TRAVEL Loya is open about her religion to classmates, and finds that they are often “curious,” as “most of them don't really know what [being Jewish] means.” While the congregation has been able to host services, and has a very active group of members, they find that they are sometimes taking unique measures to maintain the kinds of program-
around the actuality of Jews as compared to the myths that circulate. He follows the work ethic that his father, a survivor of Bergen-Belson, taught him: “If you showed you could do every kind of work you were assigned before the guards, the guards respected you and preserved you. Sometimes they will not beat your head as hard. They'll give you some extra food
Rodeph Sholom President Nancy Brant and her husband Jeffrey Brant in the synagogue’s sanctuary in Rome.
Congregation Rodeph Sholom on East First Street in Rome, Ga.
Miriam Loya, a sophomore in high school, is one of the few young members of congregation Rodeph Sholom.
the synagogue doesn’t hold many large services, with the exception of Passover and b’nai mitzvah celebrations, the church allows the congregation to use their larger social hall. After the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue, hundreds of community members attended services at the congregation, and local religious leaders spoke. So many came, in fact, that the service hall was full, and the ceremony had to be telecast. While the Rome community has been supportive and friendly to their Jewish neighbors, and the congregation itself, there has also been a fair share of harassment. There was the nearby Klan rally in 2016, which congregants protested, as well as anti-Semitic papers plastered on the door of the synagogue in previous
years, along with other small threats and acts of intimidation. Anne Lewinson, a congregant and professor at Berry College, believes these acts aren’t representative of the Rome community: “I do think there’s a fair bit of ignorance … a lot of people just don’t know that a Jewish community exists.” The wider community has also been accepting of Jews, at least in Miriam Loya’s experience. The daughter of Lewinson and her Muslim husband, Miriam attended the synagogue’s school when it was in operation and is now a sophomore at Rome High School. For her bat mitzvah, she invited her entire class to the service, recalling that “even though they didn't really know what was going on at all and didn’t understand what's happening … they were very welcoming.”
ming on offer at larger synagogues. Lewinson’s son, Matt, was trained for his bar-mitzvah by a rabbi, but in the following years he’s had to train the next generation. Small rural synagogues like Rodeph Sholom often rely on their members to maintain the building and services, and to help keep the community alive, Lewinson said: “If anybody was going to teach the religious school kids, it was going to be members of the community; if anybody was going to sweep up after an event, it was gonna be members of the community.” While the Brants and Lewinsons have only come in the past two decades, some of the community's older members still attend. Rich Chanan, the son of a Holocaust survivor, moved from a heavily Jewish area in New York, and has been at the congregation since 1985. Coming from a place with a high concentration of Jews, he quickly found that the “Jewish culture was minimal” here, compared to where he grew up. Chanan has also found that the ignorant can be dealt with: he’s had a Klan member re-wire his house while having a full conversation
to take home.” But he also believes in the importance of not backing down. In his time at the synagogue, “there has been a dismal reduction in the crowd,” and he is worried about the fact there are so few children left in the congregation. Others are more optimistic about the congregation's future. Nancy Brant said, “there are people that used to be here, and used to have family here, who still support us monetarily,” which helps the congregation maintain security and programming it would not otherwise be able to afford. Jeffrey Brant, Nancy’s husband and a former president of the congregation, eloquently explained the situation around the issue of building maintenance: “People ask, why do you keep having this building with only a few people here? We want to keep the Jewish community going here as much as we can. ... And it’s not so much the financial stuff; it is just that we need members and we need the people.” Nancy Brant likes to call their congregation “the little temple that could,” an apt name for a synagogue that continues to serve Jews in the heart of rural Georgia. ì ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES AUGUST 15, 2021| 97
