Simon Sibelman
A Portion of the People: 300 Years of Jewish Life in Charleston
Professor Simon Sibelman - A Portion of the People 300 Years of Jewish Life in Charleston - Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in this world. It’s a pleasure to be with you again. I am speaking to you from cold, snowy Western Massachusetts. And what’s going to be nice is that this particular talk is going to be dealing with South Carolina. And it’s a curious title, “A Portion of the People,” that actually comes from a letter that was written by Isaac Harby , who was one of the early Jews in Charleston. And he was referring to a fact that a portion of the Jewish people had decided to come there and settle and make their lives. So we’re going to be looking at 300 years of Jewish life in South Carolina with the primary focus being Charleston. This is the American East Coast, and there you see a modern-day map. And on the right-hand side, what you’re seeing is the original colonies. And those colonies, as you can see down there in the South, you have South Carolina.
Slides are displayed throughout the presentation.
And that red arrow is sort of obstructing, but Charleston is right there on the coast. This is a map of the city from 1711. Charleston was actually founded in 1690, and its original name was Charles Town. It was in honour of Charles II. And the city grew at a rapid pace for being in the south and also for being on rivers and near swamps. So this is the map in 1711. The first Jews who arrive there will arrive in 1694. So the city is very, very young when they arrive. And this is a bit of historic Charleston. It is one of the, I think, one of the most beautiful cities in America. It was not terribly, terribly harmed during the American Civil War. And the war actually begins here in Charleston. One of the things you can notice is that there are numerous buildings that are painted pastel colours. And that is because a great deal of trade in early Charleston went to the Barbados islands and other islands in the Caribbean. Notice also that some of the houses, their front doors are on the side. And that is a curiosity, because in early Charleston you were taxed by the amount of frontage you had on any street. And so to get around the tax, people shifted their houses. This is called the marketplace. And there you see the market, it’s sort of very Grecian in its look. And inside, excuse me, inside there are arts and crafts, all sorts of things that you can see and purchase.
Now, the lady who is standing there holding a basket, she is one of the Gullah people. They live on the islands off of the coast, and they are actually using palm and reeds to make things. And they are making things as they would’ve been made in Africa. Now it’s an irony that this woman and her craft are in there, because just at the back of that market is the Old Slave Museum. And it was in the market itself that Charleston would have sales of Africans who came in as slaves. Now a few things to notice, you have a family who are on the block, and that family will not be sold as a unit. They will be broken up. And that was common in the sale of African slaves. Charleston was, for a brief time, the largest slave market in America. The other two large markets were Richmond, Virginia and New Orleans in Louisiana, Rainbow Row to Catfish Row. Here you can see some of those houses, the pastel colours. And it was originally called Rainbow Row, but it was changed to Catfish Row. And you can see a sign that hangs over this part of the street. And that is because of one man, George Gershwin.
There he is on the right-hand side of your screen. And he writes his opera, “Porgy and Bess.” And he changes the name of Rainbow Row to Catfish Row. And in the picture on the left, Gershwin is on the far right. His brother is next to him, two of their friends are there. And at the piano is Maurice Ravel, the French composer, who’s a very good friend of George Gershwin’s. And actually what they were doing here is that Ravel was playing the music, and that quartet were singing some of the songs from “Porgy and Bess.” This is a 1733 map of Charleston, and you get a better idea of its position on this little peninsula. It is surrounded on two sides by the Ashley and the Cooper rivers. And it opens into a very large bay. And that bay made Charleston a very important port in the south of the country. In fact, for a while it was as important as Boston in the amount of trade coming in and out. And it far outdid the trade in New York until the middle of the 18th century. And this is the Charleston Harbour in roughly 1750.
