. The app will connect soldiers with the drivers of the army’s vehicles to get rides home. “The military has one goal: to keep the country safe. But if we can do some things to make it more efficient and make it function better so that it can better accomplish that target, then that is the goal,” Regenbaum said. “There are a lot of amazing things that happened within the army that have been turned into startups. Now we hope that a lot of things that are in the startup innovation world are going to come back and affect the military.” ■
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OPINION
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
Our View
Hard Education
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
A swastika in a high school drinking game and a swastika drawn in the morning dew on a high school football field are harsh reminders that time is one of the toughest enemies of the “never forget” mantra. It’s possible the Lovett School seniors who participated in a beer-drinking game called Jews vs. Nazis and the other students and young graduates who watched but did nothing have a streak of genuine anti-Semitism. It’s possible the student who dragged his foot across the Grayson High football field to create a swastika and the classmates who watched and took a photo carry real Jew-hatred in their hearts. But it seems unlikely. Good kids from good homes are capable of detestable views and despicable actions, but young people who know and spend time with Jewish peers, as is certainly the case for the Lovett students and likely for the Grayson teens, tend not to become anti-Semites. When it comes to prejudices, familiarity breeds tolerance, not contempt. But a lack of actual prejudice or hatred doesn’t change what those students did. They decided it would be fun to play with and display a symbol of hate under which 6 million Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust. They deserved and received swift punishments from their school administrators. These are not isolated incidents. Anti-Semitic actions have surged inside and outside schools the past year and a half. Regardless of whether President Donald Trump has intentionally unleashed the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who embrace the slogans and symbols used by Hitler, those purveyors of hate clearly believe that Trump has turned them loose. The Lovett party with the offensive, Holocaustinspired drinking game happened less than a week before neo-Nazis from around the country, including some from metro Atlanta, marched in Charlottesville with chants of “Jews will not replace us.” The ephemeral Grayson swastika appeared 10 days after Heather Heyer was killed by a car driven into anti-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville. The Anti-Defamation League counted 25 antiSemitic incidents across the country in less than two weeks after Charlottesville, and the list doesn’t include the Grayson swastika. Is there any doubt that the teenagers finding pleasure in displays of Nazi symbols are doing what youths often do — copying what they see in the media, especially when what they see upsets the establishment? The deeper lesson here is the distance of time. More than 72 years after Hitler’s death, most American teenagers don’t know anyone who fought in World War II, let alone anyone who survived the Holocaust. That history is no more real to them than Greek myths or Hollywood superheroes. It’s more important than ever for Holocaust education to be embedded in school curricula, as early and as often as possible, not just mentioned a few times in middle school and again in high school world history. Such resources as the Breman Museum, the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum must be bolstered. Never is a long time, and never again requires 10 continually increasing educational efforts. ■
Photo by Petar Pismestrovic, Kleine Zeitung, Austria
Identity Breaks Out of the Box Judaism is full of binaries — boy/girl, kosher/ regardless of hormones or genitalia, is a particular nonkosher, leavened/unleavened, Jew/non-Jew — problem — and we had plenty of fascinating matebut the gray areas and exceptions discussed since rial to interest and educate our small gathering. ancient times shine a light on questions of identity Then Ladin took us in a different direction by that arise in modern conversations about gender. turning to Jewish identity. “Reality itself is never binary, so binaries are Her eyes were opened when she taught a class always fragile and are at Yeshiva on Jewish always breaking down,” American literature. Her Joy Ladin said at a gatherstudents, all presumably Editor’s Notebook ing of about 30 Jewish Orthodox, couldn’t imagAtlantans on Aug. 17 at ine non-Orthodox AmeriBy Michael Jacobs the Selig Center. Ladin, a can Jews, so they projected mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com Yeshiva University literaOrthodox actions, practure professor who holds tices and motivations onto the distinction of being every Jewish character. the first openly transgender person employed by an When Ladin asked them what it meant to be Orthodox institution, led a discussion sponsored by Jewish, they answered with stories. SOJOURN, Jewish Family & Career Services and the “For them, being Jewish was a lifelong story,” Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. Ladin said. “It wasn’t a noun or a fixed thing.” The event came at the end of her three-day She asked volunteers at the Selig Center meetspeaking tour of Atlanta and Birmingham and eight ing to share their Jewish stories, and they were days before President Donald Trump ordered the amazing. Pentagon to implement his ban on trans recruits. I expected stories of increasing or decreasing After some 150 talks on gender, Ladin wanted to levels of observance, of movement among the Jewish try something different, so we talked about identity. denominations, of interfaith marriage and struggles But Ladin also explained that gender is a fundaover matrilineal descent, and we heard aspects of mental element of identity. She made two key points: those Jewish identity issues. • Gender is a marker of humanity. Animals have We also heard about struggles related to nationphysical differences between the sexes but no sense ality and politics. We heard about families moving of gender; that is, as far as we know, no physically into and out of Jewish faith and practice. We heard male giraffe feels that it’s female. about the links between gender and Jewish identi• The two ways people identify us throughout ties from a self-described “transgressadox” Jew, and our lives are name and gender. So when Jay Ladin we heard from a young woman who found that her publicly becomes Joy Ladin, she is unmoored from a Jewish identity was strengthened by going to a West lifelong identity, and everyone who has known her Virginia university and finding herself treated as no longer knows how to relate to her. “the Jew” representing Judaism and Jewishness to all “Identities are things we do together,” she said. those around her. Throw in a few more gender-related issues — All of which reminded us about the parallels behow trans people, who are fighting for acceptance of tween Jewish identity and gender identity in terms multiple variations of gender, resort to their own biof complexity and the difficulty of applying labels. nary of transgender vs. cis-gender, for example, and “We see gender not as a noun or boxes,” Ladin how the voice, which doesn’t change for an adult said, “but as a series of stories.” ■
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
OPINION
Stand Up to Anti-Semites
The anti-Semitic invective on public display in Charlottesville, Va., was vile during the recent Unite the Right protest of the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. As Jean-Paul Sartre observed in his book about hate, “AntiSemite and Jew,” anti-Semitism is the poor man’s snobbery. In current terms, we could refer to it as the cockroach of quasi-political thought. Our Passover haggadah reminds that in every generation there has arisen a major threat to the Jewish people. The sad reality is that anti-Semitism rises and recedes in almost a cyclical fashion. Like the cockroach, it is never eliminated. The question thereby shifts from “Why now?” to “How do we respond to it effectively now?” First, we must continue to support organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. They put a spotlight on these hate-filled cockroaches, who initially revel in media exposure but wilt as their tired act becomes repugnant to most level-headed people. The fact is that their outlook is exclusionary and hasn’t worked politically. Moreover, when World War II Germany became the living embodiment of this approach, it was militarily defeated after great loss of life among Allied nations as well as Germany and its Axis allies. The notion of Aryan purity as a political philosophy has been widely rejected by the vast majority of European countries. Here in the United States, it stands for nothing positive or progressive. It is diametrically opposed to the values of opportunity for all that America has come to represent. Second, we have a series of vowels that serve as an acronym for how we can respond: • A — “Ally” ourselves with others who advocate for values that we hold dear. Advocate for laws where hatred or prejudice is the basis of a crime. • E — Support organizations that “educate” our nation and the world about respect for the character and positive actions of others regardless of race or religion (ADL and SPLC). Also, support organizations that take names and kick butt in the legal system (SPLC). • I — Remain “individually” engaged in our education mission daily through personal interactions with non-Jewish friends, neighbors and business associates as opportunities
against Israel and have been forced into decades of refugee limbo by their own leaders. In Gaza, supplies intended for building houses and schools are diverted to the construction of tunnels to facilitate the abduction and murder of Israelis. In the West Bank, a good portion of international funding is used to provide generous stipends to Palestinians imprisoned for attacking Israelis (or to their families if the attacker was killed in the act). The self-proclaimed pro-Palestinian groups don’t ask how leaders who won’t negotiate on Israeli proposals for the establishment of a Palestinian state dare to urge their people to “violently resist the occupation.” As Jews, we are taught to look beyond our self-interest and to speak out against injustice wherever it is found. But we are also taught that we cannot ignore our own needs. Hillel said, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” But he also said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” In calling on Arab states to rescind their laws barring Palestinians from citizenship and economic opportunity; in calling on Palestinian leaders to direct their efforts away from trying to destroy Israel and toward building
a viable state willing to co-exist with the nation-state of the Jews, in which the Palestinians can become productive citizens, we will be fulfilling both portions of Hillel’s dicta. If we demand that attacks on Israelis be condemned by world leaders and the media, we will have taken the first step in ending Islamist attacks on Americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians and Australians. — Toby F. Block, Atlanta
Write to Us
The AJT welcomes letters and guest columns from our readers. Letters should be 400 or fewer words; guest columns are up to 700 words. Send submissions to editor@atljewishtimes. com. Include your name, the town you live in, and a phone number for verification. We reserve the right to edit submissions for style and length.
From the Blogs
The community conversation is always active at the AJT’s blogs page, blogs. timesofisrael.com/atlanta-jewish-times. Visit the blogs to add your comments to recent posts about Elul, our lagging sense of community and a roundup of summer political happenings, or to sign up for your own AJT blog.
Left Is Scarier Than Right
Kudos to Mitchell Kaye for an excellent analysis of the current state of affairs (“Hate in Charlottesville,” Aug. 25). He is correct that the extreme left is more dangerous than the extreme right because many in our society are in denial about the challenges the leftists present. President Obama refused to utter the words “Islamist terrorism.” The Southern Poverty Law Center, which did much good work in fighting discrimination against African-Americans, labels opponents of Islamism “Islamophobes” and calls their organizations hate groups. Perhaps the greatest irony is that the anti-Israel factions in such groups as Black Lives Matter and the organizers of the Chicago Dyke March, who present themselves as pro-Palestinian, are not in fact working to better the lot of the Palestinians, descendants of Arabs who fled Arab-initiated wars
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Letters To The Editor
arise. This pays homage to the prophetic directive that Israel (the Jewish people collectively) will be a light unto the nations. • O — Recognize that our generation must “own” the responsibility of combating hate just as other generations have before us. • U — “Understand” that we will not likely see the destruction of antiSemitism in our lifetime. Nevertheless, we are not relieved of the obligation to confront it forcefully through established political institutions, the legal system, and educational and advocacy organizations. Why select vowels as a guide to action? Vowels, working together with consonants, provide words that advance communication and create understanding. Being a part of connecting to the outside, non-Jewish world reminds us of a time-honored activity of Jewish presence in other societies and cultures. Over time, we Jews have contributed far more to the societies in which we have lived than our numbers would suggest. Just look at the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners. Countries that devalued Jews or our contributions usually contributed to their own downfall. Let us agree with the hate-filled supremacists in their chant “Jews will not replace us.” Instead, we will displace them and drive their ideology from the bold headlines of the front page of public consciousness to small, insignificant filler on Page 14, where they belong. — Rich Lapin, Dunwoody
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www.atlantajewishtimes.com
OPINION
Elul’s Perfect for Perspectives on Aging
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
When you’re 23, in 20 years you’re going to be 43. Most folks say that’s a trillion years away. But when you’re 63, in 20 years you might not be. So, with Elul here, you should get selective about how you spend your time. All of us have heard that people wonder how much they would change if they could live their lives backward, acquiring at life’s beginning the lessons they had learned at its end. Another Elul tip: how greatly our lives would be enriched if we were able to imbibe not just Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), as we do this time of the year, but also Pirkei Savim, the wisdom of our bubbes and zaydes. They could offer us quite a bit. From American lore: When the noted judge Oliver Wendell Holmes was still active on the U.S. Supreme Court, he and Justice Louis Brandeis would take walks every afternoon. On one of these occasions, Holmes, then 92, paused to look with real admiration at a beautiful young girl who passed them.
