Dr. Barry Zisholtz was ready for a well-earned retirement and was looking forward to a slower pace and continued communal involvement. But when he learned about the shortcomings of his state representative, a fire lit within him and he chose to run for that position.
Zisholtz, known as Dr. Z to his friends and former patients, was born in Suffern, New York, and grew up in Cedarhurst. He and his wife, Vivian, raised four children. He trained as a urological surgeon at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, from 1983 to 1988. Dr. Z and his family moved to DeKalb County in Georgia in 1988 and he worked as a urological surgeon in a practice in South Atlanta, Riverdale and East Point, Georgia.
Dr. Z also served on many boards in the Atlanta area including the Yeshiva of Atlanta, Congregation Beth Jacob, the Young Israel of TOCO Hills (now Ohr Hatora) and the Greenfield Hebrew Academy.
He retired in November 2023. Vivian had died of breast cancer in 2017, and in 2020 he got remarried to Mindy Mitzner Zisholtz, the mother of three children. When he retired, Dr. Z and Mindy planned to spend more time with their seven children and their families and perhaps expand upon their service to the community.
Something important got in the way of those plans.
As Dr. Z explains it, he learned from someone in the neighborhood that his home had been redistricted to District 86 and his new representative did not represent his values in the least. As he explained to The Jewish Link: “My new house representative [Imani Barnes] walked out on a resolution calling Hamas a terror organization, and voted against the antisemitism bill and then walked out on that. She is against school choice and voted against the bill that was to solidify the inability for illegals to vote in Georgia, and she also is in favor of sanctuary cities.”
He added: “When I found out that she was running unopposed, I remembered learning in Pirkei Avot (2:6) that when there is no person to fill an important job, somebody has to step up.”
Dr. Z resolved to “step up” and has since mounted a serious and spirited campaign as the Republican candidate for the District 86 seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. As outlined on his campaign website, www.votedrz.com, he is running on a platform to “build on a foundation of equal rights, justice, and opportunity for all.” His campaign platform focuses on these issues:
- Affordable health care for all Georgians and lowering prescription drug costs;
- Removing sanctuary cities, decreasing crime and securing our border;
- Supporting school choice, vouchers, and improving math and reading scores;
- Eliminating the state tax;
- Denouncing all bigotry and racism, including antisemitism;
- Calling all terrorists, including Hamas, pure evil in no uncertain terms.
He sees part of his work on the campaign trail as educating constituents on the history of Jews in America and bringing awareness to the rapid rise in antisemitism in this country, especially on college campuses.
Dr. Z reports that he is canvassing frequently and is very encouraged by the enthusiastic responses he is seeing to his campaign.
His campaign received favorable coverage on the “Lure of the Lake” podcast in two episodes in May and on the Greg Kelly podcast in June. The campaign has a growing following on Instagram (@drzforgeorgia), Facebook (Dr. Z for Georgia), YouTube (Dr. Z), and TikTok (@votedrz).
Dr. Z’s son, Evan, who lives in Englewood with his wife, Diana, and their four daughters, and works in the “techbio” industry, was pleased to talk with The Jewish Link about his dad’s candidacy. “My father is the most genuine and passionate person that I’ve known,” he said. “Watching him as a physician in the community growing up, he was always happy to respond to any medical question, any time of day seven days a week, and to help comfort and treat friends, community members and of course, family members.
“With that background, I am confident that if he has the opportunity to support his broader community in a governmental position, he will vastly improve the lives of those people in his district, without regard to traditional politics, race, gender or religion. District 86 is lucky to have him and I hope people support his campaign over the next few months.”
“Dr. Z is a man of great common sense and a strong sense of right and wrong,” said Rabbi Ilan Feldman, the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob, Atlanta. “He is not a person to sit back and simply comment on things but rolls up his sleeves to address things that need fixing. He does not make the normal calculus of whether it will work or not; he does what’s needed in order to address the wrong.”
For more information on Dr. Z’s campaign, and to make a contribution, please visit the campaign website at
www.votedrz.com
Harry Glazer is the Middlesex County editor of The Jewish Link. He can be reached at [email protected] and he welcomes feedback. He is very impressed with Dr. Z’s campaign and wishes him great success!