And the entrance to that harbour was protected by a fort, which was constructed by the United States government. And there we see a shot looking down at it, and we will come back to talk about this in a little while. These black and white photographs are actually from a photographic exhibit that was done celebrating Charleston’s 300th anniversary of Jewish life. And it’s a celebration of Jewish life, and it shows all sorts of individuals. I love the children who are in a day school, and they are learning how to do the Kabbalat Shabbat, how to light the candles. And I love the fact that a little girl is peeking through her fingers looking out at us. There we have a group of women in a synagogue who are getting ready for a kiddush. Down below that is a picture from one of the oldest department stores founded by Jews. And unfortunately in 2002, it finally had to close its doors. On the left, we see some of the elected officials, Jewish officials who were elected. And on the right, we see one of the Chabad rabbis who is giving a bar mitzvah lesson. Just scenes of Jewish life. There you’ve got a store, it is a military store for field jackets, flight jackets, you name it, he has it.
Down below on the left is a picture of a morning service in Orthodox shul. And on the right, we have a young man, and he is actually doing the morning prayers. You can see that he’s wearing tallit and tefillin, and he is there praying, looking out at the sea. And this was done, this is in Myrtle Beach. These are those elected officials again. 14 towns of varying sizes had Jewish mayors. In the 1970s, ‘80s and '90s, there were quite a number of Jews who were members of South Carolina’s legislature. And that in fact is the state capital behind them. And the symbol of South Carolina is the palmetto tree. And there you see palmettos just behind these individuals. This is a black convert. It is interesting that several of the congregations in Charleston have black members who have opted to convert. This is the new Jerusalem Cafe, and it is a glatt kosher cafe in Charleston. And it features only Israeli food. And there is the family that own it and run it. And this is Charleston’s Addlestone Hebrew Academy. The academy was actually begun by a very enterprising rabbi in 1954. And what he wanted to do is to make sure that Jewish children could have a proper Jewish education.
And Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch, he was a tireless builder, and he approached a very wealthy family in Charleston. And he wondered if they would like to contribute to this school. And they said they would contribute, and they gave millions of dollars for this school to be started. And the family name, the Addlestones, and we will see their name again later in this talk. So what are the origins of Charleston’s Jewish community? Well, it will surprise you perhaps that the community originated in New England from the emerging Sephardi communities that were there primarily in Rhode Island and New York. So individuals, large families also found him. The large families would send or encourage their youngest son to go south. And one of the reasons that it would be good is because that could give them a branch for their shipping empires. And so that’s where they came from originally.
These are a couple of significant early dates in the Jewish history of Charleston. And that would also mean of South Carolina. 1694, the first Jewish arrivals come to Charles Town. By 1730, there 10 Jewish households in Charleston who form a congregation, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, which adopted the Sephardi rights of worship. Now, 10 Jewish households meant that there were roughly between 50 and 60 Jews living in Charleston at the time. In 1774, Francis Salvador, and let me tell you who he was. He was actually from a Sephardi family from London, England. And what he did is he decided to immigrate. And he came to South Carolina, and he was elected very early on after he arrived there to the first Provincial Congress representing the Upcountry. Where Charleston is located is called the Down country. Upcountry is where you have the Piedmont leading towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. So he was elected to that first Provincial Congress representing Upcountry South Carolinians. And he became the first practising Jew to serve in a legislative body in America. Very, very important factor.
1775, 200 Jewish residents, so the population has increased, supporting the emerging American cause. A year later, 28 Jews served in the Jew company regiment. While serving as an officer in the regiment, Francis Salvador was killed in the line of duty, and he is the first Jew to die for the American cause. From the end of the 18th century to the early 1820s, Charleston’s Jewish population extended to 500 with immigrants arriving from Europe and the West Indies. Eventually, a significant number of Jews would move toward accepting a path toward Reform Judaism. This is a photograph of a painting that was destroyed, but this is Francis Salvador. There he is. And this is a diorama of the death of Francis Salvador. He is on horseback, and Indian allies of the British have shot him, and it is at night. And he fell from his horse. And when officers around him tried to find him to try and save him, they found that the Indians had scalped him. This is an account of Salvador’s death in a letter written by Colonel William Thompson. “Here, Mr. Salvador received three wounds, and fell by my side. I desired Lieutenant Farar to take care of Mr. Salvador, but he could not find him in the dark.