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They stopped, and the elder said to the younger with a sigh, “Louis, oh to be 10 years younger again.” Halfway between my 40th and 50th birthdays, a big change came over me. For the first time in my life, I was
Guest Column By Rabbi David Geffen
confronted by the thought that my years past almost certainly outnumbered the years ahead. At some time in our lives, we all must face this. What can we do to lessen that shock? We can write — be it diaries or letters or articles — without even using a pencil or pen in this computer era. We can record our thoughts by working out the questions that we can answer, or by having someone else, our children or oral history professionals, quiz us for the record — for
the benefit of the future, of course. At this time when amazing inventions are bought for as much as a billion dollars, we can sit down, surround ourselves with talented people and invent. This is not for the money but for everlasting name recognition. One of my uncles, Abraham Geffen, a professor in the field of radiology, invented the Geffen Ruler to measure certain organ movements on an X-ray. Who knows? The Berman Mouth Bite, the Cohen Internet Clipper or the Levy Cell Locket could come from your brain and your hands. I learned this from a Talmudic sage one summer at Camp B’nai B’rith. In a lecture he said emphatically, “A midlife crisis is merely G-d’s way of making us ask ourselves if we are living to our full potential, of making us take the responsibility for that within which remains unlived.” Now that I am in the middle of my eighth decade, I hope that I can honestly say I experienced the joy of passing on hochma (wisdom) to younger people. A person I knew well but had not seen or heard from for 20 years wrote and brightened my day. “David, every week or so I say to someone in my bakery shop, ‘David taught me how to treat people this way.’ ” I never realized what I had done, but now I have at least one point in my favor — sure that through Elul, you also can record all the good points you have accumulated. Don’t just repent in the days ahead; calculate all the positive stuff with which you have filled your days. How many of us have read Shakespeare lately? In Jerusalem, we can now watch “Shakespeare’s Plays on the Run.” We do the moving from site to site in different parts of the city, and the actors and actresses await us. It is almost like waiting for Godot. In “As You Like It,” Shakespeare divides life into seven stages. What a great time of the year to read the insights of this master. Man/woman begins as “the infant mewling and puking,” then becomes “the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face,
creeping like a snail, unwilling to go to school.” Later we become the lover “sighing like a furnace;” then the soldier “seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth.” At the fifth stage, we are “the justice in fair round belly with good capon lined.” Moving on to the next stage, the individual is seen “with the spectacles on nose and pouch on side.” William Shakespeare pulls no punches as he tells us we will end with “second childishness — sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” The question is, just as we squeeze notes into the Kotel, how can we make sure to focus on the spaces in our lives, waiting there anxiously just for us to take an interest so they too can be filled? My friends, you either rust with disuse or grow musty with stagnation. But it can be different. If you have the feeling that there is something special you are endowed with — yes, you have a talent that can be used well, grabbing hold of yourself — giving it a try (even if you do not succeed) will add a dimension to your life you never expected. “Dor holech, dor ba — a generation comes, a generation goes,” Ecclesiastes informs us. What this means is that each of us is a significant link in the chain of generations. A wonderful function of the computer is that its innards can reach out to the past and pinpoint those ancestors of ours. We may never have seen their faces, but when we truly know that they existed and that is why we are here, our personal being can take on new meaning. Do we have to spend hours digging deeply and becoming aware of the circle of life they led? Yes, if we so choose, as genealogists daily make discoveries of human beings and not clay pottery. Each morning of Elul, tiku bashofar (the sounding of the shofar) proudly says to each of us, “You are here. They were here. Your children will be here.” Now it’s your turn to grab what you have, both character and money, and leave an inheritance, whatever it may be, to shape the future. Am Yisrael chai now and for eons to come through us. ■
“A midlife crisis is merely G-d’s way of making us ask ourselves if we are living to our full potential.”
www.atlantajewishtimes.com
OPINION
Post-Charlottesville Hopes for a Great Future class lifestyle. It seems to me that what has occurred since the last election is a decline in life’s satisfaction. Perhaps most detrimental to life satisfaction is the erosion of our sense of a predictable future. Our sense of
One Man’s Opinion By Eugen Schoenfeld
well-being depends on a belief that we can make plans to achieve a good life. I call this our dependence on the truth of if-then propositions, which serve as the blueprint for planning a good future. Take, for instance, the following proposition: If I go to college, I will be able to get a good job and will have my lifetime career. For a long time, we believed in such a proposition, but no longer. Young people with college degrees live with their parents, and far too few of them make an adequate income to be independent. We are no longer independent at 18 and are lucky if we are by 35. For a good life, it is essential that we have a good worldview. In general, as Allan Bloom wrote in his treatise “The Closing of the American Mind,” even our supposed educated people — those who went to college — no longer have a worldview of what constitutes a good society. This, unfortunately, also holds true for the president. Our educational system, as Bloom proposed, is committed to teaching trades rather than ideas and the development of a vision of life. The educational system has impoverished our people’s souls and has failed to imprint ideas that are essential to the maintenance and growth of democracy. As I see it, this condition has eroded our ability to develop an image of a positive future. Throughout my life in the United States, almost 70 years, most presidents have given the people a vision for the future, but not the present president, whose plan and view of the good life are expressed in empty slogans, such as “Make America great again.” How? His view, if he has any, is regressive. His view, as I surmise it, is let’s go back. Back to what? Does he believe that he will bring back jobs in the mines that are economically not feasible?
Cartoon by Patrick Chappatte, The International New York Times
A good vision of a good future is imperative to both the development and maintenance of hope. And hope is dependent on a vision of the achievability of a good future. It was Micah and Isaiah’s worldview that gave us Jews hope because it was based on a positive vision of life. It was that kind of hope, for example, that sustained me in the darkest times of my life in the Holocaust. It is hope that gives us faith in the improvement
of life in the future. But this president has no vision of the future. He has no idea how to elevate people’s hope, so we are becoming a people without hope. A long time ago my grandmother, who liked to instill into me her notion of wisdom, taught me: Money lost, nothing is lost; hope lost, all is lost. Do we have hope for the future, Mr. President? If so, what is your vision of that future? ■
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SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Here we go again: Anti-Semitic acts, such as vandalizing a Holocaust memorial in Boston, have been on the upswing. Such acts are among a great many deeds that tell us this country is in disarray. Of course, hate groups, like the poor, to use a biblical phrase, will always be within our gates. I would hate to see a completely homogeneous society — how boring that would be. Disagreement within a population is one force in the dialectical movement that is necessary for change. The recent events in Charlottesville, Va., that cause me to be concerned about the future of this country are the result of having irrational hate groups instead of having people who have a different vision of life but believe in creative discourse. The sense of futility and hopelessness has changed opposition groups into hate groups believing that this country is ripe for many to accept their philosophy of life. Moreover, they feel emboldened by President Trump’s actions and speeches and have gained an increased sense that the public and even the president of the United States accept their views. I have experienced the events that gave rise in Germany to rule by hate groups. Is this what is happening in this country? I would have expected such events to occur during an economic crisis, as in Germany in the 1920s or the United States during the Great Depression. But our economy, so I am told by the television gurus, is strong, and the stock market is rising. The rise of the market is a great indication of the ever-increasing prosperity of a small percentage of the population, whose existing wealth gives them the means for a continual increase in fortunes. But present economic conditions hardly have a positive impact on the working people, the so-called middle class, whose lifestyle is eroding as the value of the dollar decreases. Although I am, by most standards, an old man retired on a pension and am no longer in the market for a house, I watch television programs about the buying and selling of homes and have become appalled by the rising prices. Homeownership has always been considered a necessity for a middle-
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HEALTH & WELLNESS
Berman Center Realizes Vision for Addiction Care By Leah R. Harrison lharrison@atljewishtimes.com
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Alyza Berman’s eyes lighted up as she feverishly took notes. “I feel like we could do something big here,” she said. “We can start something. We can do something.” That was the first time I met her in September 2016 in her office during a follow-up interview to the AJT’s initial stories a year ago about the Jewish Heroin Triangle, which told of opioid addiction and the resources then available to those struggling within the Atlanta Jewish community. Alyza Berman Milrad a therapist who goes by her maiden name professionally, was vital to the grief recovery of a Jewish mother who had lost a daughter to an overdose after using heroin only twice. That mother had contacted the Jewish Times about telling her story, but was comfortable doing so only in the office of her trusted therapist. Berman, who counsels people with addictions and their families, was that mother’s confidante. The mother said, “Alyza literally saved my life.” Toward the end of that gutwrenching interview, the mother, an observant Jew, spoke of the challenges her family encountered in seeking recovery resources and of her daughter’s struggle to keep her Jewish connection while battling drug addiction in Atlanta. She told of her vision for our community. “Let’s put tachlis in there,” she said as she detailed ways in which the Jewish community could get involved. Berman agreed that other faithbased organizations had resources and treatment centers, but, aside from HAMSA and a smattering of group meetings, there was nothing specifically Jewish. She said the Jewish community needed treatment centers and intensive outpatient programs because “our Judaism is the way we live, breathe and eat. And it’s about our sense of community, and you cannot go through recovery if you are lacking that.” That’s when the idea took hold. I didn’t hear from Berman again until June 8, when she left a voicemail saying, “I wanted to update you on what’s been going on since the article.” She explained her plan to open that treatment center and said she had a network of rabbis and clinicians on board. “I’m scared, but I’m just doing it. That article just got me going,” Berman 14 said.
Alyza Berman shares the excitement about the Berman Center at the open house Aug. 28.
“I wanted you to know it was really from your articles. The series had great impact on a lot of people. … It was from you. You have to give the Jewish Times credit. You wrote those articles, and that was it. I said, ‘We’re doing something!’ ” After securing financing and overcoming countless obstacles, Berman chose the family name for the center as a tribute to the encouragement and support of her parents, Candy and Steve Berman. Her husband, Justin Milrad, is working by her side as CEO. The Berman Center opens Tuesday, Sept. 5, at 1200 Ashwood Parkway, Suite 400, in Dunwoody. A Jewish faith-based intensive outpatient program, or IOP, for adults who suffer from addiction and/or co-occurring diagnoses, which could include anything with mental illness (anxiety, depression, trauma) and eating disorders, the center brings a valuable resource to Atlanta and the Southeast. The Berman Center will be part of a network of cross-referrals within the Jewish community, partnering with the new Derech Homes Jewish transitional living facility nearby and working with Jewish Family & Career Services, as well as rabbis, synagogues and other resources, to provide addicts and their families the individualized help and treatment programs they need. The center will also be part of the community’s mental health initiative. Berman hopes Atlanta will become a destination for Jewish recovery because people in need often cross state lines to find the services and resources they need. After saying what an amazing community we have in Atlanta, Berman expressed surprise that no one has done this before. According to the center website (www.bermancenteratl. com), she “recognized the need for a model that integrates community, acceptance, Jewish values and teachings,
A mezuzah at the entrance makes it clear that the Berman Center is a Jewish facility.
recovery, psychotherapy, and experiential therapies. The Berman Center integrates Jewish values and teachings into our program based on each individual’s level of observance.” Of the more than 800 religiousbased addiction programs in the nations, she only knows of two that have Jewish content, and none in the Southeast.
