Garden Grows to Honor Researcher’s Memory

Situated between Cali ’n’ Tito’s and Barrow Elementary School is Chabad House, a small, neutral-colored stucco building surrounded by newly-planted blueberry bushes, ornamental flowers and a mosaic tile display.

The garden might be small, but it’s full of meaning.

“We recently moved over to this new building, and we had this yard which had some potential, but I’m not much with landscape,” said Rabbi Michoel Refson, a co-director of Chabad of Athens-UGA.

Efrat Gamliel-Atinsky, a post-doctoral associate in the plant pathology department, volunteered to head up a project to bring a garden to Chabad House, Refson said.

Shortly after, Atinsky, her mother and her two children — 5-year-old Noam and baby Ya’ari — were killed in a car accident in the Negev Desert, Israel.

“A car met in a head-on collision, came across and hit her. She didn’t die from the impact — the car went up in flames, and she died from the fire,” Refson said.

Noam, who was a student at Barrow, was still alive when rescuers got to the accident, but rescuers made the decision not to open the car and put everyone’s lives in danger, Refson said.

“It was a terrible, terrible tragedy,” he said. “It was a personal loss, and I felt personally involved in trying to do something about it.”

At the memorial service for the family, Refson suggested continuing the garden.

“I’d suggested to make it a memorial garden, because it was a project she’d thought of,” he said. “She was into botany, and a garden is something that’s living.”

Lauren Zeichner, an instructor in the School of Environmental Design, and two local artists were recruited to head up the new project.

“Even though [Efrat and her family] hadn’t been here for a long time, they were people who made a huge impact in the community,” Zeichner said. “People wanted to do something. It’s a way for dealing with your grief.”

The mosaic tiles are especially symbolic.

“These tiles basically embody the values we felt this family embodied,” Zeichner said. “Some of them are in Hebrew and some are in English — things like excellence, friendship, compassion, sincerity, hospitality.”

Zeichner said the garden really came together Sunday, when members of the Jewish community, students and Atinsky’s colleagues worked to plant and create something that would be a lasting memory.

“The people from plant pathology brought blueberry bushes, because that’s what she did her research on,” Zeichner said.

She said she remembers how well Atinsky connected with people.

“She was the kind of person that when you met her, and you talked to her for a short time, you really felt like you knew her,” Zeichner said. “Her daughter was similarly a special kid who knew how to relate to other kids that maybe had trouble finding kids to relate to. And the little baby, I fell in love with him. He was like a pastry, just so cute and bright-eyed.”

Efrat’s Garden will be a part of many of Chabad’s activities in the upcoming months — cooking classes, Jewish holiday celebrations and weekly Friday night dinners.

“A memorial garden is not just for what you end up with,” Zeichner said. “It’s the process of how you end up with it — of people being able to bring something they feel represents that person and to put it together.”