Local Briefs: 5 Appointed to Holocaust Panel
5 Appointed to Holocaust Panel
A Sandy Springs City Council member, a retired rabbi and the owner/publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times are among five people added to the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust at a Capitol ceremony Tuesday, Jan. 19.
Joining the commission are Andy Bauman, a Temple Sinai member and lawyer who represents District 6 on the Sandy Springs City Council; Rabbi Philip Kranz, who retired to emeritus status at Temple Sinai in 2006 after 26 years as the senior rabbi at the Reform congregation; Jody Franco, a longtime Jewish community volunteer and Atlanta native who serves as a docent at the Holocaust Commission’s “Anne Frank in the World” exhibit in Sandy Springs; Robert Wittenstein, a former Dunwoody City Council member and current president of the Dunwoody Homeowners Association who serves on the national and regional boards of the Anti-Defamation League; and Michael A. Morris, who served in various capacities with a wide range of Jewish and other nonprofit organizations, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, before buying the AJT at the end of 2014.
The five are officially the selections of House Speaker David Ralston, although he turned to advisers such Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul and state Rep. Wendell Willard, R-Sandy Springs, to make his picks.
By statute, the 15-member commission consists of five appointees each by the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker.
Gov. Nathan Deal swore in his five appointees — Chuck Berk, Evan Jacobs, Sara Kogon, Lisa Olens and Claire D’Agostino — on Dec. 16. D’Agostino, a reappointment, also was named the commission’s chairwoman.
The other members, all appointed by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, are Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple, Elizabeth Price, Mark Scheinfeld and Linda Selig, with one vacancy.
AJC Atlanta representatives Jen Pardee (left), the development director; Sylvia Gorg, a board member; and Dov Wilker, the executive director, attend the International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the United Nations on Jan. 27.
U.N. Remembrance
The executive director of the Atlanta Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, Dov Wilker, led a local delegation to New York to join AJC representatives from around the country at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration Wednesday, Jan. 27, in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations.
The event included speeches by Holocaust child survivor Haim Roet, an Amsterdam native who now leads efforts to honor Jews who rescued other Jews from the Nazis, and Marta Wise, an Israeli who spoke on behalf of Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon and who was among the children pictured behind barbed wire in a famous photograph taken on the day of liberation from Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945.
Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld gave the keynote address, and the U.S. Military Academy Jewish Choral Group closed the program.
Music to Emory’s Ears
The Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University on Thursday, Feb. 4, unveiled its Joel A. Katz Music Is Medicine Collection of platinum records, autographed guitars, handwritten lyrics and other items donated by Joel Katz, an entertainment and media lawyer with Greenberg Traurig.
The gift of the priceless collection coincides with the T.J. Martell Foundation’s establishment of the Joel A. Katz Music Is Medicine Fund to support cancer research at Winship.
The artists represented by the three dozen items include Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Alan Jackson.
The Joel A. Katz Music Is Medicine Collection is in the Tunnel Level of the Winship Cancer Institute building and is free and open to the public weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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