Atlanta Jewish Community Archives

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Impact Israel & Yemin Orde: Transforming the Lives of At-Risk Youth

For 450 at-risk youth from around the world, Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel is a transformational place. Located on 77 acres atop Mount Carmel, the village serves as a home, school, and safe haven for young immigrants who have suffered trauma and have no other place in Israel to call home.

The village’s youth are from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, France, Brazil, and Israel itself. Through individualized therapeutic care, tutoring, and mentoring, empowers these marginalized teenagers to become accomplished students and successful professionals. The program strengthens crucial life skills and connects participants to their Jewish history.

“The Atlanta Federation has a long history of friendship and collaboration with Yemin Orde, says Deputy Director Susan Weijel. “You have supported our work, visited us, hosted our kids in Atlanta, and made us feel like extended mishpocha (family).” We are especially proud of that Atlanta’s Robert Arogeti now champions philanthropic support for Yemin Orde as the National Chair of ImpactIsrael.”

Robert Arogeti has a long history and personal connection with Yemin Orde that spans more than 30 years. He is also a past chair and lifetime trustee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. Now, through ImpactIsrael, he directs his philanthropic expertise to amplify Yemin Orde’s impact on more than 20,000 current students and alumni each year.

Promoting is just one initiative Atlanta has invested in. It provides students with a framework to overcome academic obstacles and truly believe in their ability to succeed. The Yemin Orde team provides academic support, extensive tutoring, an educational summer camp, and marathon study sessions to prepare students for matriculation exams. There is also a specialized computer science program for students who excel academically. As a result, many students have exceeded their initial academic goals.

Robert Arogeti takes personal pride in this work. Being at Yemin Orde with my wife and daughters reminded me of a mantra I try to live by: Living life by being Jewish every day.’ That has been the essence of Yemin Orde since I first visited in the mid-1980s with Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. After being an advocate, a funder, a believer, and a champion of Yemin Orde, it’s an honor to serve on the ImpactIsrael board of directors”

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Equity Can’t Wait

By Victoria Raggs
Executive Director, Atlanta Jews of Color Council

As a professional Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) consultant, I was very excited that Atlanta Jewish of Color Council (AJOCC) was chosen as one of six organizations in Federation’s Innovation Propel grant cohort for 2022.

AJOCC is a local grassroots nonprofit committed to fostering racial equity, affirmation, and empowerment across the South. I co-founded AJOCC last year with my daughter Ariel Raggs, a student at Mercer University. We recognized that discrimination within our own Jewish community was a problem and wanted to offer a solution. It is our belief that JEDI, if not done correctly, can cause further harm to the very community it’s supposed to help. We want to create a multifaceted strategic action plan to effectively promote inclusion that centers around the marginalized.

AJOCC has set an ambitious mission to drive institutional change by amplifying the local voices of historically excluded and underrepresented Jews of Color. Our core belief is that local Jews of Color can speak for themselves and should have agency in the planning and operations of their local community. We advocate for racial equity in hiring, multicultural belonging, and pipelines into local leadership. Through intentional programming, we want to build empowering, affirming spaces where members and co-conspirators develop a deeper connection to Judaism and Jewish community.

In addition to education, AJOCC wants Jewish organizations to take a comprehensive and systemic perspective to integrate inclusive tangible practices.AJOCC advocates for transparency and accountability to change local policies that shape access to social and economic resources. Ultimately, we want Jewish institutions and Federations, partner agencies, and grantees to accelerate their progress in reducing barriers and advancing racial equity in their work through data and metrics.

Racial injustice has been happening for years, but people, especially young people, are reacting to it very differently now. Their generation expects things to happen quickly. AJOCC wants to engage young people in intentional conversations around oppression and racism. We teach them how to have difficult conversations about bias, recognize racism, and how to organize against it using direct action.

To learn more about AJOCC, visit our website.

