Southern Jewish HIstory, 2022

COVER PICTURE: Max and Trude Heller announcing Max’s candidacy for mayor of Greenville, South Carolina, 1971. Heller’s life and career are documented in the article by Andrew Harrison Baker in this issue. (Courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Furman University.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Maryland’s Jews, Military Service, and the American Revolutionary Era: The Case of Elias Pollock, by Owen Lourie “Did You Ever Hear of Judah Benjamin?” Fictional Representations of the Jewish Confederate, by Michael Hoberman Max Moses Heller: Jewish Mayor in the Sunbelt South, by Andrew Harrison Baker PRIMARY SOURCES: “A Good Place to Emigrate to Now”: Recruiting Eastern European Jews for the Galveston Movement in 1907, by Joshua J. Furman MEMOIRS From the Memoirs Section Editors Lance J. Sussman and Karen S. Franklin Contextualizing Rabbi Davidow’s Memoir: A Historical Introduction To Jewish Life in the Mississippi Delta, 1943–1961, by Lance J. Sussman and Paul Finkelman Growing Up Jewish in the Mississippi Delta, 1943–1961: A Rabbi’s Memoir, by Fred Davidow BOOK REVIEWS Review Essay: Memoirs and Archives: Celebrating the Jews of Atlanta, by Jacob Morrow-Spitzer Howard Ball, Taking the Fight South: Chronicle of a Jew’s Battle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, reviewed by Fred V. Davidow Andrew Feiler, A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America, reviewed by Deborah Dash Moore Marilyn Grace Miller, Port of No Return: Enemy Alien Internment in World War II New Orleans, reviewed by Shael Herman T. K. Thorne, Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days, reviewed by Raymond Arsenault James Traub, Judah Benjamin: Counselor to the Confederacy, reviewed by Michael Hoberman EXHIBIT REVIEWS The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, reviewed by Irwin Lachoff History with Chutzpah: Remarkable Stories of the Southern Jewish Adventure, 1733–Present, reviewed by Leah Lefkowitz A Source of Light, reviewed by Ashley Walters WEBSITE REVIEW Jewish Merchant Project, reviewed by Diane Vecchio

2024

COVER PICTURE: Portrait of Margaret Anne Goldsmith, by Maurice Grosser, c. 1947. Portions of Goldsmith’s memoir describing her lifelong relationship with the Black woman who raised her appear in this issue. (Courtesy of the Huntsville History Collection.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Mark K. Bauman, In Memoriam: Janice Oettinger Rothschild Blumberg (February 13, 1924 – February 21, 2024) Jay Silverberg, Houses Divided that Remained Standing: Conflicting Loyalties within an Extended Southern Jewish Family Leonard Rogoff, Matisse’s Cosmopolitans in the New South: The Cone Sisters Collect Modern Art Mary Jo O’Rear, The Constitution, Corpus Christi, and the Statue on the Bay Adrienne DeArmas, Primary Sources: The Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the American Civil War: A Resource for Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century American Jewish History Lance J. Sussman and Lynda Barness, Transcending Race, Religion, and Class: Select Huntsville Memoirs by Margaret Anne Goldsmith BOOK REVIEWS Devery S. Anderson, A Slow, Calculated Lynching: The Story of Clyde Kennard, reviewed by Stephen Whitfield Mark K. Bauman, The Temple and Its People to 2018: The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation: Living Up to the Name and the Legacy, reviewed by Tobias Brinkmann Joel Gereboff and Jonathan L. Friedmann, Jewish Historical Societies: Navigating the Professional–Amateur Divide, reviewed by Dana Herman Jerome Novey, The Life and Letters of Samuel Ellsworth Fleet: An Immigrant’s Tale, reviewed by Marcia Jo Zerivitz Marlene Trestman, Most Fortunate Unfortunates: The Jewish Orphans’ Home of New Orleans, reviewed by Reena Sigman Friedman Diane Catherine Vecchio, Peddlers, Merchants, and Manufacturers: How Jewish Entrepreneurs Built Economy and Community in Upcountry South Carolina, reviewed by Scott M. Langston FILM REVIEWS People of the Crossing: The Jews of El Paso, reviewed by Bryan Edward Stone The Nita and Zita Project, reviewed by Rachel Merrill Moss EXHIBIT REVIEWS A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America, reviewed by Emily Rena Williams What is Jewish Washington?, reviewed by Andrew Sperling Infinite Poem, reviewed by Nora Katz WEBSITE REVIEW Synagogues of the South: Architecture and Jewish Identity, reviewed by Christopher D. Cantwell

