Nearly 600 people attended the first Limmud held in Atlanta.
The weekend conference launched with a show and reception celebrating Southern Jewish life titled “Another Night at Ballyhoo,” a tribute to the Atlanta social event for Southeastern Jewish teens of German heritage during the 1930s through the 1950s.
Saturday evening also featured the one-act play “Walking in Memphis: The Life of a Southern Jew,” by Jonathan Adam Ross. That was followed by an interview with Beryl Weiner, a former Ballyhoo president who played the clarinet to a group sing-along of the Ballyhoo song, and an act by Rob Kutner, an Atlanta Jewish native who writes for “The Daily Show.”
Sunday’s activities followed the traditional Limmud model offering a range of courses and workshops. The more than 90 sessions featured Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership; Jeremy Burton, the chief strategic officer of Jewish Funds for Justice; and Hank Klibanoff, the managing editor for news at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of “The Race Beat.”