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Abe Besser: A Life Rooted in Philanthropy

The Atlanta Jewish community lost a very special person and an outstanding philanthropist when Abe Besser died on April 26, 2021. Abe was fervent in his love for Jewish Atlanta and contributed to almost every Jewish organization in town. Abe was extremely proud that he was a consistent donor to Federation’s annual Community Campaign for more than five decades. Known for his support for Holocaust remembrance, Abe was also a benefactor of the Besser Gymnastics Building at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (MJCCA), numerous programs at Jewish Family & Career Services, and established philanthropic funds at Atlanta Jewish Foundation.

We share Abe’s story because it sits at the intersection of philanthropy, memory, and entrepreneurship. It is a testament to how one individual chose to pay his blessings forward for the benefit of our Atlanta Jewish community. And it illustrates precisely how Atlanta Jewish Foundation can help anyone create a lasting philanthropic legacy.

Born in Krzepice, Poland, Abe was the youngest of seven children. To protect his sisters from being taken by the Nazis, his father sent him to a labor camp. His years of hard labor included walking in the snow with no shoes, and so he rejoiced on the day American planes dropped flyers announcing that the Americans had landed. “When I was in the concentration camp, I promised myself that if I survived, I would build a memorial so that the world would not forget.” Along with his beloved wife Marlene Gelernter Besser, he also planned and executed the outdoor memorial at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta to the six million Jews who perished in the Shoah. He envisioned this as a memorial to his family and to the community as a living tribute for future generations.

What drove this immigrant entrepreneur to give so generously? Abe Besser’s obituary provides clues to his ingenuity and tenacity. Before even arriving in America, Abe founded a cab company in Berlin to serve the American soldiers. At age 24, when he immigrated to the United States, it is said that upon arrival in New Orleans, he literally kissed the ground in thanks. As a new immigrant, Abe was sponsored by the Rosenthal Sheet Metal Company. He paid his debt back to the company over three years and went to night school to learn English. Abe began his career by building houses and apartment complexes throughout greater Atlanta.

Abe Besser’s philanthropic focus on Holocaust remembrance was deeply embedded in his life experiences. In an interview archived at The Breman Jewish Museum, he was asked, “What would you want people to learn about the Holocaust?”

He replied, “What I want them to learn, to see [is] what had happened in a civilized country, what a civilized country did to human beings. Therefore, I want them to see that this education is being brought forward, and taught, and taught, and taught [so] that an atrocity like that would never happen again to human beings. This is the only thing I’d like to see. That it will not occur again, regardless of what religion a person believes. What right does any country have to eradicate a nation because of their religion? The United States is a free country, and everybody believes whatever they want to believe, and that’s the way it ought to be. I’d like to see more and more education, more and more people to understand the Holocaust and the atrocities that happened [so] that it will not occur again. This is my only wish.”

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Confronting Antisemitism in Cobb County

Photo Credits to Atlanta Jewish Times

By Dov Wilker, Regional Director, American Jewish Committee,

Rabbi Larry Sernovitz, and Rabbi Dan Dorsch

In the days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, there were a number of antisemitic incidents at Cobb County schools. The response from the Jewish community, seeking accountability at the schools, as well as by the school board itself, continues to be overwhelming. In fact, more than 4,000 people signed a petition organized by AIAAS (Atlanta Initiative Against Antisemitism).

Although Cobb County schools have had a history of antisemitic incidents, it appears that the school district is hoping to make meaningful changes to support its Jewish students. Both the Chair of the school board and the Superintendent of schools of Cobb County have spoken about the importance of addressing these issues and working to prevent them from taking place in the future.

At school board meetings last week, Rabbi Larry Sernovitz (Temple Kol Emeth) and Rabbi Dan Dorsch (Congregation Etz Chaim), spoke on behalf of the Jewish community in Cobb, with impassioned statements, which we are sharing with FederationFive readers.

On behalf of five synagogues representing two-thousand Jewish families, Temple Beth Tikvah, Temple Kol Emeth, Temple Kehillat Chaim, Chabad of Cobb, and Congregation Etz Chaim, of the East Cobb and Roswell Jewish communities, we are here today to express our collective outrage and disappointment at the way that recent events unfolded following an antisemitic incident at Pope High School.

