A few years ago my wife and I had the opportunity to name a charitable donor advised fund at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. It is common for people who choose to donate money to a foundation and establish a donor advised fund to name it in honor of themselves or their family. We did consider the name “Stacy and Manny Fialkow Donor Advised Fund”, but our decision was one that we do not regret. Our choice was to teach our children that they can utilize their talents to benefit their community and feel the pride of giving, just for the sake of the gift. It was our intention to teach our children that tzedaka, which often is interpreted as charity, actually means righteousness.

My wife and I were given the opportunity to utilize our knowledge and talents in the real estate field to acquire a property adjacent to the MJCCA, lobby for a law change and zoning change (thank you Den Webb and Kathy Zickert), transfer the property, establish a Fund at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, and Donate 100%+ of the profits into the new fund.

In our minds, this property was never meant for commercial development, we saw a financial need for the MJCCA, and value in our mutual vision. With the assistance, and overwhelming support of the Atlanta Community, our idea played out to be both a financial windfall for the MJCCA, as well as a newly planned assisted living facility in Dunwoody, GA.

We discussed the idea with our children and always kept them informed about what we were attempting to accomplish. Sometimes I actually believe that they did understand, other times, well….they were a bit upset when we turned the television off, so they in turn tuned and turned us off.

Our choice was to honor the memory of the eleven members of the Israeli olympic delegation who were murdered in Munich 1972 by naming this new fund, 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre Remembrance Fund of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. It is one of the successes that we, as a family are most proud. Not enough is ever said to recognize Our loss, and their sacrifice. While they represent everything that the modern-day olympic movement is supposed to represent, the IOC ignores every opportunity to honor their memory.

With full knowledge of the billion dollar+ television contract up for renewal by his employer, and knowing the IOC‘s multiple prior determinations to remain silent on the issue, Bob Costas insisted on not only acknowledging the 40th anniversary of the Munich Olympic Massacre, he even announced in advance his intent to point out the wrongful position of the IOC in refusing to acknowledge the Massacre, and did so as the lead announcer during the 2012 Opening Ceremonies for these Olympic Games. Bob Costas is a class act.

The ignorance and arrogance of the IOC is “most exceptional.”

The memory of these 11 Israelis will endure, as will the words of George Santayana when he wrote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

They did not quit, they were stopped. They did not falter in their sport, they were seized. They did not shame us, they were murdered.

“We just got the final word … you know, when I was a kid, my father used to say ‘Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.’ Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said that there were eleven hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone,” —–Jim McKay September 6, 1972

And we were terrorized yet again.

——Manny Fialkow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/bob-costas-says-he-intends-to-honor-munich-victims-in-nbcs-coverage-on-friday/2012/07/23/gJQAo72y4W_story.html

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/story/2012-07-26/London-Olympics-Munich-Christine-Brennan/56509176/1

http://www.cfgreateratlanta.org/