About the Center
Berman was determined to create a Jewish faith-based IOP that did not feel institutionalized. A logo with clean lines set in frosted glass welcomes clients to the sparkling center, which occupies 6,000 square feet in a midrise office park. Just beyond the well-appointed foyer and intake room is a recreation room. Complete with a TV, Xbox and massage chair, it is a comfortable place for socializing or hanging out. The facility has an art therapy and break room and a studio for 12step warm yoga therapy. Aside from a HIPAA-compliant drug testing facility to protect client confidentiality, there is a large, light-filled group room and a massage therapy room, plus a fitness facility downstairs for personal training. In keeping with the typical IOP format after detox, groups will meet at the center for three hours three times per week for two months or more. The clients will rotate through individualized tracks of three one-hour sessions of their choice on each meeting day. Individual and family therapy will be included, and multifamily support groups will be offered. The Berman Center will offer carefully curated choices conducted by licensed Jewish clinicians with the assistance of an array of rabbis and other spiritual leaders. They have all volunteered to rotate in to lead groups on
Fridays (except on Jewish holidays) and provide additional support as needed. Their sessions will focus on modern issues as seen through a Jewish lens. This structure works well within the IOP framework. Because they are now aware of the needs within the community, Berman said, almost every rabbi she asked not only “jumped on it right away, but was extremely supportive and encouraging. And excited, and eager, very eager, to be part of this.” She said she hopes those involved will mention their work with the center during the High Holidays. The Berman Center will be closed on those days. Said Berman, “I want my clients to be with their families for the High Holidays.” For any who do not have family or a synagogue nearby, she hopes that they will form relationships with the 18 spiritual leaders affiliated with the center, begin attending services or Torah studies, and get involved in the community. Berman said the rabbis have pledged to do anything she needs, and they have thanked her because they have had congregants in need of help. At the center’s open house Aug. 28, Berman spoke of how she missed the daughter of the woman who spoke to the AJT in her office last year. That young woman was her first client to lose her battle with addiction. To honor her daughter’s memory, the mother worked closely with Berman in establishing the center. At the opening, she said twice, with conviction and tears in her eyes, “This makes my daughter’s memory a blessing.” The bird in the center’s logo is taken from her daughter’s artwork, and Berman dedicated the center in her memory. ■ To get more information or to help establish a scholarship fund for center services, call 770-336-7444, or email info@ bermancenteratl.com.
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HEALTH & WELLNESS
Baken Makes Room for Mental Health in Nest By Cole Seidner
The last thing you might expect to see at a synagogue on a Sunday morning is a rabbi carrying an embroidered New Orleans Mardi Gras mask, especially when it’s not close to Purim. But Rabbi Analia Bortz of Congregation Or Hadash, where the mental health initiative Baken (In the Nest) launched Sunday, Aug. 13, pulled no punches when she took the bimah before the opening sessions of Baken’s first program. As co-founder with Devi Knapp, who told her story earlier that morning, the doctor and rabbi kept a hold on the room, showing the value of the mental health collective for the community. “Mental illness is the cancer of the soul,” Rabbi Bortz said, each word crisp and clear. She talked about people every day getting ready for job interviews who might put on masks like the one she held. People with depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses never take off their masks. They are stiff as a Mardi Gras mask, wooden and painful. “Mental illness is an illness,” she said. “We must treat it like diabetes.
Be honest. Embrace. And we can fight the stigma together, and we can get to mental wellness.” She emphasized the stigma surrounding mental illness. For example, this year’s movie “Split,” from writer-director M. Night Shyamalan, faced criticism because many in the mental health community worried that it reinforced the popular equation between “crazy” and “violent.” The main character, a kidnapper played by James McAvoy, is diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. If someone with diabetes isn’t feeling good, as Rabbi Bortz indicated, friends suggest seeing a doctor, checking or changing medication, or getting other medical help. With mental illness, the attitude is different. People suggest going outside more, exercising or drinking more wa-
ter. They might say, “I’ve had days like that” or “Have you tried not thinking about it?” Such irritating comments, which serve only to invalidate the pain that people feel at the lowest points of their lives, can come any day from anyone. They make people who are ill think they are exaggerating about their own problems; as a result, those problems grow and grow. Open discussion, positive reinforcement and education can rein in those problems. Knapp has been open about her mental health, and she said that willingness to speak out has led many others to act, to talk about their own stories and ask to talk to her in private. People want and need to talk about mental health, and her speech at Or Hadash inspired more people to
“Mental illness is an illness. We must treat it like diabetes. Be honest. Embrace. And we can fight the stigma together, and we can get to mental wellness.”
ask for time with her, either to donate to Baken or to speak about their own experiences. “When I talk about it, it makes people think about their own stories,” Knapp said. Because of her experience, she knows that people need a place to talk, an open space with support. Baken (www.baken-atlanta.org) has been in the works for a long time, and the result of that planning was a strong launch with more doctors ready to help and more people participating than the co-founders expected. The goals of Baken are clear: to educate the community about mental health, create an open environment of support for friends and family, and help those who need that nest. The event was filled with respect and open-hearted conversation. The topics of discussion included eating disorders, sleep management, suicide and how to take care of yourself when you’re the token caretaker. Baken’s next program, “The Art of Mindfulness Therapy,” is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 10, at Or Hadash. RSVP to info@baken-atlanta.org. ■
Friendship Circle of Atlanta is holding its Walk4Friendship, its biggest annual fundraiser, Sunday afternoon, Sept. 10, at Brook Run Park in Dunwoody. Friendship Circle’s goal is to raise $100,000 through donations associated with the 2K walk, which will be followed by a free carnival with activities such as bungee jumping, rock climbing and a petting zoo. The walk, just under 1¼ miles, is meant to embody Friendship Circle’s philosophy of celebrating the intrinsic value of everyone for who that individual is and what he or she can offer. Unlike the attitude toward children with special needs 40 years ago, when they were pushed toward institutionalization, or 10 years ago, when “inclusion” became the hot term, Friendship Circle doesn’t think people with differences should be “accommodated” or “allowed” to participate. Instead, they should be part of a supportive community that gives them the chance to thrive and shine. “When you take a peep into the program, you have no idea who has special needs and who is volunteering,” one parent said. “It looks like just
a bunch of kids hanging out and having a good time.” Friendship Circle said 150 volunteers and 70 families with special needs are beneficiaries of the yearround programs. Every program has a typical teen paired with an individual with special needs so everyone can get undivided attention and so genuine friendships can flourish. Rachel Gray, who is in her 20s and has Down syndrome, was amazed that “these volunteers, who I never knew, they became my best friends. I never thought they would make me laugh and smile, but they do.” Under the leadership of Rickelle New and Rabbi Yale New, the nonprofit organization is offering the only formal Jewish learning for people with special needs in Georgia, Friendship Circle’s Jewish Experiential Learning Program. ■ What: Walk4Friendship Where: Brook Run Park, 4770 N. Peachtree Road, Dunwoody
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Friendship Circle 2K
When: 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10 Registration: www. walk4friendshipatlanta.com
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LOCAL NEWS
Judaism, Federation Lift N. Spielberg Above, Beyond By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com Despite sharing her famous filmmaker brother Steven’s last name, Nancy Spielberg says she didn’t set out to enter the movie business. “I love writing, and writing was my thing,” she said in a phone interview Aug. 16. “I sort of fell into it. … People would ask me for help with their stories, developing their voices, and I was consulting on some projects and stuff, and it just sort of happened, and it happened organically.” Spielberg, 61, was in her 50s before she jumped into film production, and even then she opted for the documentary approach instead of Hollywood blockbusters. “Even though I scramble for money … it’s still easier sometimes than going the Hollywood route, where you can sit on something for 10 years.” Spielberg, who made a big splash at the 2015 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival with the opening-night film, “Above and Beyond,” and had another hit this year with “On the Map,” will be back in Atlanta in September for the Women’s Philanthropy fall event for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta.
“Everybody talks about San Francisco. Who knew that Atlanta had this incredible film festival?” says Nancy Spielberg, who was blown away by the reception of 3,000 people for “Above & Beyond” at the opening night of the 2015 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
She’s excited to come back to Atlanta, “except I have nothing to wear. The women there really know how to dress and really know how to make themselves up. … I’m going to have to get my act together before I get to Atlanta.” Having grown up amid anti-Semitism in Phoenix and without much Jewish support, Spielberg said she has come to appreciate the importance of Jewish Federations as her relationship with her Jewishness has evolved. “I think a lot of people are surprised that there’s a Spielberg who keeps kosher and has a home in Israel.” She naturally gravitates toward
Jewish subjects for her documentaries, including her current project, “Who Will Write Our History,” about the efforts of a group of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to hide documents that would tell the story of what the Nazis did. “Basically, it was a form of resistance with pen and paper, and, boy, today is this timely in terms of having your voice heard,” she said. The film reunites her with “Above and Beyond” director Roberta Grossman, who bought the rights seven years ago. They’re trying to finish postproduction by January, but “Who Will Write Our History” might not be ready for the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Because of the topic’s relevance to Europe’s past and present, Spielberg said the film is getting interest in Eastern Europe and Poland for distribution. The Polish government even contributed to the production costs. That sort of appeal isn’t universal for Spielberg’s preferred subject matter. “Above and Beyond,” which tells the tale of the American fliers who helped Israel win its independence in 1948, came out during the Gaza war in 2014, and she said no one in Europe wanted to show anything about Israel.
“I couldn’t get broadcast for ‘Above and Beyond’ in this country. Nobody wanted to broadcast it. What does that tell you?” she said. But more than three years later, the film is still going strong on streaming services. Spielberg said she’s open to talking about filmmaking, her family or anything else Sept. 14, but she wants to be sure people understand the importance of Federation itself. She’ll speak about what Federation has done for her family, including support for Moishe House. Her daughter lives in the Moishe House in West Hollywood, Calif. “I think it’s important to drive that message home. Federation isn’t just about helping those other people in our Jewish community. … It helps each and every one of us in the room.” ■ Who: Filmmaker Nancy Spielberg What: Federation’s Women’s Philanthropy fall event Where: InterContinental Buckhead, 3315 Peachtree Road When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14 Tickets: $72; register by Sept. 5 at jewishatlanta.org
Fertility Foundation Marks New Beginning
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
The Jewish Fertility Foundation celebrated its annual meeting Sunday, Aug. 27, in way only a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping bring more Jews into the world could: by giving young children space to run around and play at a toy store, with cotton candy and other snacks to ensure the miracle children wouldn’t run out of energy. The business of the meeting was brief but significant as it marked the formal leadership transition of the board from foundation founder Elana Frank, now a foundation employee as its first executive director, to new board Chairman Elie Engler. Engler said the foundation has a fundraising goal of $40,000 this year, and it brought in about $12,000 from
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Karen Grinzaid of JScreen and Rabbi Adam Starr show their interest in the work of JFF.
a week of calling board members as a start toward that figure. The foundation also benefited from the sales Brilliant Sky Toys and Books made during the open house and mini-festival at the Sandy Springs store for JFF families and supporters. The foundation also handed out its first volunteer award, honoring Debbie Derby, the board’s education chair, for her efforts to organize educational programs targeting audiences ranging from mikvah attendants to rabbis. At least one rabbi, Adam Starr of Young Israel of Toco Hills, was there to add a touch of Torah to the proceedings. He said the foundation is doing sacred work by serving as G-d’s partner in the task of creation. ■
Photos by Michael Jacobs
Elie Engler presides over his first Jewish Fertility Foundation annual meeting as board chair while Executive Director Elana Frank handles details such as a raffle.
Maayan Schoen, one of several Atlanta Jewish Academy students volunteering at the open house, gets in some quality bubble time with one of the children.
JFF board Chair Elie Engler challenges his daughter to a race.