On Thursday, September 9, swastikas, a symbol of the German Nazi Party that was responsible for the eradication of 6 million Jews and countless minorities during the Holocaust, appeared in the boys’ bathroom at Pope High School, along with its accompanying words: “Hail Hitler” [sic]. This act has left the families we represent and countless others feeling unsafe. Our communities were initially encouraged by assurances that there would be a strong response from the school, as well as other correspondence threatening to suspend or expel the perpetrators of this crime. However, today, we as a community stand united in our disappointment that the school’s response specifically failed to address the hate by name: antisemitism, hatred against Jews — one of the oldest continual prejudices in the world. The failure by the administration to label it by name has left us feeling unheard and unseen.

Unfortunately, while we wish this was an isolated incident, we have spoken to our congregants, and we know that this is not the first, but one in a series of antisemitic incidents that have taken place not only at Pope but at other schools across Cobb County. Believe it or not, since the first event, there have been even more swastikas at Pope and elsewhere. When we asked our constituents for recent stories of their experiences with antisemitism in the district, a flood of emails came our way.

It is with this in mind that in partnership with non-partisan Jewish groups, such as the American Jewish Committee, the Atlanta Initiative Against Antisemitism, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and the Anti-Defamation League, as well as the bipartisan Georgia State Commission on the Holocaust, that we call for the creation at Pope High School, and in other schools across our county, a community of support for all vulnerable populations, for individuals and organizations to stand up and say that they will not tolerate antisemitism, racism, hate speech, and hatred in their community.

We in the Jewish community need committed allies who will speak out along with us: other students, faculty and administration, community groups, churches, synagogues, and mosques. We also need community leaders: student leaders, athletes, politicians, to speak out. As we view education as the key to creating respectful communities, we hope that this incident — one among many — will renew the school board’s interest in committing to teach kids allyship, celebrate difference, and teach understanding in our classrooms.

We also call on the school board to engage in further dialogue with our communities about how the district deals with Jewish holidays, as they impact students, teachers, and public meetings. The fact that it was only very recently that the school board discovered that the original date for this meeting was Yom Kippur, the holiest date on the Jewish calendar, underscores the magnitude of this disconnect and the need for us to work together after this meeting in the long-term to solve this crisis. Jewish students, nor faculty, should never be penalized for honoring their faith and heritage. We are grateful to the board for changing the date once this error was discovered and look forward to this being one of several constructive conversations about how this district can be more inclusive and supportive of its Jewish students and faculty, enabling us to both celebrate our holidays and be active members of our civil society.

Lastly, in the words of Sally Levine, Executive Director of Georgia’s State Commission on the Holocaust, we believe it is imperative that “the school administration at [Pope High School] call the event by its name: antisemitism. That is what it is, pure and simple. When we don’t call it out, we diminish the impact of the event. There are students at Pope High school who now feel vulnerable. They need to know that their classmates, their parents, teachers, and administrators have their backs. Silence is unacceptable. Not naming the crime is unacceptable.”

The time has come for our schools to do their part in helping to end antisemitism.

We thank you for your time and welcome the opportunity to continue this discussion with the distinguished members of our school board.

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JumpSpark Signature Programs – Back for 5782

JumpSpark, Atlanta’s Teen Initiative, is excited to launch a new year with signature program: JumpSpark’s Strong Women Fellowship, JumpSpark Teen Boys Program, and the Amplifying Israel Teen Fellowship.

JumpSpark’s Strong Women Fellowship, now in its third fourth year, empowers female-identifying Jewish teens, grades 9-12, by providing access to strong women leaders, thinkers, and voices who shape their world. Each month participants hear from community leaders and engage in relevant learning that speaks to what it means to be a woman in our time. The Fellowship helps young women grapple with the obstacles they face and prepares them to take on leadership roles now and in the future.

JumpSpark Teen Boys Program helps male-identifying boys unpack the countless messages they hear every day about what it means to “be a man” and decide for themselves what male characteristics they want to emulate. The Fellowship encourages boys to examine various models of manhood and think critically about what means to be a man in today’s world. The group is a place for boys to decompress, learn tactics to deal with stress, and discover strategies for dealing with emotions in a society that tells them they should hold in their feelings.