The enemy unfortunately got his scalp, which was the only one taken. He died, about half after two o'clock in the morning, 45 minutes after he received the wounds, sensible to the last. When I came up to him after dislodging the enemy and speaking to him, he asked whether I had beat the enemy. I told him yes. He said he was glad of it and shook me by the hand, and bade me farewell and said, he would die in a few minutes.” And this is a roadside sign that remembers him. This is Isaac Harby. He is another one of those movers in the early Jewish community in Charleston. He was in shipping, and he took a great deal of his wealth and he applied it into that first Jewish community, which is now known as Kadosh. Yes, I’m sorry, I’m drawing a blank all of a sudden. This is the original design for Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. And this is in 1791. The architect who designed the building knew that it was going to be an ecclesiastical building. And for him, ecclesiastical buildings, churches, had steeples. And so the original building had a steeple. Now this design lasted from 1791.
The congregation is consecrated in 1794. And it is going to last until 1838 when a fire destroyed the building. It was rebuilt in a totally different style. This is a painting of the original interior. And notice that there is a women’s gallery and then the men are downstairs. And this is it today, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim today. It is very much a building that looks like a Greek temple. And the interior is very, very different, as you can see. The iron fencing was actually built before the old structure burned to the ground. And it still is there on what is called Hasell Street. This is Abraham Moise. He was born in Alsace in France. And at a very young age, he left Europe and he travelled to what was then called St. Domingue. That is Haiti today. And he engaged in sugar. He was not a sugar planter, but he was an individual who expedited the sending of the sugar abroad. And with the Haitian Revolution, he lost everything, and he left Haiti and he travelled to Charleston.
And there in Charleston, he worked for a number of years trying to reestablish himself financially and to become a part of the community. He would actually create a clan of Moise. And you’ll see this name appear over and over again. Now, what was he able to do? This was his influence. First, he’s a founding family of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. He created a society for orphan children, not simply orphan Jewish children, but all sorts of children, including in some cases, freed black children. He established a free loan society for the Jewish community. He was fundamental in the formation of the Reform Society of Israelites and shifting KK Beth Elohim to become the first reformed synagogue in America, and that was in 1833. One of his daughters, Penina Moise, would become a significant poet whose work focuses on Jewish liturgical themes. And there’s a portrait of her. And in fact, even into this day in Beth Elohim, some of the songs that they sing are actually her poems. And here you see just the beginning of one of her poems, “For the Feast of Dedication,” which is Hanukkah.
You know, “Great arbiter of human fate whose glory ne'er decays, to thee alone we dedicate, and sing and soul of praise.” In 1852, a new kid was on the block. This is Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Levin And in some cases you’ll see him listed as Levine. And he came from Poland. This is the beginning of an influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. Jews who are not going to be part and parcel of the Sephardi rite, but are going to be part and parcel of the Ashkenazi rite. One of the things that he did is that he created an Orthodox congregation. And the Orthodox congregation was Brith Sholom. And there is the modern building of it. It is a fairly large community today. And in fact, the Orthodox community has expanded. There are actually two Chabad houses in Charleston. And on the left, we actually see his tombstone. And there it is, Rabbi Hirsch. They say Levine, he said Levin. This is Charleston Harbour roughly in 1820. And once again, we look across, we can see the city expanding. We can see ships that are coming in. One of those ships would, in the early 19th century, bring Jonas Phillips.
He actually changed his name. His original name was Phillips Hitz, and he was also from Poland. He came as an indentured servant. Indentured servants were brought over by a master, and they had to serve seven years. And after seven years, they were given their freedom. And so here we have him. Once he was freed, he began life on his own to build up capital and to build up a substantial holding. He starts off as a peddler, an itinerant peddler. And this is an exhibition that is in the Jewish Museum, and it shows us a cart similar to the one that he would’ve had as he went out from Charleston into the hinterland. And he sold anything and everything. And if he didn’t have something that someone asked for, the next time he was in that town or that village, he would have it. So that is how he began. He then became a small shop owner and then began to invest his money. What we see on the wall is part of a general store that was owned by a Jewish family, and the building was going to have to be demolished. And so bits of their store are in this as well. So from the itinerant peddlers to small shop owners and the small shop owners, as time went on, were going to become rather large.
