January 6, 2021 was a very beautiful day for Janice Rothschild Blumberg.
It was the day after the runoff, and when the votes were counted, Blumberg was looking for the two Georgia Democrats running for the US Senate.
Joe Earle is the Editor-in-Chief at Reporter Newspapers and has lived in Metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at [email protected].
By early afternoon, Raphael Warnock had run for the election of the first black US Senator from Georgia, and Jon Ossoff was on his way to becoming the first Jewish member of the state in the US Senate. Taken together, their election meant that Republicans would lose their Senate majority and Democrats would control the national government.
“I’m thrilled,” said Blumberg during a phone call in the early afternoon. “Could not be better. It is wonderful.”
Then suddenly the tenor of things seemed to change. While Blumberg and I were talking, texts popped up on my phone saying something shocking was happening in Washington.
I hung up and watched TV news with pictures of an armed and angry mob taking over the US Capitol. The mob called for the recent elections to be canceled, for whites to regain supremacy and for resistance to the US government. Some members of the group carried Confederate flags through the halls of the Capitol.
After a while I called Blumberg back to get an idea of what was happening. She was horrified. “Unbelievable,” she said. Still, she said she had not given up hope. It was still a good day.
“Look at what happened last night,” she said. “Check out what happened in Georgia. There is still hope out there. “
She has seen political upheaval before and survived her part in it. Throughout her long and active life – she will turn 97 this month – she has been a writer and speaker and has directed and worked with Jewish charities and organizations. Her first husband, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, was a public critic of segregation and a supporter of the civil rights movement and spiritual leader of the Atlanta Temple in the 1950s and 1960s when it was bombed in 1958. The Rothschilds were civil libertarians from Atlanta leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King.
Janice Rothschild Blumberg. (Special)
Blumberg, who now lives in Buckhead, grew up in Druid Hills. “Atlanta was very different then, very different,” she said. “We were separated both Jewish and racially.”
She first met Rabbi Rothschild at the Standard Club, then a social club for the Jewish community on Ponce de Leon Avenue. “Atlanta, and especially the Jewish community, and especially the Reformed Jewish community, were mostly the same people … everyone knew everyone,” she said.
She recalls that at the time the congregation was excited about the new young rabbi. “I saw him on a tennis court,” she said. Someone said, ‘This is the new rabbi. Do you want to meet him? ‘It was celebrated with a little daughter by every family … I think we knew it [we belonged together] on our second date. “
They told their family he suggested them during a University of Georgia soccer game when they shared a poncho in a rainstorm, she said. In fact, she said, he brought up the subject the night before by giving her a cartoon that showed a man on a bent knee who said, “It’s easy. You just ask. “They told their mother that night and the rest of the family the next day after the game.
She said she first met Martin Luther King through her mother. Her mother was the host of a European journalist who wanted to meet civil rights activists in Atlanta, so dinner was arranged at the famous Paschal’s restaurant. King came over to talk. A few months later, Blumberg recalled, King was arrested during a protest, and Blumberg called Coretta to express her condolences.
They understood each other. “As distant as she seemed to be with the public, she somehow spoke to me like a sister,” said Blumberg. “I felt very sisterly to her.”
They had a lot in common. Both had young children and were married to prominent men who held public positions that turned them into enemies who regularly threatened to harm them. Blumberg said there were also threats against her.
The threats against Rabbi Rothschild turned into real harm on October 12, 1958, when the temple was bombed. Dynamite badly damaged the building, but no one was killed. The community rallied around the community and public figures from the mayor of Atlanta to the President of the United States quickly condemned the bombing. “A Republican President [spoke out against the bombing] on the eve of the mid-term elections, ”she said. “He answered with all his heart, and what he did he did with his heart. He sent the FBI. “
Yet nobody was ever convicted of the bombing. And Blumberg believes that the echoes of that time continue to this day. Some politicians continue to offer support to right-wing extremists, including those who help fuel the mob that took over the Capitol last month. She thinks of Joseph McCarthy and others. “We live by some parallels at that time,” she said.
On the day of my inauguration, I called Blumberg again. She had seen the country install a new president on television. Georgia was represented in Congress by two new senators. Was she hopeful? “You bet I am, I am sure,” she said. “[There’s] A decent, kind person, and I think he’s very smart and … he has really knowledgeable people around to give advice. “
It looked like things were going to change. Check out what happened in Georgia.
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