Briefs: AJA Gets Grant for Berman Commons
Atlanta Jewish Academy students have been frequent visitors at Berman Commons since the nonprofit assisted living home opened in Dunwoody last year. Upper School students often choose Berman Commons as a fun way to fulfill community service requirements, and younger students rehearse musicals and perform holiday programs for the appreciative audience.
Thanks to a Legacy Heritage Better Together grant, the intergenerational relationship between Berman Commons and AJA will be even stronger in the new academic year.
“Connecting the younger generation with the residents at Berman Commons has been a wonderful experience for us,” said Amanda Bunder, AJA’s service learning coordinator. “Seeing our students interact with their elders, learning from them and giving back to them in return is just amazing. Now the Better Together grant is enabling us to do even more to bring them together. We’re looking forward to including our Middle School students in our visits and service learning, as well as adding more joint programming for the students and residents.”
Micah Frankel, a 10th-grader and occasional visitor to Berman Commons, is looking forward to spending more time with the residents. “When I work with the elderly,” he said, “I feel as if I am making people joyous and putting a smile on their faces.”
Anshel Roth, a senior, found that he gained more from his visits than he gave: “Getting to hear the story of a Holocaust survivor from the man who lived through it touched me.”
Bunder appreciates the goals of the Legacy Heritage Better Together program, which seeks to integrate the aspects of Jewish living (Torah, avodah, gemilut hasadim), promote Jewish leadership in young people and encourage connections between age groups.
“It makes the students feel good,” Bunder said, “and the residents feel like they haven’t been forgotten by their Jewish community.”
Club J With 11 Schools
The Marcus Jewish Community Center’s Club J after-school program opens for the 2016-17 school year Monday, Aug. 8.
Club J participants enjoy afternoons filled with planned activities, supervised homework time, outlets for physical activity and the chance to make friends.
The program runs Monday through Friday from 2:30 to 6 p.m. and is open to boys and girls in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. Bus transportation to Club J at Zaban Park at 5342 Tilly Mill Road in Dunwoody is provided from 11 schools: Austin Elementary, Chesnut Charter Elementary, the Davis Academy, Dunwoody Elementary, Kingsley Elementary, Kittredge Magnet, Montgomery Elementary, Peachtree Charter Middle, the Epstein School, Vanderlyn Elementary and Atlanta Jewish Academy.
Three-, four- and five-day programs are available. To register, visit www.atlantajcc.org/clubj. Email clubj@atlantajcc.org or call 678-812-3899 for more information.
Instant Donations
Pita Palace and Broadway Cafe have made it easier for people to contribute to Torah learning by in-stalling CharityPad terminals at their Toco Hills restaurants.
With the swipe of a credit card, a customer can make a donation to any or all of the following educational institutions in the neighborhood:
- Torah Day School of Atlanta.
- Yeshiva Ohr Yisrael.
- Kollel Ner Hamizrach.
Collectively those three institutions teach Torah from kindergarten through adulthood.
If you include your email address when making a donation, CharityPad sends you a donation receipt.
New TDSA Board
Torah Day School of Atlanta, which has a new administration (see Page 29), elected a new board of trustees in late July.
Rabbi Menachem Deutsch is the board president, joined by Vice President Rabbi Eli Kerzner, Treasurer Yisrael Herscovici, Secretary Pesha Izenberg and Parliamentarian Sara Robbins. The other trustees are Eric Adelman, Levi Afrah, Yaakov Berendt, Kim Cohen, Les Czuper, Karen Kaplan, Betty Minsk, Robin Saul, Jordan Tritt and Michelle Winer.
Satanic Clubs Sought
The Satanic Temple is making a national push to counter faith-based before- and after-school clubs by rolling out After School Satan Clubs.
It’s not clear that the clubs exist anywhere or that the Satanic Temple truly wants to launch them, but it has included one Atlanta-area school, Still Elementary in Powder Springs, on its list of targeted schools.
The Cobb County School District denied being contacted by the organization or having any intentions of started a Satan Club.
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