What we see here, two photographs. On the right-hand side of the screen, you see a five-and-dime store. And nothing was more expensive than $1. And that store reminds me of my Uncle Isador. My Uncle Isador, who lived in Baltimore, and he had a store just like that. And as a kid, I loved going there, because he told me, get whatever toys I wanted. I loved the man. Next we see are haberdashers. And there you see, they’re standing in the doors. The shop is a bit larger. Hornik’s Bargain House actually was a small shop, or they had 40,000 subscribers. And those 40,000 subscribers actually would receive catalogues. And you could order, today we would say online, you could order long distance. By the time of the Civil War, roughly 40% of the small shops and the emerging department stores were owned by Jews. By the end of the Reconstruction period, which would be in the 1870s, the number had gone up to roughly 50%. Jews also began to open small restaurants. Some of them were catering to Jewish tastes exclusively. For example, this couple, this is from 2012.
You can see that they offer pastrami, knishes, roast beef, quiches? I never knew that quiche was a, you know, traditional Jewish food. Other people recognised that there was money to be made by offering shellfish. Charleston is right there on the water. And so they opened up crab houses and oyster bars, and they made out very well. We don’t know whether they ate the shellfish or whether they didn’t. This is Shepheard’s Tavern. It was a very popular tavern in sort of the downtown area, and it’s where individuals would gather and they would discuss politics, and they would discuss business. And so this is where many Jews would come in the 1830s and '40s. So here we have business and legal moguls. And I’m going to focus on the gentleman in the middle. His name is Mordecai Cohen, and he came from Zamosc, Poland. And initially, he started off as a small shop owner, and gradually extended by buying properties and extending into business. And he was real, apparently very astute in everything that he did.
And he was like, he had a Midas touch. The other thing that he did is he had a beautiful house built in the heart of Charleston, and then he purchased a plantation. The plantation was called The Oaks. This is a painting that shows the avenue, and the avenue leads from a highway down to the plantation house. And sadly, the plantation house no longer exists. It was destroyed in the Civil War. But this painting gives you some idea of driving down to that house and its outbuildings and the magnificence that you would’ve expected to see. Prior to the Civil War, Mordecai Cohen realised that things were not going particularly well. And so he decided to sell his plantation. What you see is from a newspaper, it is the advertisement of plantation and 50 Negroes for sale. We must remember that Negro slaves were chattel, they were property. And so if you were on a plantation and that plantation happened to be sold, you went with the property. This is Mr. And Mrs. Louis Mann. They were also plantation owners.
They had a very large plantation on the Cooper River, and what they did on their plantation, they grew rice and indigo, which were two of the important products that people grew in South Carolina. And that went back to the colonial era and continued up until the period after the Civil War. These are some of Charleston’s Jewish matrons. They were, in many ways, well-healed. And so you see three ladies here, if we look at the woman down on the bottom, we can see that her clothing looks immaculate. It is undoubtedly expensive. And she is also, you can see a chain, and that is a watch attached to it, all in gold. And again, that would be a sign of her wealth and her status in the community. The painting on the upper side is Rebecca Isaiah Moses versus Phoebe Yates Lazarus. We notice a difference in the way they are dressed. Phoebe Yates Lazarus was from a very important family that were involved in Beth Elohim, the Reform congregation. Rebecca Moses is an individual who was in an Orthodox congregation, and she and numerous other Orthodox women felt that the younger generation of Jewish girls who were in the Reform synagogue were actually not being properly dressed.
