August 6, 1999/24 Av 5759, Vol. 51, No.44
Atlanta synagogue mourns victim of shooting rampageAtlanta Jewish TimesATLANTA - It was a blisteringly hot Thursday afternoon. Allen Charles Tenenbaum's weekend was shaping up the way it usually did, as a time for family, synagogue and rest. After blessing his three children, he'd enjoy a relaxed Friday night Shabbat dinner. The family would attend Saturday morning services at Congregation Or VeShalom, where Tenenbaum was president. On Sunday, they'd head to Myrtle Beach, S.C., hoping to escape Atlanta's heat.Tenenbaum could not then have imagined the demons that had driven Mark O. Barton to slaughter his own family and embark on a murderous rampage that would leave nine others dead that July 29 afternoon before taking his own life. The 48-year-old Tenenbaum never came home to his wife, Debra, and children. He was among those slain that afternoon by Barton at All-Tech Investment Group in the city's fashionable Buckhead district. Atlanta reeled in horror at its third mass shooting in three months. Closer to home, Tenenbaum's family and Atlanta's Jewish community were jolted from summer languor to disbelief that yielded to grief. Sweat mingled with the tears of more than 500 people - from teens in sandals to bearded Orthodox men - who attended Tenenbaum's graveside funeral Friday, July 30. An unusually large crowd of worshippers sought comfort at Shabbat morning services at Or VeShalom, where, for the first time in nearly two years, Tenenbaum did not rise from his pulpit seat with a smile to wish the Sephardic congregation "Shabbat shalom" and announce births and deaths. On Sunday morning, Aug. 1, about 600 people returned to the same synagogue to mourn the loss of a man who adored his family as much as he was adored by many friends. Tennenbaum had served on Or VeShalom's board for about 10 years and been a vice president for several years. Board members surprised him at last month's meeting with a cake celebrating his 48th birthday, said Jack Arogeti, a lifelong Or VeShalom member. Tenenbaum also was a Jewish grocery store owner in a black neighborhood, an Ashkenazic Jew who led a Sephardic synagogue. Family and friends had encouraged Tenenbaum to sell the business started by his father, Sol, because they feared he might become a victim of crime. But Tenenbaum was committed to his business and the neighborhood. How ironic, friends mused later, that Tenenbaum died in Buckhead's upscale financial center, the victim of a chilling new kind of white-collar crime. Though Tenenbaum's family had belonged to Congregation Shearith Israel, a Conservative Ashkenazic synagogue in the city's Morningside neighborhood, he and his wife, Debra Fox Tenenbaum, joined Or VeShalom 16 years ago. "It seemed somewhat odd that he'd join a synagogue he didn't grow up in," friend Neil Galanti said, but the couple felt "so much at home" there. Tenenbaum had opened a stock market day-trading account at All-Tech in June 1998, said Franklin Ogele, All-Tech's associate general counsel. "He had lots of business interests," said Dr. Jeff Baumrind, a dentist who golfed with Tenenbaum and considered him his best friend. "It was just a little thing to try to make some money." Tenenbaum had stopped at All-Tech that morning to make some trades, and Baumrind said he was surprised that Tenenbaum had returned later in the day. Steve Berman, a long-time friend and running buddy, said he and Tenenbaum occasionally discussed the stock market while watching their daughters play sports. "My guess is, knowing Allen, he wasn't playing with large sums of money," Berman said, adding that the riskiest thing Tenenbaum did was jog with the flow of traffic instead of against it. At last week's funeral, Baumrind helped ease the casket of his golfing buddy into the red earth. Debra Tenenbaum stopped the pallbearers to press a kiss on the simple wood box. Rabbi S. Robert Ichay of Or VeShalom told the mourners that it was his job to comfort the grieving. But, he said, his voice catching, he wished someone could comfort him. |
