Jewish cherish shared identity in community at Hanukkah
By Kelly Jasper | Staff Writer
Friday, December 11, 2009
Lisa Daitch’s children don’t know what they’re missing. How could they? She’s a native New Yorker who moved south 25 years ago to marry a man with roots in Augusta. Her children have never lived anyplace else.
They were raised Jewish in the South, without the prolific Jewish community that surrounded Mrs. Daitch as a child.
“In other words, my experience is not their experience,” she said.
That’s not to say Augusta lacks a Jewish community. It’s small, but vibrant, with many shared meals, concerts and programs, including a Hanukkah dinner tonight. The events are meant to build upon a shared identity, and to lend Jews, a minority in a Southern, predominantly Christian city, a sense of community. Leah Ronen estimates that the Augusta Jewish Community Center, where she’s executive director, serves about 400 families.
Many of those families will gather at one of Augusta’s three temples this week. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, begins at sundown.
The festival is a celebration of a miracle that occurred upon the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem. The Hanukkah story famously records how oil for just one night burned in a lamp for eight days.
On a larger scale, Hanukkah represents a preservation of Jewish identity. In the second century B.C., Judaism was outlawed. When Syrian Greeks imposed Hellenistic culture and defiled the temple, Jews revolted.
They were successful, winning back the right to practice their religion freely.
Hanukkah is an opportunity to cherish her Jewish heritage, said Mrs. Daitch, a physician’s assistant in Augusta who teaches at Medical College of Georgia. Her husband, Fred, owns International Uniforms on Broad Street.
Mrs. Daitch is also an adviser for Augusta’s B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. It’s a social network of sorts for Jewish teens across the country. Mrs. Daitch advises the eight or so girls who attend this year, while Sam Budenstein leads a group of eight guys.
“There are more Jewish high schoolers than that but those are the ones that have chosen to affiliate. It sounds like tiny numbers, but it’s big to them,” she said.
Read more at augustachronicle.com.
