Shalom, North Georgia!
A Remembrance by Judy Kreps
About this time of year in 2000 I was standing on my deck looking at the dogwood buds swelling with the imminent Spring, and thought “I can’t be the only Jew around here!” Our beautiful daughter Marisa was only a toddler then, but I felt strongly about raising her Jewish, even though my own Jewish upbringing had been truncated and I had loathed Saturday School – but hey, the holidays and food were great! But having a child can change you, I guess, and it did for me, and I felt the need to strengthen my Jewish heritage very strongly. I happened to luck into another Jewish family with kids about Marisa’s age here in Dahlonega, the Wassermans, and shared my idea of trying to start a synagogue in this area; together we came up with a name for our group, Shalom! North Georgia (the exclamation point, we all felt, was important), and then we said, now what? I asked around the Atlanta Jewish groups and put an ad for our fledgling group with an email address in their newsletters, and – a miracle! – someone answered! I will never forget getting that email – but the irony is that that first respondent has (to my knowledge) yet to attend a service!
At any rate, more emails followed that first one, and now I knew there were other Jews out there, somewhere, and that they were interested in forming a community. I enlisted the help of the UAHC SE division and got hooked up eventually with Rabbi Jody Cohen (no relation to Mitch, at least in this century) who was a fantastic support and help, talked to rabbis in Roswell and Alpharetta and Atlanta and even my old (literally!) rabbi from New Jersey, Morrison Bial, and bumbled around quite a bit, but gradually enough people answered the ads so that we could begin having get-togethers. We wanted these to be “Jewish” but no one really knew enough to lead a service, or felt comfortable doing it, so we started with Friday night potluck dinners (back to the food!). The first few were at my house, which was somewhat challenging, space-wise, and we had many good conversations about how to continue out on my porch and deck. Then we started to rotate between different people’s homes. A few times we had a guest speaker or someone to lead a service for us.
In 2001, Rabbi Cohen of the UAHC put us in touch with Mitch and Suzette Cohen – almost literally heaven-sent. High Holiday services were the next challenge. We held these in 2001 for the first time. I contacted Camp Coleman (then under different camp management) for Rosh Hashana and Camp Barney for Yom Kippur, and both agreed to let us use their outdoor facilities for free. As we still had no official “spiritual leader” (Mitch was booked) with guidance from Mitch and Rabbi Cohen, I typed up a participatory program that I fervently hoped included the main parts of the multi-day services – I was really worried I had missed a crucial stand-up/sit-down bit. The Temple graciously loaned us machzor, and we were ready! Even the weather cooperated, however and both services and the Tashlik hike to the lake were very nice. We had very good attendance the first year, with many people coming up from Atlanta-area shuls to enjoy a less-crowded, more back-to-nature experience. That year we first heard Bob Schwarztman so beautifully chant Kol Nidre and we lit candles for the September 11th victims and their families. We had potluck feasts after both services and it was a very memorable “break fast” for someone who hadn’t seen lox in years!
Somewhere in here the wonderful Reverend Frank Colladay called me out of the blue to offer us space in his church. During those early pre-Mitch services we had a few guest rabbis come up but most of the early services were group participatory, like those first High Holiday services, where we would take turns reading passages of the services and singing – always singing! By 2002 we had over 100 families listed in our directory – things had really shaped up for our once-little Shalom! North Georgia.
This reminiscence is our little farewell-for-the-time-being to you all – I have just accepted a three-year posting to Peru to run my company’s Environmental Group in our Lima office, so you won’t be seeing our faces for a while. We have achieved so many remarkable things over the years, from being the first synagogue listed in the local phone book to getting the local paper to change its “Church News” column to “Religious Services” (my favorite!). But the most important to me is the feeling of community and the strengthening of our collective Jewish heritage I get when we’re together, especially when singing. I will confess my secret dream to you all, which is to one day have our own building, with stained glass windows – every time I drive by that stained glass window crafter in Dahlonega I think of it. We wish you all the best during the next three years, and will miss having Marisa’s bat mitzvah here, but will see you again in the not-so-distant future, and look forward to seeing how our Jewish community has grown and changed – hasta lluego and shalom!
2026 update! We did, in fact, have Marisa’s bat at the synagogue in Dahlonega in 2011, when we were visiting over Peruvian summer vacation – and it was the first bat or bar mitzvah I believe for our synagogue! It has been great to see so many familiar and new faces at services over the years. As the political climate nationally declined, I turned my faith into activism and attended services less, preferring to “pray with my feet” and pursue anti-fascist and progressive organizing. My final hope for our community is that we can be a voice for peace, tolerance, and against genocide, in keeping with our traditions and faith. We have moved out of state, but I wish you all b’shalom!
~ Judy Kreps, Founder and Past-President, Shalom! North Georgia