So even there in the early 19th century, we have this conflict between Orthodox and Reform. This is Caroline Caro Agnes Moise, that’s her maiden name. That’s one of those big families, Lopez. She was among a number of Charleston’s Jewish women who engaged in civic and religious work. Caro, that was her nickname, was active in KK Beth Elohim and encouraged other women to join her. Establishing a friendship group to engage and assist women became the first step in America in synagogue sisterhoods. And you can look at her and you can see that there is that degree of wealth and a surety. I love the fact that her hat has a bird in it. Fort Sumter, we’ve mentioned it before. This is it. There it is, this American fortress to protect the harbour of Charleston. In December of 1860, the Charleston General Assembly and Convention voted to secede from the Union. And so on the left, down at the bottom, you see the Union is dissolved. On the 12th and 13th of April, 1861, the militia, the South Carolina militia opened fire on Fort Sumter. And Charleston ladies and gentlemen and slaves, they gathered on the battery at the very bottom of the peninsula to watch the bombardment.
And many stayed up on the roofs of houses to watch what was going on. This, of course, leads to the Civil War. David Camden de Leon was a student at the Citadel. The Citadel is a military college in Charleston. And as soon as the bombardment was over, he let it be known that he was going to sign up and join the emerging Confederate Army. He was one of the first, he was one of the youngest, and he was the first Jew to do so. And these were a number of other individuals, Jewish Confederate troops. On the left-hand side of the screen, you see Lieutenant Joshua Lazarus Moses, and he was in the infantry. In the middle, you see Captain Edwin Warren Moise, and he was in the cavalry. He was known as being a dashing and at times, maybe foolhardy individual. There were reports that in certain battles he would have a horse shot out from under him, somebody would bring him another horse, he would get up and continue to fight. Both of those gentlemen survived the war.
The three that we see on the right-hand side are three brothers. The one who is standing is Joshua Moses. And he would join the infantry and would fight, and he was killed just before the end of the war in 1865. The two down below him, the one that is on the left of our screen, is Isaac Harby Moses. And he was known as Lord Fauntleroy, because he just looked so young. And next to him is his brother, Perry Moses. Perry Moses and his brother Isaac would survive the war. Isaac went on and had many, many problems. We would probably call it today PTSD. His other brother, Perry, would spend the majority of the rest of his life. He dies in 1918, and he would be helping Confederate war veterans. This is Hannah Jacobs Levi. She arrived in Charleston from a village in Bavaria in the 1850s. And she married a gentleman who was from the same village in Bavaria, and who had a small store. Together they left and they went Upcountry, and they opened a shop that became actually a very large general store.
But as soon as the war began, her husband said he had to go, he had to fight for the cause. And the cause, of course, is the Confederate cause. And so he left and signed up, went to war. And he was captured and placed in a prisoner of war camp. What Levi did is she took on the running of their business. She was raising seven children, and she actually wrote a letter to President Lincoln, requesting that her husband be pardoned so he could come home and help her. And she based it all on her need. And Lincoln never responded. This is the burning of Columbia, South Carolina. Columbia, again, was the capital of South Carolina. It still is today. And as the Confederate troops pulled out of the city, what they did is they began to burn down buildings. They wanted nothing to be handed over to the federal troops as they came in. That meant that the fire was a wildfire, and it meant that ordinary individuals were also going to be endangered. This is written by Octavia Harby Moses in 1866.
It is part of a poem that laments the lost cause. “Oh, land of the South, by thy soul ever sacred, enriched as it is by the blood of the brave, to thee our love, to thy foes our hatred, thou birthplace of heroes, of martyrs, the grave!” The lost cause would be something that would anger individuals who had fought in the war. Most of those individuals were white and Christian. Many of the Jews recognised that it’s over, we lost. We need to begin moving forward. We need to rebuild. This is the Baruch family in 1879. And I apologise for the rather bad slide here. The paterfamilias is on the left, and he is Samuel Baruch, and his wife is in the middle. There are their sons and there is a daughter-in-law. They were all, in one way or another, involved in the Civil War. The Baruch father and his father worked in hospitals taking care of wounded Confederate soldiers. The four sons were in various branches of the Confederate army and navy. And the mother and the daughter would, in fact, do all sorts of deeds to help anyone and everyone in Charleston during the war.
