"The similarities between 1958 and 2017 are too obvious to be dismissed. But out of that darkness, a path of healing and forgiveness was illumined. That’s what makes this play so unsettling — and so significant...It is required that we see it, and remember." —Wendell Brock for AJC

The event that shook Atlanta from Peachtree Street to Auburn Avenue. And changed the city forever.

On October 12, 1958, a bundle of dynamite blew through the wall of Atlanta’s oldest synagogue. Following 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, Rabbi Rothschild of The Temple had become a public advocate for the progress of Civil Rights. The explosion and national support for The Temple community bolstered Atlanta city leaders’ resolve to investigate and prosecute the crime, paving the way for dramatic social change. The Temple Bombing, inspired by the award-winning book The Temple Bombing by Melissa Fay Greene, is a world premiere presented on the occasion of The Temple’s 150^th anniversary. This theatricalization celebrates a city that came together in the face of hatred to live the lessons of the Civil Rights era, lessons that still resonate 58 years after that fateful day. The Temple Bombing is developed in association with Tectonic Theater Project of New York and The Temple.  

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