Jewish cherish shared identity in community

Lisa Daitch's children don't know what they're missing.

• Photos

Zach Boyden-Holmes/Staff

The Daitch family, Brad, Fred, Lisa, and Alex, (left to right) see how many dreidels they can spin at their home in Evans. The Jewish holiday Hanukkah begins at sundown tonight.

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.

In Georgia, Jews account for about 1.4 percent of the population, compared with 2.2 percent nationally. In South Carolina, the number drops to .3 percent, based on estimates gathered by the Census Bureau in 2007.

"It's definitely different. It's a smaller, Southern community. It's a great city to be married and raising a family in, but I remember thinking at the time, I wouldn't want to be single and Jewish here. I would have too hard of a time meeting people," she said. "In New York, all my friends were Jewish. You didn't have to go looking for other Jews because they were all around you."

For her daughter, the ratio is reversed.

"One of my best friends is Christian. Most of them are," said Alex Daitch, 17, a senior at Augusta Prep Day School. "At school there are about five kids that are Jewish. That's really cool because most public schools wouldn't even have that. It's enough that you connect with Jews but you meet plenty of other people too."

She feels closer to the Jewish community because it's so small.

"We know each other, and people know we're Jewish," she said. "I don't feel any different. We're accepted. People are open. They go, whoa, you're not the stereotype of a Jewish person. Those situations excite me."

Amy Fishbein Brightfield also grew up Jewish in Augusta. She's 37 now, living in New York.

Mrs. Brightfield looks back on it fondly, but sometimes with a laugh. "I think I was the first or only Jewish person a lot of people met," she said. "I was like the ambassador of Jewishness."

She left Augusta for college at Brandeis University outside Boston. Mrs. Brightfield now works as health director of Woman's Day magazine.

"It was a reverse culture shock," she said. "Jewish culture is validated everywhere you look in New York. The public schools are even closed here on the Jewish holidays. I was in the minority in Augusta. Most of my friends were Christian. If I wanted friends, they had to be."

Her parents have stayed put, even though neither of them are originally from Augusta.

"I grew up there but my parents definitely didn't. I think they felt that. I always joked that they committed two sins: They were Yankee and they were Jewish on top of that," she said. "But they really like it there. It's home."

Her father, Dr. Sumner Fishbein, is an ophthalmologist. They attend the Congregation Children of Israel, where the Hanukkah dinner will be held tonight.

"I appreciate growing up in Augusta. Really, more of the United States is like Augusta than it is like New York. It's given me a wider perspective," she says. "I'm more accepting of other faiths and cultures. I'm intentional to include them."

She hopes to raise her 3-year-old son, Cameron, with a similar mind-set. "I want my son to know about everybody's culture. It emphasized to me the importance of knowing and understanding people different than you. It taught me the importance of tolerance."

Every so often, Mr. and Mrs. Daitch and their children visit New York.

"They have two cousins in New York," Mrs. Daitch said. "Frankly, up there, they don't have to seek out people who share their faith background. They're everywhere. We've been to New York many, many times and they see it now. They see a big difference between being Jewish in New York and Jewish in Augusta. They're old enough to notice," Mrs. Daitch said, "but they're also old enough to know it's OK, too, and maybe, it's worth seeking out people of your faith if you have to."

Reach Kelly Jasper at (706) 823-3552 or kelly.jasper@augustachronicle.com.