JGA July-August 09 - The Jewish Georgian

Page 24 THE JEWISH GEORGIAN July-August 2009
Member of Piedmont Healthcare
Your health can’t wait.
“Yes, We Take Your Insurance.”
Walk-ins Welcome,
Minimum Wait!
ALL AGES WELCOME
• IMMEDIATE CARE
• PRIMARY CARE
• TRAVEL MEDICINE
Open
7 Days
678-904-5611
www.perimeterclinic.com
3867 Roswell Road 1/2 Mile North of Piedmont Road
Just a few minutes from anywhere in Buckhead, Midtown, Brookhaven, Sandy Springs
JF&CS NEWS
COMMUNITY OUTREACH PROJECTS HELP FEED THE HUNGRY. This spring,
Rabbi Joshua Lesser, of Congregation Bet Haverim, introduced an inspired Seder program
that he called “Pay it Forward.” Attendees were encouraged to bring grocery store gift cards,
which were then donated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Jewish Family & Career
Services. More than 125 congregants, including 40 children, participated in this special
Seder. Rabbi Lesser presented gift cards worth $2,080 to JF&CS CEO Gary Miller and
Outreach Director Linda Briks. He hopes to do this program again next year.
Congregation Etz Chaim completed a Social Action Committee project in which they
sold The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook. The book contains more than 120 stories of
Holocaust survivors and more than 200 recipes. A portion of the cookbooks’ profits will go
to the Carmel Ha-ir Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem; additional proceeds will go to the Atlanta
Community Food Bank and the JF&CS Kosher Food Pantry.
Congregation Bet Haverim and Congregation Etz Chaim are two of the 11 synagogues
that the JF&CS Community Outreach Team works with to bring services and programming
to people in their neighborhoods and synagogue communities.
RECOGNIZING A LEADER. JF&CS Board Member Lynn Redd received the Leadership
Award from the Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies at the 37th Annual
AJFCA Conference, May 3-5, in Chicago. Lynn became eligible for this honor after she
received the 2009 Herbert Kohn Meritorious Service Award from JF&CS.
Lynn Redd has been an active JF&CS volunteer for approximately 13 years, serving on
the Board of Directors for 10 of those years. Most recently, she successfully chaired the
agency’s first $1 million Annual Campaign. Previously, she chaired the Marketing
Committee and the Volunteer Committee. She developed business plans that resulted in the
establishment of the organization’s Synagogue Outreach Program and Legacy Home Care.
She recently assumed the position of vice president of Resource Development.
Redd has professional experience in the healthcare industry, including management
consulting, venture capital, strategic planning, and information technology. She also worked
for the federal government developing national health care policy. She has a bachelor’s
degree in biology from Brown University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania. Redd lives with her husband and two teenage children in
Atlanta.
Novel sheds light on little-examined
piece of WWII history
The Guernsey Literary and
Potato Peel Pie Society
By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows 2008
Random House
288 pp., $22
BY Carolyn
Gold
hat a wonderful book! The Guernsey
Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Wis
charming, quirky, and yet serious in an easy-to-read way. This novel by Mary
Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows is made up entirely of correspondence.
The year is 1946. In these letters, you meet the characters who lived through the German
occupation of the British Island of Guernsey in the English Channel
during World War II.
The deprivation of the island’s inhabitants accounts for the
“Potato Peel Pie” part of the title. Much of the story tells how these
occupants survived. Some of it touches on German concentration
camp victims and their treatment at the hands of the Nazis, but the
main story takes place after the war.
Juliet Ashton, a writer, goes to the island to learn more and to
write a book about the occupation and its aftermath. The people she
meets are members of the Guernsey Literary Society; they formed
the group to circumvent the German curfew and, through their book
discussions, developed lasting bonds with one another. Running
through the story is a romance that takes a surprising turn at the end
of the book.
Mary Ann Shaffer passed away when her book was in its final stages, and her niece
Annie Barrows finished the work. The language and thoughts are so everyday, quite British,
and delightfully humorous, as well as touching. The island’s occupants observed the good
and bad of humankind with resignation, kindness, and some small efforts to outsmart their
captors when possible. They watched German planes flying over to bomb London, slave
laborers building bunkers on their shores, and even German soldiers scrounging for food as
the islanders themselves had done.
The book, in a most creative way, brings a period in history down to a very small island
and a small group of people, yet touches universal emotions.