Final Paper!

Here's my final paper....enjoy! And everyone have happy holidays!!!

Jewish Identity in Present Day Mississippi

Deep in the heart of Dixie, from the Gulf Coast to Memphis, lives a vibrant population that is often unseen. Jewish communities are present throughout the state of Mississippi, as well as the rest of the South. Though other American Jews may not know of their existence, these communities have a very rich history which dates back to before Mississippi joined the Union in 1917 (Nelson 33). Many Jewish communities have died out or moved away in the past 180 years, but there are still several communities which remain strong both culturally and religiously. These Jews have become accepted members of their local community and have created a tight Jewish network throughout Mississippi. Jews of Mississippi continually face challenges such as assimilation, anti-Semitism, and preservation of distinct Southern Jewish culture. In order to evaluate the current state of Jewish identity in Mississippi it is important to reflect back on changes of the past 180 years in comparison to what remains. No community can move forward without knowing it’s past.
Jews have lived in the South since the late 17th Century. Most were Eastern European Jews who came to America during one of the many waves of immigration. A large number of Jews arrived in the United States by way of Ellis Island. While many opportunities existed at the time for immigrants in New York, there were also lots of opportunities in the South as well. Many Jews in Mississippi can trace their family history back to a single peddler. Jewish peddlers moved down South looking for business. They traveled with a pack full of merchandise and wandered around the rural South selling supplies to farming families. These peddlers were often in their late teens or early twenties and traveled down through New Orleans, a thriving port city, and then looped back up through the Mississippi Delta. The peddling trade proved to be very successful; it was needed as parts of the rural South had no stores from which families could buy supplies. After a few years of peddling, it was common for the peddler to establish a business in a small town (Turitz xii). Charlie Goldberg, owner of Goldberg’s Department Store in Greenwood, agrees that opening a business was the next step for most peddlers. “Many Jews opened stores in small towns after peddling their way through the back roads of the rural South, bringing much-needed merchandise to the scattered population” (Fox 32). Phil Cohen of Lexington recounts the story of how his grandfather found his way to Mississippi to establish the business Cohen’s Department Store which has been in business since 1900:

“Grandpa Cohen came down South because he had a relative in Memphis. He began peddling around the Memphis area and down a little ways in to the Northern parts of Mississippi. He was a sick man and his doctor told him that better water would make him feel better. He decided to move a little ways south near some natural springs. He took the train south looking for a town to settle in. He got off the train in a town called Tchula, Mississippi, where he met three Jewish men that really needed a fourth Jew so that they could play pinochle. So the Cohen family moved to Tchula, and he opened a store. A few years after moving to Tchula, Grandpa decided to move one town over to Lexington because a Jewish merchant had just built a block on the town square and offered him a store there. They had also just built a synagogue, so Jewish life would be better (Cohen).”

