Synagogue Vote in Georgia Stirs Anti-Semitism Debate

A bitter struggle over plans to build the first synagogue in Gwinnett County, Ga., has pushed this Atlanta suburb into a debate over lingering anti-Semitism in the South and spurred a recruiting campaign by the Ku Klux Klan.

The battle comes to a head tonight when the county commission decides whether to allow Temple Beth David to put up the synagogue on a wooded lot here, about 25 miles northeast of Atlanta.

County planning commissioners already have given approval for the project, which would require a waiver of zoning laws. If the county commission follows suit, it will do so over the objections of a vocal group of residents who say that granting the synagogue a zoning variance would result in lowered property values for the area.

The issue underlines the strains from the massive influx of newcomers into Gwinnett, which calls itself the fastest growing county in America. The county’s population has reached 325,000.

“It is a burgeoning community which is going through a lot of change, and there is going to be a whole lot of tension there,” said Eva Sears of the Center for Democratic Renewal, which monitors incidents of racial and religious bigotry.

For decades, rural Gwinnett County was inhabited primarily by white Christians. But in recent years it has become a Sun Belt boom county, and is now attracting a far more diverse population, including a small but growing Jewish community.

On McGee Road, in front of a stand of pine trees, a large blue sign with white lettering and a Star of David advertises the intention of Temple Beth David to build the synagogue. The sign has been defaced twice with swastikas.

Across the street lives Pat Garmon, a chief opponent of the synagogue. She was quoted in a local newspaper last week as saying that construction of the synagogue “would be like us going into an all-French neighborhood and building a Baptist church. It’s odd.”

In an interview Garmon said it is “strictly untrue” that she is anti-Semitic. “In fact, my husband has a Jewish doctor,” she said. “If we were anti-Jewish, we wouldn’t have a Jewish doctor.”

Gesturing toward the lot, Garmon said her opposition centers on zoning matters, including a too-small lot, modular instead of brick structures and a plan to designate only 40 parking spaces for a congregation of 100 families--all of which would lower residents’ property values, she said.

“Developers in this county have to go by regulations that were set up,” she said. “Everyone else should, too.”

Others Turned Down

In the last three years, however, no Baptist or Methodist churches have been denied a zoning variance. In the same period, five churches have been turned down, including one with a predominantly Japanese congregation, one affiliated with the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, two fundamentalist Christian churches and a Hindu temple.

Another neighbor of the synagogue, Kelley Adams, said: “I don’t have no objection against it.”

In the last few days, however, area residents have found on their lawns leaflets advertising a Ku Klux Klan rally at nearby Stone Mountain, where “the country’s finest white racist speakers” will appear.

Along with the leaflets were copies of a newspaper called “The Truth at Last,” containing headlines such as “Forefathers Wanted No Jewish Immigration” and “A Long-Lost Skeleton in a Synagogue Cellar.”

Ed Fields, editor of the paper, said in an interview: “I would oppose one (a synagogue) being built in my neighborhood” in Marietta. “The Jews are very clannish people and the creators of ghettos. They’re hostile to other people.”

Stoking Fires of Extremism

The dispute has “fueled the fires of those extremist groups” like the klan, said Stuart Lewengrub, Southeast regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

To the dismay of many Southerners, the battle is recalling much of the region’s bitter history, including the 1915 lynching about 35 miles from here of Leo Frank, a Jewish Northerner who ran a pencil factory and was accused of murdering 14-year-old Mary Phagan, one of the employees. The case is credited with sparking the birth of both the ADL and the modern day KKK.

The area “has long been a very hot and strong center of anti-Jewish and racial thinking,” said Abraham Peck, overseer of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

He called anti-Jewish feelings in the South “a very complex issue,” combining economics and religion. “There has always been sort of a struggle in the Southern mind to try to really put Jews in some kind of proper perspective.”

The synagogue dispute, which has included pitched ideological battles on radio talk shows, has focused attention on the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents in the South.

Last year, there were 268 incidents of vandalism, assaults and threats in 12 Southern states, up dramatically from the 157 in 1987, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

On the eve of the commission vote, several Jewish leaders sought to heal wounds from the controversy.

Rabbi Richard Baroff, spiritual leader of the congregation, said that while the “specter of anti-Semitism has been raised,” it does not reflect the view of most residents. A coalition of 15 Christian leaders rallied to his side, saying in a statement Monday that they “reject anti-Semitism in all its forms” and “welcome the establishment of Temple Beth David.”

Lewengrub called the dispute “a blessing in disguise because it served as a springboard to acknowledge that prejudice does exist in the grass-roots of the community and that it has to be addressed.”

Researcher Edith M. Stanley contributed to this story.