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EDUCATION
AJA’s Student President Leads Fight Against Hunger By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com
Maayan Schoen volunteers during her summer break with Kids in Need, which provides supplies to teachers who qualify for assistance.
and people who can’t afford sufficient food during daily tasks. “Kids understand the gravity of the situation and immediately come on board to see how they can get further involved,” Schoen said. “This was a great way to increase awareness as students received a firsthand account of the issues. This form of experiential learning is important for any cause but is the most accessible for all ages.” In addition to facilitating workshops at AJA, Schoen has contacted other Jewish organizations to make a greater impact in the community. With Friendship Circle she is working on a
ROSH HASHANAH 2017
ify for free or reduced-price lunches. “The entire experience for these teachers, from start to finish, is great as they walk out feeling confident they are able to provide a little bit more to their students,” said Schoen, who also has volunteered at the Toco Hills Community Alliance, which provides hot meals and groceries to those in need. She said the food bank is trying to accommodate dietary laws such as kashrut in the belief that religious observance should never be a barrier to receiving needed food. “The way in which my family, schools and shuls have operated has always taught me that we are about something bigger than ourselves,” Schoen said. “The entire world is our domain and responsibility to take care of. Even if we don’t state tikkun olam, none of our actions are isolated. Nothing should ever feel detached to us, as any global or human issue is inevitably our issue, especially concerning hunger right here in our back yard. I am incredibly thankful to have worked with the ACFB and in turn share what I learned with the community.” ■
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Maayan Schoen’s father is a civil rights lawyer, so the Atlanta Jewish Academy senior has grown up with an interest in civil rights that has led her to volunteer at the Atlanta Community Food Bank and promote causes that improve the community. During the summer after 10th grade, Schoen had an opportunity to intern at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, which has a partnership with AJA, where she participated in seminars related to rights. But Schoen was drawn to the Atlanta Community Food Bank’s workshops, which she began facilitating within AJA’s No Place for Hate program after contacting the organization’s education and outreach coordinators. “I was educated on some incredible causes at the CCHR, and as much as I would love to get involved with all of them, I realized the greatest impact, in terms of what I could bring to the community, was hunger,” Schoen said. “Hunger has a unique qualification, and although we sympathize with many causes across the world, we empathize with hunger, as it is universal. A child understands hunger as much as an adult does, and once people realize how practical it is, they will become more engaged to help combat it.” Visiting a Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger exhibit in spring 2016, Schoen found that her interest in hunger meshed with her love of Judaism. “The exhibit was fabulous, and after speaking with the facilitator, I realized that some of the things I grew up learning in the Jewish community impacted my involvement with the ACFB,” she said. “The Mazon exhibit was really powerful but also helped me discover some various resources readily available within the community.” The food bank fights hunger by engaging, educating and empowering people, an approach Schoen said fits with tikkun olam (repairing the word). “The more we educate and empower people, the more likely they are to become engaged by volunteering, signing up for hunger marches and promoting food drives at schools and shuls.” Since volunteering at the food bank, Schoen has created numerous programs on hunger through her role as AJA’s student council president and No Place for Hate board member. She has invited educators to facilitate hunger simulations that match students
volunteer day tailored to the abilities of people within the organization. She has reached out to Jewish Kids Groups to establish a Jewish Family & Career Services project. “The response has been fantastic, and I am working with countless leaders to continue to help set up workshops, sign up for marches or set up a booth at any upcoming carnivals shuls may have,” Schoen said. “Hunger is an issue that is prevalent within my own community, and yet I’ve learned that despite having so much food around the world today, hunger remains an ongoing issue,” she said. “So much of our culture, observance and tradition revolves around food; it is more than just eating to be healthy. Each person knows the meaning food has for them. Whether it includes a memory associated with their grandmother’s chocolate-chip cookie or matzah ball soup, the experience of food is very relatable.” While volunteering with the food bank, Schoen assisted Kids in Need, which provides school supplies to teachers if more than half their students qual-
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EDUCATION
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Galloway Sees Value Nazi Drinking Game Gets In Reading ‘Mein Kampf’ Lovett Student Expelled
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
The head of school of the Galloway School is using a comparison to unisex restrooms to defend the private school’s use of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” as a summer reading option for its students this year. “Reading Mein Kampf isn’t for every community, just as gender inclusive restrooms aren’t culturally appropriate everywhere,” Suzanna Jemsby wrote in a blog post on the school’s website Sunday, Aug. 20, after explaining that just as Galloway adopted unisex bathrooms after students requested them three years ago, so the school added Hitler’s rambling, anti-Semitic screed to the reading list at the request of students, most of them Jewish, in May. “Perhaps most of all I appreciate how difficult it is to prove to those outside of our community that the decision not to ban this book (or others) was the right decision,” Jemsby added. In that blog post and in an interview with the AJT, Jemsby, a linguist from Cambridge, said that letting 10 students read something as challenging as “Mein Kampf” has gone well. Usually each summer selection has a one-off discussion when the school year starts, but because of the context of “Mein Kampf,” the discussion has gone on much longer and included the Anti-Defamation League and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust. Jemsby said Galloway plans on having several more discussions and has held staff-only conversations about the book, which the school emphasized that no student was forced to read. While Galloway leaders portrayed the involvement of the ADL and Holocaust Commission as cooperation in teaching the book, those organizations presented the situation as damage control in a statement they issued Aug. 24. They said they provided a lesson to disabuse students of the idea that just Hitler caused the Holocaust, and they worked to present a balanced, age-appropriate, contextualized perspective. They also have offered to bring in a Holocaust survivor to speak to a wider student population. Neither organization thinks that “Mein Kampf” should be a summer reading option for students. “We believe that the choice of Mein Kampf was made without an awareness of the academic and pedagogical guidelines for teaching about the Ho18 locaust,” the ADL and Holocaust Com-
Aside from questions about whether high school students should have had “Mein Kampf” as a summer reading assignment, Galloway is being criticized for the choice of translation.
mission wrote to the school. “The students’ question, ‘How and why did the Holocaust happen?’ is not answered by a reading of Adolf Hitler’s political and racial manifesto. Understanding the Holocaust is far more complex, requiring examination of the many motives that drove the choices of individuals, organizations and governments, which ultimately led to genocide.” About 35 percent of Galloway students are Jewish, as are about a third of faculty members, school communications head Sherri Breunig wrote to Israellycool.com, the pro-Israel blog that broke the news about “Mein Kampf.” The Algemeiner, a Jewish news website, criticized Galloway’s use of the Michael Ford translation of Hitler’s book. That version is promoted by hitler-library.org, a pro-Hitler website, and the publisher’s notes originally posted on Galloway’s library resource site present the Ford version as presenting “a very interesting and moving story.” The Ford translation uses colloquial English, supposedly easier for teens to follow, and Jemsby wrote in her blog post that the high-schoolers “had extraordinary insights and exceptional questions” after reading the book. “We are aware of the controversy” about the translation, the head of school told the AJT. She said that in upcoming discussions, students will look at other translations for comparison. Gordan Mathis, a previous head of school and a German speaker, will talk to the students. “Knowing Gordan, it will be a very intellectual conversation,” Jemsby said. The ADL and Holocaust Commission said they plan to continue their relationship with Galloway. “The missions of both the AntiDefamation League and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust include the charge to educate our students to recognize and confront threats to human rights, including hatred, antisemitism, racism and prejudice,” they said. ■
The Lovett School has expelled one senior and suspended five others in connection with a version of beer pong called Jews vs. Nazis that was played at a party before the school year. A photo from the party Aug. 7 — five days before neo-Nazis grabbed national headlines in Charlottesville, Va. — made the rounds on social media and by email, and several people forwarded the image to Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple, who contacted Lovett Headmaster Billy Peebles on Aug. 9. Peebles and other school leaders responded with a quick but thorough investigation. The incident is the latest example of increasingly common anti-Jewish actions or harassment connected to public and non-Jewish private schools in the Atlanta area, part of a national and regional trend cited this spring by the Anti-Defamation League. “Two weeks ago, The Lovett School was made aware that several students, and students from other schools, were involved this summer in an off-campus incident with anti-Semitic overtones and other violations of Lovett’s character pledge and student handbook,” Peebles said in a statement Aug. 23. “The school pursued an immediate investigation, and significant responses — including disciplinary action and counseling — have been undertaken. Character education is at the heart of all we do at Lovett, and we deeply appreciate the individuals and organizations across our community who are helping us to continue to learn and grow from this very troubling incident.” Jews vs. Nazis involves plastic cups filled with beer that are set up on opposite sides of a ping-pong table. On one side, the cups are arranged as a Star of David; on the other, they are set up as a Nazi swastika. The game, also is known as Alcoholocaust, goes beyond insensitive names and cup formations. After an incident in Princeton, N.J., in April 2016, NJ.com reported that the rules allow
This image of the Jews vs. Nazis drinking game circulated through social media and email.
the “Jews” to “Anne Frank,” or hide, a cup, while the “Nazis” may “Auschwitz,” or force to sit out for one round, an opponent. “The fact that someone could even conceive of such a game and then play it and think it’s funny is beyond words,” Rabbi Berg told WSB-TV (Channel 2). Rabbi Berg said he was pleased by Lovett’s response. Peebles, who is retiring at the end of this school year, spoke about the incident at Lovett’s senior supper Aug. 13, then included those remarks in a letter to Lovett families. Lovett’s investigation into the party and the game led to the conclusion that 19 current students were at the party, along with several alumni and as many as 10 students and graduates from other high schools, but no parents were there. The Lovett senior who hosted the party and four seniors who played Jews vs. Nazis were suspended, and two other seniors who were photographed watching the game lost the privilege of participating in certain school activities for two weeks. The senior who was expelled is the one who took the photo and is believed to have helped set up and play the game. He was found to have misled administrators about what happened and his role. ■
Swastika at Grayson A student at Grayson High School in Loganville drew a large swastika in the dew on the school football field the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 22. By the time school officials received a photo of the Nazi symbol that morning and investigated, the dew had evaporated, removing the swastika. When a second photo with students near the swastika emerged Friday, Aug. 25, administrators were able to identify the culprit. That student faces disciplinary action, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported. An email from Principal Dana Pugh to parents said the bigotry and hatred associated with the swastika are not welcome at Grayson, according to Fox 5.
EDUCATION
OVS Preschool Fulfills Morah Carol’s Dream By Patrice Worthy
Morah Carol Epstein works with one of her preschoolers.
between child care hours and having your kid learn alef-bet and holidays.” The preschool has 32 children, and eight more are enrolling in January. There are eight classrooms, including a learning center, a music room and an activity room. The learning center has globes, light tables and tables with headphones to enhance the educational experience. The children learn the alphabet and alef-bet. Half the staff is Israeli, which makes teaching and learning Hebrew easier, said head teacher Liat Benshabbat, who was born in Israel and raised in Boston. She has known Epstein for more than a decade and said she loves the concept of the preschool. “It goes much smoother,” Benshabbat said. “We focus on name recognition, building trust in each other and self-motivation.” The older children learn the days of the week in Hebrew and English and start handwriting with ABCs, then Hebrew letters. Epstein considers herself an oldschool academic. She focuses on lessons with reading and writing in the curriculum and forgoes what she calls the modern way of teaching, such as Montessori and Reggio Emilia, which are options at other Jewish preschools in Atlanta. “Every one of our teachers puts in the effort. It’s academic-based, and they learn,” Epstein said. “Kids love to learn, and it bothered me they were missing out on academics in early childhood education.” The children do schoolwide prayer every morning, a Shabbat party on Fridays, yoga with movement through Hebrew, and soon will have the options of ballet, karate and gymnastics. It’s a dream come true for Epstein to have her own preschool, and on any given day you can find the director beside her staff in a classroom, teaching the children. “I know every single kid, and I love them all,” Epstein said. ■
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
“This is the best school ever” and “I love this school” are two testimonials from the 3-year-old class at Morah Carol’s Place, a new preschool in the education wing of Congregation Or VeShalom in Brookhaven. The preschool is the brainchild of Carol Epstein, whose career in early childhood education spans 36 years. Originally from Boston and raised in Crown Heights, Epstein worked at the Village Temple in New York, then moved to Atlanta and worked from 2009 to 2015 at Temple Sinai, which she said was a wonderful experience. Epstein worked 10 months at Congregation Beth Jacob before opening Morah Carol’s Place. The preschool is separate from OVS, but Epstein makes a point to provide a religious education with an academic focus. “My whole reason for opening the school is to teach traditional Judaism to all Jews,” Epstein said. “If you’re Jewish, you belong here, period.” Epstein was raised in an Orthodox household. She has no children or spouse but lives vicariously through the children at her school. “It is our obligation to fulfill the mitzvah to teach Judaism to our children,” Epstein said. “Our focus is not to make the parents religious, but to raise good, godly Jewish children.” Her mission is “to get there one Jew at a time.” When the children are at Morah Carol’s Place, the focus is on middot, or Jewish values. Each child has an individual bucket, and there is a classroom bucket. When a child does a mitzvah, he or she gets a pom-pom, and after a certain number, the child gets a prize. Epstein also wants the children to understand the consequences of bad behavior, so when a child does something wrong, a pom-pom is deducted from the class bucket to show the effects on the entire community. The school offers extended hours from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. to assist working parents. The children range from 11 months to 3 years old, but the school will take babies as young as 2 months. Adam Kofinas, the executive director at OVS, and his wife have an 18-month-old daughter enrolled in Morah Carol’s Place. “It has unique hours,” he said. “How many of us struggle with ‘I want my kid to have Jewish values, but what do I do?’ You’re stuck deciding
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BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS
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An Exercise in Rehab and Friendship
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
I am fortunate to have a dear friend who, for purposes of this article, we will refer to as Jack. Jack is 85 years old, a businessman, a Marine and a former outstanding athlete. Jack and I met in the early ’70s at a tennis club. We played with and against each other for years. We also became friends socially, and we developed an attorneyclient relationship. We lost touch in the mid-1990s when I began playing more racquetball than tennis and he began playing more golf. We ran into each other in a restaurant around 2010. It didn’t take us long to renew old acquaintances. I found out that, like me, he had been stalked by the orthopedic reaper. I had just had a hip replaced and had back surgery. Jack had had both shoulders and both knees replaced. I had just begun lifting again and was trying to get ready to compete. I offered to help Jack train and rehab his most recent shoulder replacement. We worked together sporadically, mak-
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ing a little progress, then losing it. After a year or so, Jack came to see me. He was walking with a cane. He had fallen and broken five ribs and had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I didn’t believe he had Par-
Guest Column By Jeff Guller In his 70s, Jeff Guller remains a familiar figure at powerlifting events.
