Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

25-Year-Old Atlanta Jewish Woman Is Missing For More Than A Week

(JTA) — Police are searching for a 25-year-old Jewish woman from Atlanta who has been missing for a week and a half.

Jenna Van Gelderen was last seen on Aug. 18, when she was house-sitting at her parent’s home while they were away on a trip. The following day her brother found the house locked and his sister’s car, a 2010 blue Mazda, gone.

Her father, Leon, wrote on Facebook that his son had “found the house in disarray,” and that a World War II-era tapestry had been “ripped out of [the] frame” in the house.

Van Gelderen has a high-functioning form of autism, according WSB-TV 2.

Her mother, Roseanne Glick, said she did not believe Van Gelderen left on her own accord.

“It’s still surreal,” Glick told WSB-TV 2. “I go to sleep crying, I wake up crying, I keep thinking, worrying and know that she would never have just left.”

A local synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel, is hosting a candlelight vigil for Van Gelderen on Tuesday evening.

A Facebook page set up to help find Van Gelderen urged anyone with information to call the DeKalb County police at (770) 724-7600, Ext. 4, or (404) 966-8565.

 

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.