Amplifying Israel Teen Fellowship. Last year JumpSpark added teen Israel travel to its portfolio and made it even more compelling with its Amplifying Israel Teen Fellowship. This bold initiative has strengthened Atlanta’s relationship with teens in our partnership region, Yokneam and Megiddo, and amped up demand for teen travel to Israel.

Just as we bring Shinshinim to Atlanta from our partnership region, we are now sending two Atlanta Yokneam and Megiddo as part of their gap year in Israel. Last year our Amplifying Israel Teen Fellows worked with four identified teen leaders in Atlanta’s partnership region. They are ambassadors who are trained as social media storytellers for the program as they help to engage more teens in immersive Israel experiences and build excitement for Israel travel.

Visit the JumpSpark website for more information about programs.

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A Call to Protect the Earth

By Rabbi Jonathan Crane and Joanna Kobylivker

During the month of Elul, Jews blow the shofar daily in preparation for Rosh Hashanah. This year, the shofar’s distinct cry also heralded the beginning of another cycle, the shmitah year.

Shmitah is a biblically-mandated agricultural rule to let the land lie fallow every seventh year. The land’s rest, as the great medieval philosopher Maimonides reflected, makes the earth more fertile and stronger. Moreover, he says that observing the shmitah helps make people more compassionate, it makes civilization better. This may be because the shmitah year is like a shofar, a chance for the land, air, and water to cry out, awaken us both to our vital dependence on and cruelty toward the natural world.

The advent of a shmitah year, like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, provides us a chance to take stock of our behavior. Every seven years Judaism encourages us to inquire about our “agricultural report card.” By all accounts, we merit a failing grade. Most credible evidence points to the overwhelming conclusion that our environment is worse off now than it was seven years ago. And scientific consensus confirms that it is human activity that is responsible for this global environmental deterioration.

The science is simple. The implications are serious. Sea level rise, longer droughts, more flash floods, more fires, slower moving and stronger hurricanes, more intense cold air outbreaks while the poles warm faster, hotter temperatures overall, increased desertification (including parts of Israel, many areas already fraught with tension over water rights), food and water resource challenges leading to climate refugees. It’s a serious list. And Judaism tells us we may not ignore this problem. We do not have that luxury.

Just as the Jewish new year holidays instruct us to acknowledge the harms we cause and to commit ourselves to doing better, so does the shmitah year. We are not at liberty to justify the environmental harms we have caused, or to downplay, deflect, or disavow them.

On the contrary, Jews are to muster the courage to be honest in our self-assessment. This is true in the ways we treat each other and especially in regard to the way we treat the natural world. It means exercising more restraint when it comes to using disposable plastic, taking a hard look at the amount of carbon we consume in the form of gas and electricity, considering the sources of the food that we eat, and reducing how much we discard. It means demanding better sustainable practices from our companies and stronger environmental protections from our governments.

We still have a chance to preserve the natural world and protect the health and lives of our neighbors, and by coming together as a community we can do just that. As Hans Jonas, a great 20th-century Jewish philosopher, put it: “Our descendants have a right to be left an unplundered planet.” This shmitah year, let us do what is necessary to make good on that right. We have no time—and no environment—to waste.

Rabbi Jonathan Crane currently serves as the Raymond F. Schinazi Scholar in Bioethics and Jewish Thought in the Center for Ethics at Emory University, is a Professor of Medicine, and is the founding director of the Food Studies and Ethics initiative at Emory.

Joanna Kobylivker is the Community Organizer for the Jewish community at Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) and is the Founder and Chair of the Jewish Climate Action Network of Georgia (JCAN GA).

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The Impact of a Gap Year in Israel

Sheryl Korelitz, Director of Gap Year Recruitment for Masa North America, works with JumpSpark and Federation to recruit students for gap year programs in Israel and match students with programs that suit their interests and needs. We asked Sheryl, the proud mother of two Masa gap year daughters, about the value of this experience:

Q: Why send your teen on a gap year program in Israel?