kinson’s because I had not seen any decline in his physical ability, but his fall had alarmed his doctors. As soon as his ribs allowed, we went to work. Except for a brief respite in 2013, we have not stopped. I am not a scientist. My degrees are in history and law. What I know about physical training came from my days as an athlete, from such experts as Donnie Thompson, Dave Tate, Jim Wendler and Mark Rippetoe, and from the athletes and columnists of EliteFTS. That said, here is what we did.
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I tried to use compound movements and a powerlifting mindset and techniques to build strength. I told Jack, “I don’t care if you fall. I want you to be strong enough to get back up.” We first concentrated on squats, and we still do. Jack made great progress getting his legs stronger and increased his core strength. Both helped in his ability to walk better. In addition, farmer’s carries have helped his posture, and deadlifting has helped his squat and vice versa. Because he had both shoulders replaced, we had a tough time with the bench press. I also have a shoulder problem, so I bought a shoulder saver from EliteFTS, and it has helped us both. We used dumbbells for a while to help with Jack’s stability, but we still had severe bench press problems. Before we could address those issues, more severe problems presented themselves. After being stalked by the orthopedic reaper, we now both were confronted by the internal reaper. I had open-heart surgery with five bypasses in February 2013 and prostate surgery that July. Jack said he caught whatever I had: He had a heart event that required a stent in April 2013. We were in cardiac rehab together. Afterward, we both vowed to come back stronger than we had been. We have. We went to work in July 2013, and, with some exceptions for life, family and work, we haven’t stopped. Last summer the doctor stopped the Parkinson’s medication with no consequences after finally realizing that Jack does not have the disease. Jack told me he had a fall on a family beach vacation. I asked what he did, and he replied, “I got back up!” Back to our bench press problem. At a visit to the doctor who replaced his shoulder, Jack explained that he was lifting weights but was having shoulder problems. The doctor asked
whether we could work around it. That gave me an idea. I tried to work all the muscles around the deltoids: biceps, triceps, lats, traps and all the back muscles whose names I don’t know. Wonder of wonders, the bench press improved. More important, there was no pain. If we continue that regimen, I expect the bench press to improve dramatically. Recently Jack made a date for golf. He worried he might fall. I told him if he did, just to get back up and play. Not only did he not fall, but he also hit the ball farther than he ever had. It’s easy to work with a former excellent athlete. Often what made Jack excellent was his determination to succeed, and he still never gives up. As the athletic prowess diminishes as we get older, the mindset, the determination, and the will to succeed and get better never do. Jack has done wonders, and we are only going to get better and stronger. The broader takeaway is that compound exercises work. They help make us stronger. Age is more than a number. It brings physical changes we can’t avoid. It can take away our athleticism. But it cannot take away our will, our desire, our determination and our diligence. At any age, we can get stronger, better and more functional. At any age, hard work brings results. Consistent hard work can produce exceptional results. There is no time when we can’t do all we can do. Today Jack walks without difficulty and without a cane. He plays golf regularly and is my biggest cheerleader at powerlifting meets. Never underestimate the will of two old friends. ■ Jeff Guller is a personal trainer, fitness columnist and record-setting powerlifter in Gastonia, N.C.
BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS
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Finding the Healing in Painting, Singing, Dancing American Journal of Public Health, titled “The Connection Between Art, Healing, and Public Health.” The need to unwind is more press-
Guest Column By Gedalia Genin
ing than ever. “Here’s a startling fact,” Jay Kumar writes in “Brain, Body & Being.” “In our modern, 24/7 high-tech world, the average person is bombarded with the equivalent of 174 newspapers of data every day! That’s five times the amount of sensory information a person received just 30 years ago.” In “Make More Art: The Health Benefits of Creativity,” James Clear explains at The Huffington Post why creative expression is a remedy: “Creating art doesn’t just make you feel better, it also creates real, physical changes inside your body. “Art offers an outlet and a release from all of that. Take a minute to
ignore all the incoming signals and create an outgoing one instead. Produce something. Express yourself in some way. If you contribute rather than consume, anything you do can be a work of art. “Open a blank document and start typing. Put pen to paper and sketch a drawing. Grab your camera and take a picture. Turn up the music and dance. Start a conversation and make it a good one. “Build something. Share something. Craft something. Make more art. Your health and happiness will improve and we’ll all be better off for it.” Clear writes that studies demonstrate that creative pursuits “redirect our focus, and distract us from thoughts of grief, stress or physical pain.” Creative expression not only benefits our mood, but our physical health. A 2004 study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine demonstrated how creative writing has been shown to boost the immune system for people with HIV. In other words, creative expression doesn’t just make you feel better; it also creates real, physical
changes inside your body. My own experience is that connecting with my inner artist through meditation was akin to finding my own personal Eden. When I paint, I experience it as a kind of bath for my mind. Much like meditation, being with color shifts my relationship with time. By tapping my unbridled imagination, I drop into an experience of flow. I’ve found that it’s when I’m alone with my paints and brushes that I truly experience G-d’s presence within. What if you don’t feel like you’re a creative person? Expand your concept of creativity. It’s far broader than painting. Life offers us untold opportunities to express our creativity. Arrange some fresh flowers, take photos of your grandchildren, peruse a new furniture store or bake some delicious rugelach. ■ Gedalia Genin is a holistic healer and ayurvedic health specialist who sparks new pathways to women’s health and vitality. Contact her at www.gedaliahhealingarts.com or 404-528-1483.
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
We all aspire to be happy and fulfilled, but we mostly pursue the promise of happiness in external things: shiny new cars, bigger homes or fashionable clothes. But, as we all know, even the luster of the shiniest baubles soon fades. So what can we do to uplift our spirit when so many of us collapse in bed at night feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and stressed? The remedy may lie with observing our children, especially toddlers (our own or someone else’s). A drugfree, simple, playful way to heal the emotional and physical toll of the distractions and stress in society is the lighthearted pursuit of activities many of us abandoned in childhood: painting, singing and dancing. The answer, neuroscience tells us, is creative play. Creative expression heals — be it playing the piano, writing a poem, taking a salsa class or painting with watercolors. This isn’t New Age feel-good woowoo. It’s the analysis of more than 100 research studies reviewed by the
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BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS
Prep for the New Year With Time at a Spa
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SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
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We’re well into the Jewish month of Elul, when tradition calls for preparing ourselves to start fresh spiritually with the new year that starts on Rosh Hashanah. One way to refresh your body and mind to align with that new spirit is to make an escape to a day spa. Several AJT contributors ventured out to spas around the metro area: Jeju Sauna in Duluth; Treat Your Feet Outside the Perimeter in Doraville; Woodhouse Day Spa in Dunwoody; Nava Sen Spa in Marietta; and Bliss Spa at the W AtlantaDowntown. Each woman chose the spa services that appealed to her, aiming for a bill in the range of $100 to $150. The result is not a comprehensive study of the many spas and range of services in the area but does offer a good taste of what you can expect if you can find a few hours to escape and treat yourself. You can read about Nava, Woodhouse, Jeju and Treat Your Feet through Page 24, then can check out the “black girl magic” experienced at Bliss by visiting atlantajewishtimes.com. ■
Nava’s Owner Applies Hands-On Approach By Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder Personalized attention, a high degree of professional capacity and skill, and a lovely space make Nava Sen Spa worth seeking out. Tucked away in a nondescript office park in Marietta, the location disguises the escape and promise of the spa. I found my way to Nava Sen Spa on the recommendation of two friends who spoke highly of this Jewish-owned business. The well-organized website displays a dazzling range of massage options priced at $60 to $80 per hour, including hot stone, Thai and deep tissue, as well as packages for couples. The array was a bit overwhelming, and I was unsure what would best meet my needs, so instead of making an appointment online, I called and spoke directly with owner Nava Alkalay. I told her about the tightness in my neck and back and said I was not sure which kind of massage would be best. She booked me an appointment with her personally and assured me she would assess my needs and choose the most appropriate technique. The spa is spacious and impeccably clean, a luxurious escape. Alkalay met me when I entered, and, noting my home address on the intake form, she thanked me for making the journey. Based on my hope for relief from neck strain, she explained her plan for my massage.
Raised in Thailand, Alkalay grew up in a culture that sees massage as a central part of wellness and care. Though massage is a second career for her, she has dedicated significant time to training and worked with a chiropractor before opening her business. Her skill and holistic approach were evident through the massage as she manipulated my muscles and joints. I left feeling a significant improvement in the tension in my muscles and wondering when I could book another appointment. Alkalay does not do all the massages herself. She employs several masseuses with a variety of specialties, including a doula with a focus on pre-
and post-natal massage and an expert massage for those with breast cancer. She has built the business meticulously, and her personal care and attention to all aspects of the customer experience shine through. The next time you are looking to take your massage experience to the next level, you would do well to try Nava Sen Spa. ■ Nava Sen Spa 519 Johnson Ferry Road, No. 400, Marietta www.navasenspa.com; 770-973-1155
BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS
Woodhouse Offers Oasis in Dunwoody
JOIN US as we host the American Red Cross Blood Mobile on: September 19th from 10am-2pm.
By Sarah Moosazadeh sarah@atljewishtimes.com
ASC challenges YOU - Your Friends - Peers - Co-Workers & Family to join our team as we spend the day GIVING BACK to our community. Bring your friends and spend a few minutes of your day doing something that could save lives! The tub room is one of many treatment rooms at Woodhouse Day Spa.