Over a hundred years later, Cohen’s Department Store is still in business. Now the only Jewish owned business in the town of 3,000, Cohen claims that at one time, there were at over a dozen Jewish owned businesses in Lexington. Jewish merchants became a very important part of Southern life. Most small towns in Mississippi had at least one “Jew store.” According to Cohen, today there are Jewish owned businesses in small towns such as Belzoni, Greenwood, Lexington, Indianola, Greenville, Columbus, Batesville, Vicksburg, and Grenada (Cohen). At least one Jewish owned business from Mississippi has made a big name for itself on a national level. Stein Mart, which was started in 1908 by Jake, Bernard, and Sadie Stein of Greenville, now has over 200 stores around the US. Though the business now has its headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, the company still proudly claims its roots in the Mississippi Delta (Stein-Cohen).
Because of the successful nature of the Jewish merchant, Jews were accepted in to Southern society. Perhaps the locals did not understand Judaism, but most towns welcomed Jews to take part in the community. Ben Lamensdorf tells the following humorous story about the ignorance of Judaism among non-Jews in Cary, Mississippi: “One evening, the day Sandy Koufax announced that he wouldn’t pitch in the World Series on Yom Kippur, some workers on my father’s farm knocked on the door and asked him: ‘You’re Jewish, can you talk to Sandy Koufax about this and convince him that it is all right to play?” (Fox 25). Though the workers did not understand Judaism, they tried to include Lamensdorf’s father in the community’s concern of losing the World Series. Many towns throughout Mississippi have had Jews serve as politicians on the local, state, and national level. Vicksburg and Brookhaven both had Jewish mayors at one time (Cohen). Some towns, such as Marks, were even founded by Jews. Though Marks no longer has any Jews residing there, it was founded by Leopold Marks who traded and sold land in the Coldwater River region. He also served as Quitman County’s first representative to the state legislature (Fox 1).
Today, the Jewish population in small towns around Mississippi has significantly dwindled. Towns like Lexington, which at one time had a thriving Jewish community, now has seven Jews (Cohen). This is the trend of all small towns in Mississippi as well as the rest of the South. This drop in Jewish population could be attributed to children’s desire to leave their small town to attend university. Historian Vicki Fox says, “Like many other Jews, I left my small hometown to attend college in a big Southern city and did not return. This exodus of young Jews ultimately meant the demise of small-town Southern Jewish life as I knew it, even as Jewish communities in larger Southern cities became invigorated by the growth they experienced” (Fox XVI). Few Jewish teens attend university in Mississippi. In the 1950’s, Tulane was where all the Mississippi Jews went (Cohen). Today, trends seem to show that Jewish students are attending larger state schools such as Texas, Arizona, or Louisiana State University. After completing their schooling, most students do not move back home. Lawrence Chiz of Shaw was an exception to the rule. “Every town along the Delta had Jews in it. But nine out of ten of my contemporaries did not come back. I am a remnant” (Fox 28).
Jews in the South find themselves in a very unique position; they are wedged between two extremely rich cultures: Southern and Jewish. At times these cultures can clash with one another. For example, southern accents are not generally associated with Judaism. “Whenever I traveled outside of the South, my Southern accent was heard as being at odds with my Jewish identity” (Fox XV). Because of such clashes, Jews in Mississippi have had to craft a personal Judaism which adheres to the principles of each culture. Over the years, they have been able to find a place in Southern culture while remaining Jewish in a land so far removed from larger Jewish communities (Ferris 6). Food is as huge of a part of Southern culture as it is of Jewish culture. Southern heritage combined with Jewish tradition creates a delightful “mix of flavor and methods with Old World ingredients and techniques” (Ferris 7). Jews in the South have come up with many ways over the past 200 years to combine Southern delicacies with Jewish cuisine. In her book Matzoh Ball Gumbo, Marcie Cohen Ferris talks about how some Jewish families in Mississippi created their own way to keep kosher in the South. She calls this “southernized kashrut.” Keeping kosher in Mississippi is very hard. There are no kosher delis and there is nowhere to get kosher food. Jews who wish to keep kosher must order their meat from Memphis, Atlanta, or St. Louis. As a result, many Jews compromise the strictness of traditional kashrut, and implement a personal form of this “southernized kashrut” which could include not eating traif at home, no bacon on Shabbat, or even having a special set of dishes on which to eat traif (Ferris 11-12). “Southernized kashrut” can also mean taking a traditionally Southern meal and making slight alterations that make it kosher. African Americans played a huge part in creating this type of Southern kosher food. African Americans were cooks and servers for white Jews in the South. They used their cultural cooking knowledge and prepared the food according to Jewish dietary laws (Ferris 6-7). The outcome was dishes such as “Creole Matzoh Balls” or “Pesach Fried Green Tomatoes” (Ferris 135-137).
Jews in Mississippi also use the holidays as a way to observe rich Southern culture. “Even today during the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot, communities along the Mississippi River use freshly picked cotton from nearby fields to cover their sukkah” (Fox XVI). The Cohen family of Lexington would use the holidays as a way to educate the community about Judaism.
“My two sons used to decorate the house with Chanukah lights so that we could compete in the town Christmas lights competition each year. We would have this huge Magen David hanging from a tree in the front yard strung in blue lights and it always made people ask questions which we would gladly answer. I wanted to educate the community so that the kids would feel okay about being Jewish” (Stein-Cohen).

It’s important for all Jewish families in Mississippi to assure the children that it is okay to be Jewish, because in many small towns there are very few Jewish children. It was easy to feel alienated. Jack Cristil, who is best known as the “voice of the Mississippi State Bulldogs,” grew up in one of the only Jewish families in Tupelo.

“When you live in a big city, like Miami, Chicago, or New York, there are thousands upon thousands of Jewish people. You can let somebody else represent Judaism because of the large numbers. This is not true in a small community. You are the Jewish community, whether you like it or not. You accept this responsibility. You do the things that are expected of you. You go a step beyond and you consistently keep in the back of your mind that you have got to be a little different and a little special. You go out of your way to make sure that you do not cast aspersions upon the Jewish people by your individual actions” (Fox 65).