They always stood by the Southern ideals, by that idea of the lost cause. But they also recognised that the Union was in fact not dissolved, and they needed, at the same time, they needed to become Americans again. However, the good doctor, whenever he heard a band strike up Dixie, he would jump up and scream yeehaw! The rebel yell. These individuals are leaving from Riga and they’re bound for Charleston. I have never been able to find out why so many Eastern European Jews opted to go to Charleston, South Carolina. They must not have known very much about it. It really boggles the mind. You would think New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, but Charleston? And I came up with something just before we came online. And that is maybe because all of them were from Eastern Europe and they were, you know, cold, maybe they realised Charleston, South Carolina, it’s in the South. Maybe we should go there, but maybe it’ll be warm. So this is a family who are leaving to come to Charleston. And these are some of the arrivals in the late 19th century.
What you’re going to have between 1890 and 1920 is that the Jewish population of South Carolina was between 2,500 and 2,750 individuals. By 1920, there were well over 5,000 Jews in the state. And the vast majority of those were going to be in Charleston. This is a Jewish family outside their Charleston home. The war meant that many of Charleston’s old families, and here I’m talking about old Christian families, could no longer afford their houses in the city centre, and they had to move out. And so, many Jews who came in were able to purchase those houses, and that angered a great many white Christians. However, there was never any overt action of violence taken against Jews. This is the Goldstein family, and we see two branches of it. On the right-hand side, we see an elder brother and his wife and their two children, and on the left we see a father and his mother and the wife and their two children. What is interesting is we do know that the Goldstein son on the left, that he is going to make his Jewish mother and his Jewish grandmother very happy.
He went on to study medicine at the College of Charleston. And another curious thing that was adopted in the early 20th century, primarily in Reform synagogues, was the notion of confirmation. It is when boys and girls got to the age of 16, they would study a bit and then they would have a graduation ceremony. And they were confirmed, a very sort of Christian concept, but they were confirmed and they would then enter the community. So here we see six young women and one young man, and they are there with their diplomas. And the book that they have is a translation of the Bible. This is promoting the war effort in 1942. Bernadette Zalkin, whom we see there, and her sign says, save waste fats for explosives. And she’s standing in front of her father’s market, Zalkin’s Market.
And notice that it is a kosher market. Here’s that name again, Addlestone. Marlene and Nathan Addlestone would also give the College of Charleston a new library. And that library would house South Carolina’s Historical Society archives, but it also houses the Jewish Museum of Charleston. And this is in the Jewish Museum. There are portraits, there are papers. There are a whole host of things that speak of the Jewish presence in Charleston, in South Carolina across its history. For example, as you come in, you see that there are two portraits that are hanging, and those are individuals who are amongst the first Jews who came there, 1694. Here we have others and all sorts of papers. It is an amazing collection, and I actually have seen things there that I’ve never seen anywhere else. These are some of the artefacts. At the top left, what we have is a ketubah, and Hebrew on one side, English on the other. They’re a pair of Shabbat candlesticks, and they were originally in KK Beth Elohim. And the sugar dish that we see right there is also from the same synagogue.
Something I’d never seen before is this card, and it’s Mr. and Mrs. I. Oberman, request the pleasure of your company at the brit milah. I have seen a request like that that went out. This is from 1913. It just really surprised me, because Jewish tradition says, don’t talk up brit milah. Just let people sort of know something’s going to happen. Don’t bring a gift, don’t do anything. But this is a card, and it’s like, where they hand it out at the synagogue, where they hand it out, you know, the new Jews living on the street. It just really was a surprising thing for me to see. This is the new Charleston Jewish Community Centre, and it is on what is called the West Side. The West Side is actually on the other side of the Ashley River, and that is where a great number of Jews have moved over time. This is Hillel at the College of Charleston. The College of Charleston has a very large percentage of Jewish students, and they’re from all over the country. So here you see all of these happy faces.