After the massage, I slipped into my robe and proceeded to the quiet room, sipping the cool glass of cucumber water provided before each service. I was escorted to another treatment room and prepped for my wild lavender and seaweed sugar glow scrub and Vichy shower. After sliding onto the spa table, I was draped in warm towels from head to toe, and the spa professional rubbed my temples, neck and shoulders in preparation for the scrub. The scrub, composed of wild crafted lavender buds, organic seaweed and sugar, was applied to my arms, legs, abdomen and back before the warm towels were replaced to soften my skin and relax tired muscles. A long pole or rain bar containing multiple shower heads then was aligned over the length of my body to dispense hot- and coldwater pressure targeting the lymphatic system. After the Vichy shower, I was again taken to the quiet room, where I melted into my warm neck pillow and the cinnamon tea brought to me by the spa coordinator. As I rested on one of the many vintage chairs and foot rests, I contemplated my next visit to the spa and various result-oriented services I would select next, such as the warm, spiced mud wrap, organic seaweed wrap and balancing yoga massage. Stepping back into reality was far from easy after the serenity within my own wooden house. Woodhouse Day Spa is not a place you visit once, but on various occasions, whether for a girls’ day out, a refreshing pick-me-up or a much-needed getaway. ■ Woodhouse Day Spa 4400 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, No. 1805, Dunwoody dunwoody.woodhousespas.com; 770377-3505
For more information email: kpalmieri@asc-psd.com or call 770-393-9000 to sign up. ASC’s gift to you just for participating ??? • Complimentary Skin Cancer Screening
(scheduled at your convenience between Sept 19th & October 31st)
• $50 Gift Card to be used towards any facial - laser treatment CoolSculpting or Rejuvapen Treatment • Gift Bag
We look forward to seeing you here:
1825 Old Alabama Rd. Suite 201 Roswell, GA 30076 www.asc-psd.com
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Since opening almost a year and a half ago, Woodhouse Day Spa has established itself as an oasis in the heart of Dunwoody, offering guests resultoriented body and skin treatments they will savor long after their visit. In addition to numerous treatments, the spa offers an array of signature services, including the awardwinning Minkyti seaweed facial and four-handed massage, as well as soothing facials, nourishing foot and hand treatments, and therapeutic Vichy showers from France. Seven days a week, guests may select packages ranging from the warm agave nectar pedicure for $68 to the therapeutic stone massage for $115. After driving past Perimeter Mall multiple times, I was excited to visit the spa and indulge in a few services for the first time. As I passed through the spa’s wooden doors, sandalwood, rosewood and citrus filled my senses, composing Woodhouse Day Spa’s signature scent: escape blend. After confirming my treatments with the spa coordinator, I was escorted to the changing lounge, where I slipped into the spa’s luxurious furlike robe and a pair of sandals before finding a warm neck pillow infused with lavender and flaxseed awaiting me. After wrapping the pillow around my neck, I was ushered to the spa’s quiet room, designed as a Frenchstyle chamber adorned with vintage chairs and ottomans and balanced with cream-colored walls and dimmed lights to relax even the most energetic minds. Before I fell into a slight slumber, a spa professional led me to a treatment room for a relaxing back, neck and shoulder massage meant to increase circulation, remove lactic acid and release deep knots. On a heated bed, the spa professional slowly tilted my neck from side to side while making circular motions around my temples, lower neck and head with ample pressure. Before the massage, the spa professional rubbed a few drops of an essential oil infused with chamomile on her palms and over my face while I took three short breaths. As the massage progressed, she worked her way to my shoulders and lower back, easing the tension in my muscles and spine.
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BEAUTY, SPA & FITNESS
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Jeju Lives Up to the Hype By Rachel Fayne Jeju Sauna sets the bar for day spas among Atlanta-area spa enthusiasts. The traditional Korean public bathhouse is operated 24 hours a day and designed for patrons to experience various services throughout their stay. Hot tubs, kiln saunas, a swimming pool and private sleeping quarters with mats and pillows are among the things you can enjoy with your $25 admission fee. Admission, good for 24 hours, also includes the use of nine rooms with different temperatures decorated with various crystals, minerals, metals, stones and wood. I recently visited for the first time. After paying the entrance fee, you get a locker, a change of clothes and a quick tour of the facility. Separate from the spa but in the same building upstairs is a nail salon offering everything from basic polish changes to waxings to elaborate pedicures with hot stone massages and paraffin wax. I opted for the classic manicure, and it was basic but good: a standard polish change, cuticle work and a short massage for $14. But you don’t go to Jeju for the manicures. After drying my nails, I went back downstairs and was told it’s best to wash your face before experiencing all the rooms. It’s a good idea to bring your own face wash and a moisturizer so you’re not using the hand soap in the locker rooms. The nine rooms are why many people drive 30 minutes outside the Perimeter for a spa. Some rooms look like igloos, and each offers different prop-
Patrons and workers take naps on the heated floors around the facility.
The gold sauna is lined with gold and silver to mimic traditional designs.
The ice room is small and chilly.
The inside of the jewel sauna is covered in semiprecious stones and crystals.
Next to each sauna or igloo is an explanation of the benefits associated with the room.
erties and healing powers. The gold sauna is lined with gold and silver. It’s said to help with stability and neurosis. The jade igloo is covered in semiprecious stones imported from Korea and is designed to increase metabolism, improve circulation and provide relief from arthritis. Other options include the charcoal sauna, the baked-clay sauna, the jewel sauna, the ice room and the salt sauna. I spent 30 minutes in each, but I was most impressed by the ice room and the salt sauna because of the immediate, refreshed feeling, likely produced by the temperature difference. The salt room is extremely warm, and the quick move to the ice room is invigorating as well as soothing to the skin. Men and women lie on mats with pillows in each room — some looking
at books or phones, but most with their eyes closed in deep relaxation. After several hours in the saunas and igloos, I visited the spa’s restaurant. With traditional Asian dishes like ramen and Americanized favorites like fried rice and stir fry, the food is satisfying after the saunas. After lunch, I was ready to do what I came for: Jeju’s signature massage and body scrub. The massages take place in gendersegregated areas because visitors are instructed to disrobe before entering. Hot tubs, a pool and even a tanning bed sit next to rooms with massage tables. I was asked to visit the hot tub before the massage. I then was on the massage table for a few minutes, and just as I opened my mouth to ask when the massage would begin, a masseuse poured a large bucket of water over the
table. That was the first of several. She rubbed me using a loofah for 30 minutes. My skin has never been softer. The massage also was 30 minutes, and it was less memorable. Nevertheless, the $80 price seems worth the baby skin I felt for weeks after. After maybe six hours at Jeju, I considered calling it a night and sleeping there. I can see why some people might do that; driving 30 minutes home seemed silly when I could sleep in a gold igloo. After seeing it for myself, I agree that Jeju is something any spa lover should experience at least once. It’s an Atlanta institution, and I’ll be back. ■
Photos by Rachel Fayne
Jeju Sauna 3555 Gwinnett Place Drive, Duluth jejusauna.com; 678-336-7414
Take Your Feet to Buford Highway By Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
When I told a friend who graduated from Emory that I was moving to Atlanta, she told me to make sure to get my feet done on Buford Highway. The massage options on Buford Highway are numerous, and some seem a bit sketchy. But when I asked around, Treat Your Feet Outside the Perimeter stood out. It is a popular destination for the one-hour foot massage, which includes about 10 minutes of neck and back massage. Clients sit side-by-side in large, 24 comfortable chairs in a quiet, darkened
room. Sessions start with a cup of tea or water and include hot rocks in addition to pressure-point massage. Wearing loose-fitting pants you can easily roll up is a must to get the full benefit of the treatment. Feel free to let your masseuse know if you would like less or more pressure. At $30, it is an affordable and lovely treat for more than just your feet, and the hour flies by, leaving you relaxed and ready to go out into the world. Despite the name, the spa also has facilities for full-body massages, from Thai to Swedish to hot stone. The quality of the service depends
on the skill of the masseuse. My most recent was a sports massage, which was well done and left me with less tension. But a friend who had a Swedish massage was only moderately happy and found that the language barrier made it impossible to ask for more pressure or more attention on a particular body area. The full-body massage without many frills won’t break your pocketbook at $60 an hour. With 19 chairs for foot massages, Treat Your Feet often hosts groups who share a bottle of wine while being treated, making the spa an excellent choice for a birthday or other celebration.
Weekends are busy as folks pair shopping and eating on Buford Highway with a bit of relaxation. Appointments are a must, and recently the spa has begun insisting on confirmations to avoid no shows. Arrive a few minutes ahead of your appointment to allow time for parking and check-in, which can take a while. Showing up late may mean missing your spot. ■ Treat Your Feet Outside the Perimeter 5938 Buford Highway, Suite 105-103, Doraville treatyourfeetatl.com; 770-452-8688
SPORTS
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B’nai Torah Wins 10th Softball A Title Celebrating B’nai Torah’s 10th A division championship in 11 years are Adam Sauer, Sandy Mencher, Neil Wiesenfeld, David Weidenbaum, Carey Davidson, Andy Lipman, Eric Halpern, Art Seiden, Tim Gordineer, Matt Isenberg, Michael Kornheiser and Jeremy Friedman. Not pictured are David Feldman, Jordan Fladell, Adrian Barr and Jared Sobelson.
Marking Etz Chaim’s first title in the B division since 2009 are Andrew Cohen, David Cohen, David Lewis, Alan Golsen, Ken Danis, Josh Wikoff, Jake Abramsky, Evan Eisenstadt, Elliot Low, Jared Horovitz, Jay Goldstein, Billy Balser, Bruce Goldstein, Adam Katz and Jonathan Lyons. Not pictured are Art Cohen, Warren Berne, Todd Surden, Ken Winkler and Rabbi Daniel Dorsch.
The Beth Tikvah 2 squad celebrates a C division championship: Rob Kremer, Mark Madans, Eric Levin, Roman Trebon, Michael Cohen, Adam Rosovsky, Brian Baker, Marty Levinson, Jay Myer, Doug Perkins, Gil Wolchock, Sam Bennett, Mike Levin, Eric Antebi, Jeff Rudel.
Sunday, Sept. 10th 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Getting the Most Out of Medicare The William Breman Jewish Home | 3150 Howell Mill Rd., NW, Atlanta Panel Discussion Featuring Daniel D. Munster, P.C.
Anita Alvarez Richards
Debbi Dooley, MS, LPC, NCC
Elder Law Attorney
Certified Medicare Specialist, Program Coordinator, CIRS-A/D, Sixty Plus Services, Piedmont Healthcare
Aviv Older Adult Services, JF&CS
Free and open to all. Please RSVP: www.JewishHomeLife.org | 404.351.8412
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Congregation B’nai Torah, Congregation Etz Chaim and Temple Beth Tikvah 2 were crowned champions as the Atlanta Men’s Synagogue Softball League season came to a close on Sunday, Aug. 27. It was the 10th time in 11 seasons that B’nai Torah won the title in the A division and marked a return to the top after Congregation Beth Tefillah snapped its fellow Sandy Springs synagogue’s nine-year championship run last summer. B’nai Torah defeated The Temple, 9-3, in a game that was much closer than the score indicates. A close B’nai Torah win Aug. 13 had knocked The Temple into the losers’ bracket, but the Temple team clawed its way into the championship game for a rematch after a victory over Temple Sinai on Aug. 20. In the title game, the two teams traded blows in the first inning, and B’nai Torah took a 3-2 lead. The scored stayed the same until The Temple tied the game in the top of the fifth inning, but B’nai Torah scored twice in the bottom of the fifth and tacked on four more runs in the sixth to put the game out of reach for the Temple. In the B division, Etz Chaim rolled over Beth Tikvah, 14-5, for the championship. Like B’nai Torah in A, Etz Chaim swept through the double-elimination tournament without a loss. Also like the A league, the B title game was a rematch of a semifinal game Aug. 13. Etz Chaim’s win that day earned a spot in the championship and knocked Beth Tikvah into the losers’ bracket where they had . Strong performances in the title game by Etz Chaim pitcher Ken Danis and middle infielders Alan Golsen and David Lewis, the son of longtime Etz Chaim Rabbi Shalom Lewis, were enough to halt any offense by Beth Tikvah. Etz Chaim, meanwhile, scored 10 runs in the first five innings and never looked back en route to its first B league championship since 2009. It wasn’t all bad news for Beth Tikvah, however. The Roswell congregation’s second team won the C championship over Temple Emanu-El in two games. Entering the C final from the losers’ bracket despite an undefeated regular season after losing to Beth Tikvah in the tournament Aug. 6, Emanu-El had to win twice Aug. 27 to take the title. Emanu-El won the first game, 14-12, but fell to its fellow Reform synagogue in the second game, 9-7. ■
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SPORTS
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For Pastner, Winning Begins With Email
Photo courtesy of Pouya Dianat/ Atlanta Braves
Max Fried pitches for the Braves on Aug. 8 against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Braves Pitcher Looking Forward to Birthright By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com Max Fried, the Atlanta Braves’ lone Jewish player, was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett on Wednesday, Aug. 23, after a 20-day stint in the majors that included four relief appearances. The 23-year-old rookie allowed four runs and seven hits over 6 2/3 innings while issuing six walks and racking up four strikeouts in the big leagues. The lefty grew up in Santa Monica, Calif. In 2009 he competed for the United States at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. In high school he started wearing No. 32 in honor of another Jewish lefthanded pitcher, Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax. (Fried is No. 61 with the Atlanta Braves and No. 37 with Gwinnett.) At Gwinnett, the Braves are using Fried as a starter, as he has been throughout the minor leagues. He’s likely to be called back up when majorleague rosters expand in September. Before his reassignment, Fried talked to the AJT about his call-up to the big leagues and getting settled in Atlanta.
