New Member Spotlight
A highlight of new members through Q&A… We hope you will learn about and get to know the new members of our AA family!
Introducing Jay D'Lugin and Tyler Curtain
Where in Atlanta do you live and what do you like to do?
Jay: Before the pandemic, we lived 50% in Chapel Hill and 50% in Atlanta. Since then, we live 95% in Chapel Hill. In Atlanta, we live right in the center of town. We take the train and walk to lots of places. When we drive, it's to go to a good restaurant.
Tyler: When in Atlanta, our favorite part to visit is any good restaurant that is coming on the scene. We will travel to good restaurants. As an example, we love a bagel place far north… far OTP [(outside the perimeter)]. It's in a rural area and is clearly a northeast transplant.
Why did you choose AA as your synagogue?
Jay: I was with a different synagogue, but, over time, it was going in a different spiritual direction than what I was looking for. AA reminded me of the shul I grew up in (conservative), and it felt more like what I was looking for/what I grew up with. The services are very familiar. The tunes were modern but in keeping with what I was looking for. It is also SO close to where we were living. Now it feels like home religiously and socially.
What's your 9–5 and 5–9 life?
Jay: 9–5: I actually work in Philadelphia. I "travel" there virtually every day but also physically travel there at times. I trained as an emergency medical physician as part of Thomas Jefferson University/Jefferson Health, and my job title is CMIO, Chief Medical Information Officer. If it's a technology used to deliver anything to patients, that's my purview. 5–9: We have two beagles. They are a handful.
Tyler: I am an academic… Academics famously don't have off switches, so my 9–5 and 5–9 look the same! I am a Professor of English at the University of NC Chapel Hill. I tell time based on when I should be in front of a class of kids. I have a computer science and computer engineering background but moved to the humanities. I am now in the digital humanities field, and my interest in computers comes through in my teaching… science fiction in particular.
Is what you're doing now what you always wanted to do growing up?
Jay: Medicine, yes. Informatics, I stumbled into and married together with medicine. At the time that I started, this was nascent. It was hard to describe to graduate programs that I wanted to do medical informatics. It didn't really exist that way. My pre-med advisor said "If you don't get into medical school what are going to do with a bio degree? Do you want to teach high school? What are you good at?" That's how I wound up doing information tech on the medical side.
Tyler: Yes. I knew at 13 that I wanted to be an English professor. I was really good at math and science. It was the 1980s, and I was offered a scholarship to study computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder, which was really important to my working-class family—It helped set my path even though it wasn't traditional.
What's one fact about you that people would be surprised to find out?
Jay: People look at my last name and say "You're Jewish?" I speak fluent French but taught myself. As a project, I learned Yiddish.
Tyler: I was born and raised in the West. I was born in Albuquerque and grew up in Colorado. I miss the West—Its landscape and people are very different from the east coast. My family is all out west—My brother is a filmmaker in Hollywood, and my sister lives in the mountains outside Denver.
What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Jay: You don't have to take the same cow path that everybody else is taking. Everyone that was pre-med was in biology or chemistry, and I just did the bare minimum in those. For pre-med, I studied what I was interested in and what I succeeded in. Do what you enjoy.
Do you have a favorite charity that you wish people knew more about?
Jay: Ahavath Achim!
Tyler: We both give to the Beagle Triangle Rescue. We both give generously to the Bread Loaf School of English (started by Robert Frost)—It only opens during summers, usually teaching other teachers during the summer.
Special Message
Shabbat Corner
- Candle Lighting: 8:29 p.m.
- Chesed Appreciation Shabbat 🔀: 9:30 a.m.—Zoom
- Torah Study 🔀: 10:30 a.m.—Zoom
- Rebbe's Tish ⏺️: 12:15 p.m.
- Mincha/Ma'ariv/Havdallah Service ▶️: 8:30 p.m.—Zoom
- Conclusion of Shabbat: 9:13 p.m.
- Torah Parsha (Baha'alotcha):
- Annual: Numbers 8:1–12:16
- Triennial: Numbers 8:1–9:14
- Haftara: Zechariah 2:14–4:7
- Parsha Video of the Week: The Schechter Institutes—Parashat Baha'alotcha
Feel-Good News
Kiddush Sponors
Sheila and David Adelman in honor of their anniversary on 6/1
Events
Other Things Happening at AA
Registration for Kesher religious school (3 Yrs–6th Grade) and Neisah teen program (7th–9th Grade) is now open! Take advantage of our early-bird rates by applying before 
We are looking for nominations for The Marvin C. Goldstein and Rita Goldstein Wolfson Volunteer of the Year Award (presented to a volunteer who has shown outstanding efforts to strengthen our congregation and community) and the Cantor Isaac Goodfriend award for Exemplary Leadership to be presented at the Annual Meeting in June. To submit recommendations, please contact Jackie Nix ([email protected]; 404.603.5743). Along with names, please include the rationale behind your recommendations. Each recommendation received will be vetted and researched by our clergy, professional staff, and officers for final award determinations.
Overnight summer camp plans? Is your child is heading to an overnight camp this summer? If so, we'd love to hear your plans so we can try to arrange a visit (with local Jewish camps) and/or send a small gift (all camps). Please fill out this brief survey letting us know where your child will be and when.