One of the other things that Hillel has been able to establish at the college is there is a kosher dining room. And so if you want to eat kosher food or if you want to be there with Jewish friends, that’s where you go. Jewish Southern cooking. Hugs & Knishes, this is a workshop and also a food festival of Jewish Southern foods. And so there it is. You can see that it’s on Wednesday, September 13th, 7:00 at the Centre for Jewish Life. And there’s even a cookbook. “Kugels & Collards.” I must admit, I’m from the South originally, I don’t like collards. They just don’t sit with me, but whatever. There’s an entire cookbook that you can get, and stories of food and family. And there is a table that is set with a brisket and with collards and other things in Charleston. The Jewish Star is the Charleston weekly newspaper, and it is an absolute must. It’s sort of like in London, the Jewish Chronicle, or in large cities in this country where you have newspapers or magazines. And it gives you what’s going on within the community as well as what’s going on in the Jewish world beyond. There is a very active Jewish life in Charleston. What we see here are a number of different scenes of that Jewish life.
First of all, on the upper left, this is in a Masorti, a Conservative synagogue, and it is havdalah. Next to that on the right, we have some singers, and every Hanukkah, there is a festival of Jewish life. And it’s music, it’s films, all of that. Here we see one of the musical groups for Hanukkah. Down below on the left, we have , but in addition, a new Torah scroll is being introduced on this holiday. Next to that, that building, is the larger of the two Chabad houses in Charleston. And on the right, we see Jews who have gathered together in October of this past year, and they are there in support of Israel. And this is a dinner in aid of Israel. And you can see the women who did all of the cooking. You can see the other individuals at the back, and at each table, each table had one or two seats where there was simply a picture of one of the hostages. It’s a very sort of striking and moving way to remember all of this. So if you want more information, the Encyclopaedia of Southern Jewish Communities at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. And that’s their website address.
So if you want to know more, please contact them. It is a fascinating city, and even though the Charleston Jewish Museum is not one of the largest in America, it is one that literally tries to bring together every aspect of Charleston and South Carolina Jewry as well as other Jewish communities throughout the country. All righty, so with that said, I’m going to go to see your questions.
Q&A and Comments:
There’s one here from Miriam who says, fascinating lecture, I had no idea that Jews resided in Charleston hundreds of years ago. It’s true.
I’d like to revisit the Harby quote that Professor Sibelman uses for his title. For a correct interpretation, please see our book. Okay, I shall do that. Thank you.
Upcountry and Lowcountry. Salvador died in the Upcountry, he was not a member of the Jews Company militia. One of my sources said that he was, but I accept that that could be wrong.
Wait, wait, wait, I’ve gone forward too fast. Okay, thanks.
Q: Is there much antisemitism in Charleston since the war?
A: I’m going to imagine that there is some, but I do not believe it is as bad as in some other places in this country.
I don’t actually have a complete, the Jewish population of Charleston today. If there’s anybody out there on this and you know that, please let me know, 'cause there’s two questions about that. When I was wrong, we subscribed to the “Carolina Israelite” edited by Harry Golden. If any of you want to read some fascinating stories about what life was like in North Carolina, Harry Golden’s books are absolutely wonderful.
Someone says here, my father was born in Cairo in 1917 and had a very similar announcement card for his bris. It was the only, wait, wait, . I’ve got to go back up and finish reading that. It was the only other such document I’ve ever seen. As I said, I have never ever seen one. My great uncles travelled from Poughkeepsie, New York to Charleston to get away from the cold. The rest of the family followed suit. Most of them had grocery stores, the family originally from Russia.
And from Angela, she says, I was in Savannah two years ago and one of the reasons a small number of Jews were welcomed was because one of them was a doctor. Otherwise, the town was very against having Jews in Savannah. Interesting.
To my knowledge, the minion house is still active. We visited Charleston in the 1990s. I believe the chief of police was a black Jew called Goldberg. And in fact, you’re absolutely right. Was this very rare? There are quite a number of African Americans who have converted to Judaism, and the picture that I showed you was of the police chief, and on the opposite page of the book that I got that from, it shows him at his desk in the police station.
All right, it looks like that is it. I thank all of you for being with me. I thank all of you for your comments, and it’s been a real pleasure. And I hope to see you all before too long. Take care, everyone. Be safe, stay warm, or stay cool if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere.