Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History

Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life

by Marcie Cohen Ferris (Editor)

Jews have long been a presence in the American South, first arriving in the late seventeenth century as part of exploratory voyages from Europe to the New World. Two of the nation’s earliest Jewish communities were founded in Savannah in 1733 and Charleston in 1749. By 1800, more Jews lived in Charleston than in New York City. Today, Jews comprise less than one half of one percent of the southern population but provide critical sustenance and support for their communities. Nonetheless, southern Jews have perplexed scholars. For more than a century, historians have wrestled with various questions. Why study southern Jewish history? What is the southern Jewish experience? Is southern Jewish culture distinctive from that of other regions of the country, and if so, why? Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History addresses these questions through the voices of a new generation of scholars of the Jewish South. Each of this book’s thirteen chapters reflects a response with particular attention paid to new studies on women and gender; black/Jewish relations and the role of race, politics, and economic life; popular and material culture; and the changes wrought by industrialization and urbanization in the twentieth century. Essays address historical issues from the colonial era to the present and in every region of the South. Topics include assimilation and American Jewish identity, southern Jewish women writers, the Jewish Confederacy, Jewish peddlers, southern Jewish racial identity, black/Jewish relations, demographic change, the rise of American Reform Judaism, and Jews in southern literature.

Genres: History, American History, Jewish

384 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2006

Reviews

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an anthology of essays by different authors about the Southern Jewish experience. Some of them were just OK; the weakest were full of mushy, unverifiable generalizations about what Southern Jews did and thought. The best were a bit more specific. I especially liked the last couple of chapters, which discuss the convergence between northern and southern Jewry: a century ago, most Southern Jews lived in small towns and rural areas, while northern Jews tended to be more urban. Over the past century, the urban/suburban South has gained Jews while the small-town South has lost Jews: as a result, Arkansas and Mississippi, which have no major cities, lost over 2/3 of their Depression-era Jewish population, and even Kentucky and Tennessee lost people between the 1930s and 2001. On the other hand, in the states with the largest metro areas (Georgia and Texas) Jewish population doubled or tripled. And in the 1930s, the Jewish South was heavily Reform while the north was heavily Orthodox, while in recent decades the South has become more religiously diverse.

[Rachael]

favorite anthology on southern Jewish history by far.

[Lorri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History , by Marcie Ferris and Mark I. Greenberg, is an incredible and long overdue work of historical relevance to the Jewish community as a whole, and not just the Jewish community of the south. After visiting Congregation Mickve Israel, in Savannah, a few years back, my interest in southern Jews began to engage some of my reading. This book has fostered my interest further. The book is vividly detailed with thirteen intellectual and fascinating essays. Some historians feel there is no significant definition of “southern Jews”, and others feel there is definitely a defining factor that differentiates “southern Jews” from the general Jewish population.

I learned a lot from reading this intense book of essays. History definitely has downplayed the southern Jewish community as being a culture in and of itself. It has downplayed what the Jewish individuals had to endure in order to assimilate and survive under extreme circumstances of the immigrant experience. They found themselves in a land so far removed from where they came from, culturally. Yet, they persevered and survived the obstacles set before them.

I highly recommend Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History, by Marcie Ferris and Mark I. Greenberg, to everyone interested in Jewish history, and specifically the comparison of southern Jews to northeastern Jews. It is a book that will fill you with many thoughts to consider, and a book of historical importance.