This year, we would like to include grandchildren in our college and graduate school outreach. In addition to letters and treats around the Jewish holidays, our rabbis will be making visits to schools with more than three Ahavath Achim connected students. Let us know where your grandchildren are studying, and we will make sure they receive something meaningful from you and your spiritual family! If you have a grandchild enrolled in college, please contact Jill Rosner (404.603.5741; [email protected]) with the student's name, email, and school housing address.
We feel blessed to have a vibrant community that believes in the power of prayer as a source of comfort, strength and healing. At every service, we take a moment to recite the names of individuals we are holding in our hearts for health and healing. Beginning January 1, 2023, all are welcome to add names to our Misheberach (Healing) Prayer List for 30 days. These names will be recited each morning during prayer regardless of their support's presence at services. At the end of 30 days, we request that names be renewed with our office receptionist, Fern Schorr ([email protected]; 404.355.5222). Without renewal, names will be removed from the list with our hope that our prayers were successful in sending strength and wholeness.
Do you know an AA congregant who is in the hospital or infirm? We are concerned about loved ones and friends who are in the hospital or infirm. Although our synagogue office remains closed, we are still working and would like to connect with you, especially in regards to pastoral care. If you have information about friends or family in the hospital or other care facilities, please contact Rabbi Rosenthal ([email protected]) directly. We always appreciate the opportunity to speak with anyone in need and offer support in any way we can.
Through our membership with the ADL's (Anti-Defamation League) Kulanu Initiaitve, our AA family is creating an antisemitism task force to partner with other communities across the country to collectively fight hate and antisemitism. Membership on the task force will require a year's commitment and involve participation in ADL virtual meetings and community of practice working sessions. Our congregation will also offer special programs, initiatives, and action steps to raise awareness, call out local and national antisemitic incidents, and build relationships with communities susceptible to antisemitic infiltration. To learn more about or to join the task force, please contact Rabbi Rosenthal ([email protected]).
Help feed the women at Rebecca's Tent, a shelter for homeless women at Congregation Shearith Israel! There are 21 dates to fill during the months of December, January, and March. Volunteering to provide dinner this season is easier than ever; safety concerns limit the number of women served, and the shelter can now accept restaurant meals or your home-cooked specialties. If you're ready to choose your date(s) to volunteer, please fill out the online form (link below). After signing up, we will email you with confirmation of your submission. For more details or questions about volunteering, please contact Ann and Herb Alperin ([email protected]; 404.231.2310).
We need your involvement in AA's social action programs! Motivate your family and friends "into action" towards the betterment of our community, and envision our current programs continued for the future. Reach out to your nieces, nephews, friends, and new neighbors for new contacts and ideas to help us increase our pool of volunteers for our wonderful existing and future programs. We need you! Find out how you want to be involved by reviewing the list of social action programs in which our synagogue has been involved for many years. If you'd like to become involved, please email our Social Action Chair: Alan Wexler ([email protected]; 404.872.8880).
Are you a warm, friendly, dedicated volunteer who wants to make a difference in a fellow congregant's life through acts of loving kindness? Are you willing to make a personal call or visit to comfort and support a congregant who has lost a loved one or been ill? These caring touches – acts of loving kindness – make all the difference in the world to those receiving them. If you want to be a part of strengthening our community, then AA's new Chesed Initiative is for you! This committee will work with our clergy, staff, and lay leaders to connect members who need help with members who want to do good deeds! Additionally, if you know of a congregant who is facing personal difficulties related to health, loss, or grief, please contact Fern Schorr ([email protected]; 404.355.5222) to let us know. Help us reach out to members in need. We welcome your help and time with this important project.
In 1977 a very special Torah came to reside at AA. Czech Torah #1339 was originally written in the 1800s for the community of Plzeň, Czech Republic. The Torah survived the Holocaust, a coup, and 20 years in a basement with 1500 other scrolls before making it's way to London as part of the Memorial Scrolls Trust and eventually Atlanta. Today we are working to restore this piece of history to a usable state and welcome it into our sanctuary ark at our dedication in August. To do that, we need your help. Please consider making a donation to help restore this special Torah so it can be used for generations to come. The Czech Torah is championed by six generations of the Goldstein Family in memory of Betty and Leon Goldstein z"l and their love of Torah and learning.
Donate to the Ukraine Emergency Fund of Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta
We are proud and grateful to formally launch the Marilyn Ginsberg Eckstein Cultural Arts Program Fund. Formerly the Cultural Arts Program, established in 1977, this fund was established by congregant Marilyn Ginsberg Eckstein to perpetuate AA's broad cultural arts program offerings. AA's cultural arts programming currently consists of: the Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture Series, the Chamber Concert Series, the Liturgical Music Artist-in-Residency Program, weekly Shabbat and annual High Holiday musical offerings, and jazz, pop, vocal and instrumental concert offerings. The Cultural Arts Program has long been recognized for its breadth of offerings and its excellence. We hope that you will consider making contributions to this fund as the Marilyn Ginsberg Eckstein Cultural Arts Program offerings continue to present world-renowned speakers, dignitaries, artists, and virtuoso musicians.