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
AJT: How have the big leagues been treating you so far? Fried: It’s been an incredible experience. All the guys on the team have been really good to me so far. AJT: What was your Jewish background like growing up? Fried: I grew up fairly observant. We went to synagogue on High Holidays, and I had my bar mitzvah. So all that good stuff.
AJT: You played in the Maccabiah Games in 2009. How many times have you been to Israel? Fried: That was my only time. I need to go back. I actually got contacted for Birthright recently, so I need to follow up on that. But it was a really 26 cool experience, and we traveled all
over Israel. Being able to go to the Wall and see the Holocaust museum was really moving. I need to go back because at the time I was 14. It’s definitely something I’d like to do. AJT: You started wearing Sandy Koufax’s No. 32 in high school. Is he a hero of yours? Fried: Growing up in L.A., being left-handed and also Jewish made Sandy Koufax a really good role model. It didn’t hurt that he was also one of the best pitchers of all time. Those are some big shoes to fill, though. AJT: If your turn to pitch came on Yom Kippur, what would you do? Fried: I haven’t really given it that much thought yet, mainly because I haven’t ever played baseball that deep into the year, but it would definitely be a very tough decision. I’d have to consult my family and everyone else to see what the best decision would be. AJT: Have you gotten settled in town yet? Any plans for the High Holidays this year? Fried: I just moved into my new place near the stadium, so it’s been a little crazy, but when it comes around, it’s something I’ll be looking for. AJT: What do you think of the extra attention you get from outlets like the AJT just because you’re Jewish? Fried: It’s special because there aren’t very many Jewish players in the majors. I’m happy about it, I guess. AJT: How do you feel about your pitching performance since you’ve been up at the major-league level? Fried: Well, it’s definitely been an adjustment because I’ve never pitched out of the bullpen before. But I’m doing my best to learn every day and implement it into my game. Once you get out there, it’s still pitching. ■
In his first year coaching a Georgia Tech men’s basketball team predicted to finish last and winless in the ACC, Josh Pastner won eight league games, set a school record for most home wins with 17, led the team to the NIT final for the second time in school history and was named the ACC Coach of the Year. He kept alive a record of never losing three games in a row as a college player, assistant coach or head coach. Supplementing that success with gimmicks such as motorcycle and TV giveaways and free doughnuts, he revived student enthusiasm and alumni excitement about a program that had been moribund on and off the court. But he told the Aug. 16 meeting of the Jewish Breakfast Club that all those accomplishments are secondary. “My No. 1 thing that I think I’ve accomplished to this point at Georgia Tech,” he said, is changing a lengthy, confusing email address that took him five minutes to tell people. Pastner said he made a public comment that he couldn’t believe all the smart people working and studying at Georgia Tech couldn’t make his email simpler. The next morning, he had an email from university President Bud Peterson with the coach’s new email address: jpastner@gatech.edu. It’s worth memorizing because the nice Jewish boy from Houston who became the youngest head coach in NCAA Division I basketball when the University of Memphis hired him at 31 makes a point of answering every email, critical or supportive, fan or foe. “If you email me and don’t get a response, you sent it to the wrong person,” Pastner said. Maybe part of that dedication is related to what happened when he mailed out more than 1,000 handwritten letters to every college basketball program in NCAA Division I, II and III and NAIA Division I and II. He received exactly one response, from Lute Olson at the University of Arizona. Pastner walked on as a player at Arizona, and his first year there, the Wildcats won the national title. He certainly has been responsive to the Jewish community since leaving
Photo by David R. Cohen
Josh Pastner’s appearance at the Jewish Breakfast Club on Aug. 16 is one of several times he has made himself available to the Jewish community this year.
Memphis for Georgia Tech in the spring of 2016. He spoke at a Chabad Intown business networking breakfast in the spring, for example, and he’s scheduled to speak at the Atlanta Scholars Kollel’s networking event Wednesday, Sept. 6. In Memphis, he said some of the board members of his synagogue were also big Memphis basketball boosters who bashed him in the media for not winning as much as John Calipari had. In Atlanta, he became a blue-chip recruit for synagogues. Pastner came to Georgia Tech in part because of the opportunity to build a program without crushing expectations. He was told he would deserve the ACC Coach of the Year award if he won even one conference game. So Pastner added a healthy bonus to his contract for winning Coach of the Year his first season at Georgia Tech. “But when I saw our first workout, I said, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I told our guys we need to schedule a game in the middle of ACC play because I thought we might literally not win a game,” Pastner said, explaining why Georgia Tech played Tusculum in the middle of the season. But the coach instilled a team approach based on gratitude and high energy, and Georgia Tech won its first ACC game last season at home against North Carolina, which went on to win the national championship. “We played so well as a team, and they played as individuals. … Any time a team plays someone that plays as individuals, the team will always win.” ■
Who: Josh Pastner with questions from author Brian Curtis Mand What: “Hoops, Judaism & Life,” the Atlanta Scholars Kollel annual networking event Where: Congregation Or VeShalom, 1681 North Druid Hills Road, Brookhaven When: 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6 Tickets: $30 in advance, $36 at the door; www.atlantakollel.org
ARTS
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Curious George’s Creators Were Picture of Resilience A married Jewish couple from Germany who fled persecution in Europe and created a best-selling series of children’s books is the subject of a new documentary by a young Japanese filmmaker. “Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators” was screened by the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival as its monthly AJFF Selects film Monday, Aug. 14, at SCADshow in Midtown with director Ama Ryan Yamazaki in attendance. A Kickstarter campaign financed her project, which took three years to complete and involved extensive research at the University of Southern Mississippi, where archives of authors Hans and Margret Rey are kept. The Curious George books, first published in 1941, have sold more than 30 million copies in 25 languages. The Reys were living in Paris during the emergence of Nazism and managed to escape just before German forces seized the city in 1940. Traveling
Photo by Tabitha Schwartz for the AJFF
Nat Scrimshaw talks about Curious George while drawing the famous monkey in the style of Hans Rey at the AJFF Selects screening of “Monkey Business.”
south chaotically on bicycles cobbled together by Hans from spare parts, the pair found a train that took them through the rest of France, into Spain and on to Portugal. They found passage on a ship from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro and eventually wound up in New York. In their possession all the while was a manuscript about an impetuous simian that had received positive reaction from potential publishers in Paris but had yet to be developed. They described their arduous journey as an “adventure,” Yamazaki said. “They just seemed to have that outlook. Margret describes Curious George as this monkey who keeps getting into
trouble and then gets himself out of it. I think your art is a product of who you are and your life experiences.” Narrated by actor Sam Waterston, the film traces the evolution of the couple’s journey from war refugees in Europe to successful authors in the United States. It incorporates interviews with war footage specific to June 1940 and inserts animation from illustrator Nat Scrimshaw, who draws in Hans’ style. Scrimshaw, the former director of the Margret and H.A. Rey Center in New Hampshire, was at the screening. As a child, he was a neighbor to the Reys in Cambridge, Mass.
“I first knew him as the magical creator of Curious George, but as I got older, we talked about the energy crisis and the environment and about Vietnam, which he was very concerned about, and his experiences in war,” Scrimshaw said. “From the moment I met Hans, I wanted to draw, and I did. He inspired me.” Yamazaki added: “I’ve been inspired by them too, and I really think all of us can benefit a bit from the Reys. I just want to be as good a storyteller as them. This wasn’t planned, but while I was making the film, the world changed a bit, and so did America.” She said it’s a coincidence that the documentary is coming out at a time when U.S. policies on refugees and immigrants are in the news. “The story is relevant now in terms of resilient people throughout time, also for myself as a recent immigrant to this country,” Yamazaki said. “We would not have Curious George if the U.S. had not let them in. So many things we have now were built by strong people who came here from abroad, who lived through it all.” ■
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
By Kevin C. Madigan kmadigan@atljewishtimes.com
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Israeli Piano Man Performing in Atlanta By David R. Cohen david@atljewishtimes.com One of Israel’s most accomplished musicians is visiting Atlanta on Monday, Sept. 11, for a performance at City Winery Atlanta. The show is part of a five-city tour that includes Boston, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Known as Israel’s piano man, Rami Kleinstein has been compared to Elton John and Billy Joel. Over a 30-year career, Kleinstein has released more than 10 albums, several of which have gone triple platinum. Kleinstein spoke to the AJT in advance of his first show in Atlanta since December 2003. AJT: Rami, you’ve had some big shows here in the past. How excited are you to come back to Atlanta? Kleinstein: I love the shows in Atlanta. The audience always gives me such a warm welcome. AJT: You’ve been called the Israeli Billy Joel. Do you like that comparison? Kleinstein: It is an honor for me to be compared to Billy Joel, one of my musical heroes and influences. There are not many piano men out there. Artists who can go out there on their own and bring down a house with a oneman band are rare.
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
AJT: Who are some of your musical influences and heroes? Kleinstein: Besides Billy Joel, Elton John is right up there. Also, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Keith Jarrett, Peter Gabriel, the Police, Shalom Chanoch, Kaveret, Debussy, Bach, and that is a nice summary of my musical background.
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Israel’s piano man, Rami Kleinstein, is scheduled to play his first show in Atlanta since 2003 on Sept. 11.