A: So many parents think of a gap year as a year off and worry that their kids will fall behind their peers when they get to college. Overwhelmingly, research shows that a gap year is incredibly beneficial for college success. Gap year alumni have higher GPAs in college and tend to graduate in four years. They are more focused in terms of their careers, and they develop a higher level of independence and maturity.

All types of kids grow during their gap year. Highly driven kids really benefit from time to breathe and flex different muscles. This gives them a year without expectations and less pressure. And kids who are not super students, who spent their high school years not feeling great about themselves because school wasn’t their best skill, they come back brand new! They walk taller, speak with confidence, and have had a year of tremendous growth and self-discovery.

Q: What are the benefits of deferring college to go on a gap year?

A: Kids have FOMO (fear of missing out), and I get it. They think their brain will wither, or that they’ll forget grammar if they take a year away. Some Israel programs have an academic base where you can earn college credit. But the truth is, your college peers won’t care where you spent the previous year. A gap year gives you a whole year to learn how to make all new friends — you’ll come to campus with that skill. You’ve learned to live with a roommate, you’ve done your own laundry, you’ll hit campus running. You’re not behind, you’re ahead.

Future employers will appreciate your experience, and the fact that you have friends from all over the world is a gift that you’ll have forever. And you’ll have BIG fun!

Q: What does a gap year mean for Jewish identity and future leadership?

A: Parents are understandably anxious about the influence of the BDS (Boycott/Divestment/Sanction) movement on campus and students’ general lack of knowledge about Israel. A gap year is not meant to teach your kids how to be Jewish on campus or dictate a particular point of view on Israel, rather it lets them take ownership of their Judaism — discover how they feel about Israel, and what it all means. Their Israel experience empowers them to come from a place of knowing. They’ve lived it. They’ve met Palestinians. They’ve seen Israeli life and culture. The year empowers young adults to be strong in their Judaism. Being away from family, away from synagogue, helps students make their own decisions. Nothing is more powerful.

There is a strong correlation between Jewish campus leadership and an Israel experience. The Zalik Foundation, a funder of Atlanta scholarships for Israel gap year options, is specifically focused on this and I think it’s wonderful. These nine months spent in Israel are life-changing and I truly believe that they contribute to the Jewish future. I applaud the Zalik Foundation for seeing how impactful this can be.

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Jewish Atlanta: Built for Limmud

Ana and I attended Limmud Atlanta at Ramah Darom just before the High Holy Days. It was great to be back, and even in the midst of the Delta variant surge, we felt completely safe and had a spectacular time.

Did you know that there are 97 Limmud communities around the world? Most are one-day events held indoors. Limmud Atlanta is one of a handful of multi-day Limmuds held over Shabbat in a beautiful camp setting. Most Limmuds went virtual when the pandemic began, but Limmud Atlanta was committed to returning to an in-person event as soon as it was safe. This August we had the distinction of holding the first in-person Limmud in the Western Hemisphere since early 2020!

Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me. Echoing the theme of our 2022 Community Campaign, “Built for This,” it’s clear to me Jewish Atlanta was also built for the diversity, volunteerism, innovation, and community building that is Limmud.

Diversity: Jewish Atlanta was built to create Limmud because we are a truly diverse Jewish community. Limmud deeply values all streams of Judaism and prioritizes intra-Jewish dialogue. Limmud core values require that every event meets the needs of people across the spectrum of Jewish observance. I will never forget the time a group from The Kehilla led the entire dining room in a rousing birkat ha mazon (blessing after a meal), or the many times we’ve debated Israeli politics with respect and civility. Intra-Jewish engagement is Limmud at its best.

Not only that, but Limmud is age and geographically-diverse. This year we welcomed folks from Knoxville, Augusta, Asheville, South Carolina, and Florida. It’s a place where toddlers, kids, teens, young adults, and older adults become a community together. With so much informal time to share meals and schmooze, it’s no surprise that that Limmud has led to marriages, babies, and lasting intergenerational friendships.

