September 2025
Club Fair, year two
Club shirts, a full table, and a sign-up list that sent new members straight to our GroupMe.
Riverwood International Charter School · Sandy Springs, Georgia
Kosher food, real community, and a stage for leadership.
A student-run club for Jewish students at Riverwood, with events open to the whole school.
Founded
2024, by Ari & Tal Elkounovitch
Leadership
A 13-member student board
Partners
CTeen Atlanta, YPC, and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust
About the club
We started with bagels and a sign-up sheet.
Now we run a speaker series, partner with organizations like the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust, and host events open to the whole school. The Kosher Food Club gives Jewish students at Riverwood a home base: kosher food, real community, and a platform to lead.
Our founders
Ari & Tal Elkounovitch
Ari and Tal started the Kosher Food Club in 2024 with a table at the Club Fair and a sign-up sheet. Everything on this page is built on what they started.
Gather
Meetings built around kosher food, from Friday-morning breakfasts to bagels and lox. It's the easiest way into the room.
Remember
Holocaust education beyond the textbook: survivor testimony at Riverwood and the Daffodil Dash for the Daffodil Project.
Host
"An Evening With," our speaker series: we bring major leaders to the Riverwood stage, and students ask the questions.
Lead
A 13-member board that runs operations, partnerships and programming like a real organization, with real responsibility from freshman year.
Speaker series · September 14, 2026
An Evening With Steve Koonin
CEO, Atlanta Hawks & State Farm Arena
Steve Koonin's career runs on risk: a cold call to Coca-Cola's marketing director in 1986 turned into more than a decade there, then leading TNT, TBS and truTV, and now running one of Atlanta's biggest sports franchises. We brought him to the Riverwood Auditorium for an on-stage interview and open Q&A covering his story, his career, and how identity and risk shaped his path.
- Format
- On-stage interview and audience Q&A, open to all Riverwood students
- Venue
- Riverwood Auditorium, Sandy Springs, Georgia
- Student panel
- Mathew Zuckerman (Kosher Food Club), Brady Traub and Jaron Wilensky (Young Professional Connections)
- Co-hosted with
- Young Professional Connections
Watch the full conversation
About one hour · YouTube
The complete interview and Q&A is on our YouTube channel, along with future "An Evening With" events.
With thanks
The people who made the evening possible
Thank you to Riverwood Principal Kindra Smith, Riverwood Athletics Director Coach P.J. Graybeck, and Lamarr Glenn, Director of Athletics for Fulton County Schools, for backing the evening from the start.
Left to right: Lamarr Glenn, Principal Kindra Smith, Steve Koonin, Coach P.J. Graybeck.
Past events
How we got here
March 17, 2026
Bearing Witness
We hosted Holocaust survivor Mr. Ben Walker at Riverwood to share his testimony with our 10th grade World History students, in partnership with the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust.
November 2025
Morning, You Eat Kosher
A Friday 8 AM kosher breakfast before first period.
January 2026
Bagels and lox
Our second meeting of the year, with bagels and smoked salmon.
~$200
raised for the Daffodil Project
March 2026
Daffodil Dash
Team Riverwood Kosher Food Club ran the 5K at Brook Run Park for the Daffodil Project.
2026–27
The Leadership Board
Executive Board
Administrative Leadership
Operations & Logistics
Coming soon
Mentorship program
The Kesher Mentorship Program
קשר · Hebrew for "bond" or "connection"
Kesher pairs underclassmen with a member of the Kosher Food Club leadership board. Each younger student chooses the leader they want as a mentor, learns how that role works, and gets ready to take it over when the board graduates.
It goes beyond the club. Most of our board is in the IB Diploma Programme, so mentors can walk you through the IB diploma and certificate paths, what junior and senior year actually look like, and how to handle all of it. Think of it as a friend a few years ahead of you.
Choose your mentor
Underclassmen pick the board member they want to learn from, whether that's operations, programming, partnerships or leading the club.
Learn the role
Mentees work alongside their mentor on real club work, so the next board is ready on day one.
Get the real picture
Honest advice on IB, course loads and the later years of high school from someone who's living it.
Community partner
CTeen Atlanta
The Kosher Food Club wouldn't exist without CTeen Atlanta, the Jewish teen network led by Rabbi David Goldschmidt and Talia Goldschmidt. Our founders came up through CTeen, most of our current board is part of it, and the Goldschmidts were at our very first Club Fair table in 2024.
When it came time to promote An Evening With Steve Koonin, Rabbi Goldschmidt suited up in a Hawks jersey. That photo became the face of the campaign.
With support from
Riverwood International Charter School
Riverwood Athletics
Fulton County Schools
CTeen Atlanta
Young Professional Connections
In partnership with the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust