2025 YIR: Rabbi Alvin Sugarman of The Temple Dies at 86

Rabbi Alvin Marx Sugarman, a beloved spiritual leader at The Temple, died Jan. 17, at age 86.

The Atlanta native, who grew up at The Temple, began his rabbinic career there in 1971, as assistant rabbi. Rabbi Jacob Rothschild died on Dec. 31, 1973, and in April 1974, Sugarman was named senior rabbi. After taking emeritus status in 2004, he served congregations in Santa Barbara, Calif., and Florence, S.C.

“I put on my pants one leg at a time. I’m just one guy, trying to make sense of this chaos we call life,” the self-effacing Sugarman said in a 2015 interview with Atlanta’s AIB Network.

When Sugarman was born on June 3, 1938, Atlanta’s Jewish population was 12,000, less than 10 percent of its estimated size today. Seven years earlier, The Temple, the city’s oldest Jewish congregation (founded in 1867 as the Hebrew Benevolent Society), had relocated from the intersection of South Pryor and Richardson streets to its current Peachtree Street home.

He was ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the Reform movement seminary in Cincinnati and years later earned a Ph.D. in theological studies from Emory.

Much like his predecessor, Sugarman promoted civil rights, including his participation in a January 1987 march in Forsyth County.