Though many Christian neighbors might have been uninformed about Jews, anti-Semitism was never overly rampant in Mississippi. Sara Stein Cohen, originally of Greenville, suggests that this is because many Jews had a good standing in the community. “They had built a name for themselves first as peddlers then as merchants. They always helped out the community, and as people got older the good name got passed down to the children” (Stein-Cohen). Susan Hart, originally of Lexington, says that she never experienced anti-Semitism growing up. She suggests, “It depended on your personality. If you were a nice person and got along with others then there wasn’t a problem. The people who didn’t have strong personalities were the ones who got picked on, but that goes in any case” (Hart). Jew were accepted in most parts of society in the South, Betty Goldstein of Greenville recalls that the only place Jews were not welcomed was the garden club (Fox 1).
It was not until the 1960’s that Jews began to draw the wrong kind of consideration.
With the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Jews in the South began getting the unwanted attention of being a significant driving force behind the civil rights movement (Nelson 20). The Freedom Rides of 1961, in which many young adults traveled to Mississippi to challenge segregationist laws still in practice, shone much light on Jewish involvement with the civil rights movement. Though most local Jews kept to themselves during this time, the unwanted attention came from the many Jewish riders who came from the North and found themselves in jail (Nelson 37). Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, the rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation at the time, tried to keep a low profile for the sake of his congregation. Unbeknownst to his congregants, Nussbaum was secretly traveling 150 miles to the state prison to visit the Jewish activists who were locked up (Nelson 27). In 1964, Nussbaum finally stepped out in to the light and openly supported civil rights. He stepped up and accepted a position in leading a group called Committee of Concern, which focused on raising money to rebuild black churches that were burned by the Klan (Nelson 44). Many people from Nussbaum’s congregation blame him for the actions that took place next. On September 18, 1967, much of North Jackson was awoken to a loud explosion. Temple Beth Israel had been bombed (Nelson 31).
Since the bombing in 1967, much has changed. Even though Mississippi remains ranked as the poorest state in the United States, there are many positive aspects, great people, and encouraging opportunities which are produced by the state. A new campaign started by Rick Looser of Jackson is striving to stress these positive examples and attempt to show people that Mississippi is not the same place it was thirty years ago (Believe It!). As race relations get better, so do opportunities for Jews. In 1970, a Reform Jewish summer camp was founded in Utica for Jewish children from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Western Tennessee. Henry S. Jacobs camp educates children and allows them the opportunity to experience a Jewish environment. As Vivian Levingston of Cleveland points out, “That’s why camp is so important to our children. The first time one of my little granddaughters went she said, ‘There’s nothing there but Jews.’ She was used to being the only Jew wherever she went” (Fox 86). In addition to Jacobs camp, the Goldring/Woldenburg Institute for Southern Jewish Life was founded by Macy Hart in 2000. The Institute, which began as the Museum of Southern Jewish Experience in Utica, is dedicated to “providing educational and rabbinic services to isolated Jewish communities, documenting and preserving the rich history of the Southern Jewish experience, and promoting a Jewish cultural presence throughout a twelve state region” (Our Mission). The fight to preserve Jewish culture in the South is extremely important now as more and more Jews move away from their small hometowns.
The most recent challenge for Jews in Mississippi comes from the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Several Jewish communities were uprooted by the storm; all congregants evacuated either before or after the storm, but not everyone has returned. In New Orleans, one Orthodox synagogue claims its membership is down 30% since the storm (Roan). Trends seem to be similar along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Several synagogues were either damaged or destroyed in the storm so returning members are forced to find alternate places to conduct services. A year after the storm, congregants of Temple Beth Israel in Biloxi prayed at Keesler Air Force Base for Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur services (Prescott). While several Jews from the hurricane stricken area have relocated to places such as Houston and Atlanta, a fair share have made their home among the Jackson community (Stein-Cohen). Though it has been fifteen months since the storm, insurance policies remain open, FEMA trailers and blue tarps are still common sights, and vacancy is a common neighbor along the coast. Time has not yet told the story of how many Jews shall return from this modern day Exodus.
History and heritage are very important to both Jews and Southerners. It is evident that Southern Jews have always lived true to these values. Though the Jewish population in many small towns around Mississippi is diminishing, the accomplishments and history of the once thriving Jewish population can never be erased. “As long as there’s a South, there’ll be Jews inhabiting it-upstanding, strong, Jews like the ones who had the vision and fortitude to immigrate all those years ago” (Uhry, Fox XIII).



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Cohen, Phil R. Personal interview. 25 Nov. 2006.

Ferris, Marcie C. Matzoh Ball Gumbo. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2005.

Fox, Vickie R. Shalom Y'All. Photos Bill Aron. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2002.

Hart, Susan. Personal Interview. 21 Nov. 2006.

Mississippi: Believe It! 7 Dec. 2006 .

Nelson, Jack. Terror in the Night. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

"Our Mission." Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. 2006. 7 Dec. 2006 .

Prescott, Jean. "Jewish High Holidays." The Sun Herald 15 Sept. 2006. Nexus Lexus. Herman B. Wells Library, Bloomington, Indiana. 8 Dec. 2006. Keyword: Mississippi Jews.

Rosen, Robert N. The Jewish Confederates. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2000.

Stein-Cohen, Sara. Personal interview. 25 Nov. 2006.

Turitz, Leo. Jews in Early Mississippi. Jackson: University P of Mississippi, 1983.