Volunteerism: Jewish Atlanta is blessed with incredible depth in volunteerism. So too, Limmud is a 100% volunteer-run event. Most presenters are unpaid. At Limmud titles like Rabbi, Doctor, and Professor are dropped. This non-hierarchical structure encourages people to show up and really take responsibility. Passionate, committed volunteers rise quickly within the organization.

Innovation: Atlanta is about learning, and it also prizes innovation. Sessions range from traditional text study to the truly offbeat. Limmud loves putting a Jewish spin on hiking, yoga, music, and culture. One beloved Limmud tradition is a post-Shabbat cigar and scotch gathering, held outdoors. This year we honored Limmud Atlanta’s first executive Director Naomi Rabkin, z”l, by bringing in an innovative Jewish farmer for a learning track on the shmitah year — its history and its relevance in modern times.

This year, fearlessly, Limmud Atlanta had multiple sessions on race, gender and Jewish identity, and the imperative to open doors across our institutions to Jews of color. These sessions were frequently raw and emotional. They tested us to live out our highest ideals and face our failings. I love that about Limmud too.

I urge you to open yourself up to the possibility of attending Limmud Atlanta next year. Limmud is one of those immersive Jewish places where all kinds of people, at all levels of understanding and experience, can find meaning together. It’s exactly what Federation has in mind with its Family Camp initiative, creating new ways to connect with other Jews and with Jewish tradition.

Limmud succeeds because it was built for all of us, by all of us.

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Facing Eternal Challenges

By Rabbi Joshua Heller, Congregation B’nai Torah
For some, these High Holidays 5782 have elicited the response. “Oh no, not again!” — though I suppose that some feel that way about the holidays every year! We assumed that this year would be different from last year, and yet we are facing some of the same challenges again.

Our Biblical role models suffered the same repetition, and their experience may offer us some clarity. In every generation in Genesis, younger siblings earned the favor of their parents and the jealousy of their older siblings. Consider the rivalries of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Leah and Rachel. Twice, Sarah was taken from her husband by a foreign king with ill intent, and then Rebecca suffered the same fate. On Rosh Hashanah, we read how both Sarah and Hannah struggled with infertility. Abraham went through a total of ten tests.

Scholars offer explanations for this phenomenon, from the literary to the mystical. As we enter 5782, I believe there is another lesson we can learn, which is that life continues to challenge us with the same tests until we pass. From year to year, we may encounter the same conflicts and obstacles in our personal development, our families, organizations, and workplaces. Those who battle addiction must fight that fight every day. It is true for our Jewish community and larger society as well. We face the same challenges of conflict and fragmentation that threatened us a year ago.

Those tests, as challenging as they are, offer an exceptional opportunity. The essence of repentance is that we are given the opportunity to “re-test” and to improve upon our answers to life’s questions. This is not only true for our Jewish nation or for our community, but for us as individuals. This year we have the opportunity to do better than we did last.

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Shmitah Year: A Call to Change

When I joined Federation five years ago, Steve Rakitt, a past CEO of our Federation, congratulated me by sending a big, green plant. It thrived in my office until we left to work remotely, then it dramatically wilted and turned brown. I consigned it to our HR Director Jeanette Park, who spent months lovingly nursing it back to life. Today my plant is smaller, but thanks to Jeanette, it’s green and growing.

The plant’s comeback hints at one of the most revolutionary ideas in the history of humankind — the shmita or sabbatical year. Shmitah is the Torah’s commandment that humans take responsibility for the earth by letting the land lie fallow every seven years. A shmita year is also about justice — we are commanded to forgive all debts and let those who are hungry glean the grapes, olives, and crops that have not been harvested.

Rosh Hashanah 5782 ushers in a shmitah year and it has me thinking that for all the ways we have adapted and pivoted these past 18 months to survive the pandemic, what, if anything, have we done to truly change? This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I believe that we stand at the brink of a major moral opportunity. There is no going back to normal. Everything around us has been disrupted and yet we cling to old habits, worn strategies, and puny expectations. A shmitah year, especially after a pandemic, is a reset, a moment to commit to radical change.

Let us use this brilliant opportunity, the shmitah year, to reevaluate our priorities and address them with fresh and bold thinking. It has never been more relevant or more urgent than right now.