AJT: There is a fairly large Israeli population in Atlanta now. Do you have any family or friends who live here? Kleinstein: I don’t know of any relatives or friends in town, but I remember these three words in Hebrew: Kol Israel haverim, meaning all Israelis are friends. AJT: Do you have any special message that you like to pass on when you perform? Kleinstein: No performance of mine is alike, and the message can vary. But I mainly speak of connecting people rather than dividing. I speak about the importance of loving yourself and the ones you’re with. AJT: Anything else you’d like to say to your fans in Atlanta? Kleinstein: I’m really excited to be with you again. Sadly, I won’t have time off to enjoy Atlanta, so I’ll put all my energy and love onstage there. See you guys soon! ■ Who: Rami Kleinstein Where: City Winery Atlanta, Ponce City Market, 650 North Ave., No. 201, Old Fourth Ward When: 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 11 Tickets: $40 to $65; bit.ly/2voKjXS or 404-946-3791
Backing Arab Democracy By Michael Jacobs mjacobs@atljewishtimes.com Elliott Abrams knows all about U.S. efforts to promote democracy. He was a member of the two presidential administrations most aggressive in democracy promotion the past 50 years, serving as assistant secretary of state for human rights and for interAmerican affairs under Ronald Reagan and deputy national security adviser under George W. Bush. Now a senior fellow in Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Abrams has written “Realism and Democracy: American Foreign Policy After the Arab Spring,” in which he makes a convincing case not only that democracy can succeed in Arab nations, but also that the United States has a crucial role to play. Befitting a book from a think tank, “Realism and Democracy” reads like an extended research paper, starting with a 91-page introduction that surveys 40 years of U.S. human rights policy. But it’s comprehensive research enlightened by front-line, neo-conservative experience, including Abrams’ time as an aide to Democratic Sens. Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Abrams makes two crucial points in setting the stage for his policy prescriptions for the Arab world: Support for human rights is ineffective unless it is part of a policy of democracy promotion, and promoting democracy rarely means military intervention. Those points help Abrams criticize two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. He argues that Carter engaged in support for individual activists rather than systematic changes and too often accepted the status quo with Communist nations, and he faults Obama for failing to do anything in support of Arab democrats for
a fear of military involvement. But it would be a shame if people read “Realism and Democracy” through a partisan lens. Abrams points to a time when Democrats like Jackson and Moynihan advocated pressure on regimes oppressing their people, and he challenges the Realpolitik approaches of Republican administrations from Richard Nixon on. Abrams advises an approach that should have bipartisan support. Applying the lessons from the fall of European communism and most Latin American and East Asian authoritarianism, as well as the success of Tunisia amid the many Arab Spring failures, he calls for focused investment in democracy and a refusal to accept dictators’ claims that the choice is between them and terrorist-supporting Islamists. The United States should work to develop political parties, not just fund civil society nonprofits, and use its money and clout, including engagement by the president, to pressure countries to move toward democracy, something polls show Arabs want. The goal shouldn’t be political systems that match ours or the American version of religious freedom. Islamists who accept constitutional rules and who run their parties democratically should be allowed in elections. Dictators should not be propped up with economic aid, nor should security aid go to oppressive military and police forces. Abrams’ bottom line is that the best way to protect American interests, including stopping terrorism, is to actively support democrats and democracy everywhere. ■ Realism and Democracy By Elliott Abrams Cambridge University Press, 312 pages, $24.99
OBITUARIES
Fay Tenenbaum 94, Atlanta
Fay Tenenbaum, age 94, died peacefully at home surrounded by family Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017. Fay is survived by her children and children-in-law, Terry (Jan) Tenenbaum, Susan (Bill) Usdan, Carol (Beverly Moser) Tenenbaum and Debra (Fred Spring) Tenenbaum; sister Anne Lasoff and sister-in-law Rita Levine; grandchildren Stacy (Adam) Blaiss, David, Brittany, Megan (Talor Bearman) and Scott Tenenbaum, and Michael Usdan; great-grandchildren Shane and Jared Blaiss; and a legion of extended family, friends and loved ones. Fay was preceded in death by her husband, Sol Tenenbaum; a brother, Abe Levine; and a son, Allen Tenenbaum. Fay was born in Flatbush, N.Y., to Sam and Sarah Levine. She moved to Atlanta in 1947 to marry Sol Tenenbaum, and they shared a wonderful marriage for 65 years. A true matriarch, Fay was the heart and soul of the Tenenbaum family. Fay’s Shabbat table was legendary for being warm and welcoming and always had room for another guest. An incredibly giving and caring woman, Fay was known as the “Cake Lady” after delivering thousands of homemade pound cakes over the years to fire stations, retail establishments, banks, doctors, family, friends and friends of friends. The movie short “The Cake Lady,” a documentary about Fay and the challenges of aging, was directed by Atlantan Adam Hirsch and won an Audience Award at the 2013 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. Throughout Fay’s life, she was active in the Jewish community. A lifetime member of Shearith Israel, she was also a founding parent of the Hebrew Academy (now Atlanta Jewish Academy) and a longtime supporter of the William Breman Jewish Home. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Breman Jewish Home. Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. A graveside service was held Sunday, Aug. 27, at Crest Lawn Memorial Park with Rabbi Ilan Feldman officiating. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.
Sophie Zwecker Sophie Goldenberg Zwecker passed away peacefully Friday, Aug. 25, 2017, at the age of 91. Sophie, the daughter of Rebecca and Philip Goldenberg, was born in Pensacola, Fla. A woman of many colleges, she attended Sophie Newcomb College in New Orleans and graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in social work. She later studied at Simmons College in Boston and received a master’s degree from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg. Sophie then moved to Atlanta to be one of only three employees at the Atlanta Jewish Welfare Fund (later to become the Jewish Federation). Her very important job was to help German immigrants resettle into American life. Many of our friends remark on how much Sophie helped their parents. It has been said that helping another person become self-sufficient is the highest form of charity. An active volunteer all her life, she was one of the original organizers of the City of Hope, was very active in Hadassah, B’nai B’rith Women, Na’amat and Brandeis University Women, and was a Girl Scout leader. After studying gerontology at Georgia State, she became a certified patient advocate at Wesley Woods and served as an intermediary between hospital and patient. In addition, she became certified as a docent at the High Museum. Sophie instilled the love of learning to all her children and grandchildren. She was a perennial student and attended adult learning classes all her life. Her favorite hobby was playing tennis. Sophie and Jack were married 67 years. They met the first week she was in Atlanta at the Saturday night social at the Progressive Club. They dated only four short months before becoming engaged. It was described as a “mixed marriage” between a Southern belle and a Yankee. She is survived by her husband, Jack; a daughter, Elisa (Bobby) Ezor; and a son, Mark (Lori) Zwecker. She was so proud of her five grandchildren, Zachary, Danielle, Haley, Lindsey and Mitchell. She was predeceased by her parents and brothers. Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made payable to the Ahava Early Learning Center, 600 Peachtree Battle Ave., Atlanta, GA 30327. Graveside services were held Monday, Aug. 28, at Arlington Memorial Park with Rabbi Neil Sandler officiating. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, 770-451-4999.
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
91, Atlanta
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CLOSING THOUGHTS
Romancing Hershey
SEPTEMBER 1 ▪ 2017
Many years ago, I committed myself to losing weight. The key strategy was to write about everything dealing with eating, exercise and losing weight. During that time, I flew to Hershey, Pa., to give a speech. This is what I wrote back then. At the Philadelphia terminal, I skipped the ice cream, hot dog, candy bar, beer, french fries, sandwich and dessert that I would have had in the past. The final test is the Hershey bar now in my briefcase. I’m staying in Hershey, so the hotel provides Hershey bars to all guests. I thought about the Hershey bar as soon as I received it. It was free. In fact, I have two of them, one from another guest who passed it up. I haven’t reached the point yet of passing up free Hershey bars. The Hershey bars are in my briefcase. I know they’re there. Unfortunately, I can’t get the thought out of my mind. The candy bar is immediately available. I could eat it. No one would know. I love chocolate, and this is the chocolate capital of the world. The Hershey bar is almost talking to me, or am I talking to it? It beckons me based on my memory of how satisfying chocolate can be. In the past, the temptation would have been overwhelming. I would have eaten both candy bars within half an hour of going to my hotel room. At least I can say I’ve been here for over an hour without touching them, and I have plenty of room for dessert. Those two Hershey bars make writing so useful. Without this conversation, I would be helpless in combating a 40-year history of enjoying chocolate. I would rationalize the reasons for eating those candy bars. I might say I deserve them, or I did very well today and a piece of chocolate won’t hurt, or I’m lonely away from home, or I need the energy, or I’m bored, or I’m cold, or simply that I want them. It would take only two minutes to grab one, rip open the wrapper and demolish it. I could probably break that time record in devouring the first one. And then, after four minutes 30 of indulging, after four minutes of
ecstasy, I would feel awful the entire night and some of tomorrow, telling myself I had no discipline, no strength of commitment, no ability to even withstand a Hershey bar. No one is here to offer the candy bars to me. No one is suggesting I eat them. No one really knows I have two
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candy bars right now. And, yet, the Hershey bars talk to me across a 40-year history. They have a silent conversation that I have created inside myself. The Hershey bar has great significance for me. It stands for all the temptations I face in living up to my health program. It presents a picture of how easily I can dupe myself, how easily I can rationalize eating stupidly. It is one thing to walk by the ice cream and french fries. That is an accomplishment. But beyond that, there is a higher level of discipline in not touching free candy bars. When they’re free, it takes away some of the support to stay healthy, and it makes temptation that much easier. It’s like a buffet: You aren’t charged any more for having another dessert. If I could dissect the chocolate into its ingredients, I think I would do better. If I thought sugar, milk, cocoa butter and lecithin because chocolate is mostly sugar and fat — sugar and fat, not chocolate. If I could see sugar and fat when I see chocolate, I know I could resist the temptation a lot more easily. But I still get overwhelmed with chocolate, lovely tasting, smoothtextured, sweet-flavored and very satisfying. I know only that without this conversation, those chocolate bars would have been gone long, long ago. With this conversation, at least I have a chance. The bottom line: To avoid a problem, talk about it. The more talk, the more discipline. I never ate the chocolate. I just couldn’t. ■
“Jew-ish Hosts”
By Yoni Glatt, koshercrosswords@gmail.com Difficulty Level: Easy
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ACROSS 1. ___ Yomi (daily page of Gemara) 4. Leader after Moses, for short 8. Common construction need 14. ___ Mae Brown (Oscarwinning role for 44-Across) 15. Ideal status for a service 16. Many a flick produced by Roger Corman or David F. Friedman 17. Longtime TV talk-show host 19. Cut film, like the Coens 20. Sefirat Ha___ (Jewish counting time) 21. 13, 40, 120, e.g. 23. Loafs 24. Karenina or a daughter of Freud 26. Israeli port city that can also be a plot of land 28. Longtime TV talk-show host 34. Tennis star Monica who once appeared on “The Nanny” 35. Puts on YES or 8-Down 36. “I ___ Rock” (Simon & Garfunkel song) 37. ___etz (left-wing Israeli newspaper) 38. Passover month 40. Yom ___ (fast day) 41. Dough machine? 42. “Achshav!” in a hospital 43. Battier who played for Arison’s Heat 44. Longtime TV talk-show host 48. Attraction at Superland or Disneyland 49. Heavenly bear 50. Famous Gertrude 53. QB Tony whom Marc Cuban made a Maverick for a day 55. (The) Old City
59. Los Angeles suburb named for a false goddess of fruit 61. 17, 28 and 44-Across, despite their names 63. Jewelry that would get in the way of tefillin 64. Waze suggestions (abbr.) 65. Stat for Scott Feldman or Clayton Kershaw 66. Seth who would also work with this puzzle’s theme 67. ___ Einai 68. Sinai in Torah
option 30. Turn a deaf ___ 31. Actress Debi 32. “A Stranger ___ Us” 33. Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, e.g. 34. Robert in Spielberg’s “Jaws” 38. Yesh ___ (party) 39. Beeping device for an Einstein doctor 40. Aka for great kabbalist Rabbi Yitzchak Luria 42. Dreidel, for one 43. Baseball stats that violate the Eighth Commandment? 45. One who played for Eli Jacobs’ Baltimore ball club 46. Belonging to legendary director Sydney 47. Some flying Israeli spies 50. Canned treif or junk email 51. Did kriah to a garment 52. 17-Across has won one out of 16 nominations 54. Shrek is one 56. New Jew in Israel 57. Designer Wang who married Arthur Becker 58. Trei ___ (minor prophets) 60. @@@ 62. U.S. security org. whose reputation isn’t as good as El Al’s
DOWN 1. Where krav maga might be taught 2. Magen David ___ 3. Dunaway who announced the wrong best picture winner 4. Jacob’s 11th son, for short 5. Available to help 6. Martial arts actor Steven 7. Hopper with only one sign of kashrut 8. Longtime “eye” network of 28-Across 9. Persian and Greek 10. One shaping clay menorahs, maybe 11. Like Haman 12. “Yafeh” 13. Glatt need? 18. David, compared with those who didn’t face T A P S I L E T Goliath W E E N 22. Test that K E A might be taken M I D L at MTA or SAR E O N A 25. Holy Land L O T T money letters S O R 27. PC corner I T key A B B E Y 28. End that C O L D W some say never C R U H befell Elijah E S R E I 29. Ben Gurion S H A L T car rental S T Y L E 1
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