Southern Jewish History, 2020

COVER PICTURE: Sarah Bentschner Visanska of Charleston, South Carolina. Visanska’s social activism and club leadership is documented by Diane C. Vecchio in the article on pp. 43–75. (Courtesy of the Jewish Heritage Collection, College of Charleston.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Southern Jews, Woman Suffrage, by Leonard Rogoff New Jewish Women: Shaping the Future of a “New South” in the Palmetto State, by Diane C. Vecchio Two Commemorations: Richmond Jews and the Lost Cause during the Civil Rights Era, by David Weinfeld Moshe Cahana, Ethical Zionism, and the Application of Jewish Nationalism to Civil Rights Struggles in the American South, by Timothy R. Riggio Quevillon PRIMARY SOURCES: Resources for Southern Jewish Research: A Family History Perspective, by Karen S. Franklin and Anton Hieke BOOK REVIEWS Mark K. Bauman, A New Vision of Southern Jewish History: Studies in Institution Building, Leadership, Interaction, and Mobility, reviewed by Gary Phillip Zola S. Perry Brickman, Extracted: Unmasking Rampant Anti- semitism in America’s Higher Education, reviewed by Carl L. Zielonka David E. Lowe, Touched with Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle Against Racial and Religious Discrimination, reviewed by Jonathan B. Krasner Walker Robins, Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel, reviewed by Yaakov Ariel Marcia Jo Zerivitz, Jews of Florida: Centuries of Stories, reviewed by Kenneth D. Wald EXHIBIT REVIEWS Modern Visions, Modern Art: The Cone Sisters in North Carolina and Modern Visions, Mountain Views: The Cones of Flat Top Manor, reviewed by Leonard Rogoff WEBSITE REVIEW Mapping Jewish Charleston: From the Colonial Era to the Present Day, reviewed by Curt Jackson FILM REVIEW Shared Legacies: The African American-Jewish Civil Rights Alliance, reviewed by Aaron Levi

Southern Jewish History, 2018

COVER PICTURE: Passover seder conducted at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in 1958. Harry Weissman and his son Donald appear at the right end of the head table. The article by Mark K. Bauman and Leah Burnham on pages 1–60 traces the interaction of members of the local Jewish community with Jewish prisoners, including such seders. (Harry Weissman Papers, courtesy of the Cuba Family Archives for Southern Jewish History at the Breman Museum, Atlanta.) TABLE OF CONTENTS The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and Area Jews: A Social Service Case Study, by Mark K. Bauman and Leah Burnham Insiders or Outsiders: Charlottesville’s Jews, White Supremacy, and Antisemitism, Phyllis K. Leffler PRIMARY SOURCES: The Galveston Diaspora: A Statistical View of Jewish Immigration Through Texas, 1907–1913, Bryan Edward Stone BOOK REVIEWS Michael R. Cohen, Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era, reviewed by Edward S. Shapiro Arlo Haskell, The Jews of Key West: Smugglers, Cigar Makers, and Revolutionaries, 1823–1969, reviewed by Raymond Arsenault Shari Rabin, Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America, reviewed by Lee Shai Weissbach EXHIBIT REVIEWS The Legacy of the Hebrew Orphans’ Home: Educating the Jewish South Since 1876, reviewed by Caroline Light Kehillah: A History of Jewish Life in Greater Orlando, reviewed by Mark I. Pinsky WEBSITE REVIEW The Texas Slavery Project, reviewed by Joshua Furman

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise presents an excellent subject for the study of Jewish social progressivism in Portland in the early years of the twentieth-century. While Wise demonstrated a commitment to social justice before, during, and after his Portland years, it is during his ministry at congregation Beth Israel that he developed a full-fledged social program that was unique and remarkable by reaching out not only within his congregation but more importantly, by engaging the Christian community of Portland in interfaith activities. In so doing, Wise broke off from the traditional role expected of rabbis by bringing social causes to the fore over traditional Jewish observances. This thesis examines the years and contributions of Stephen Wise in Portland between 1900 and 1906. An overall study of the Jewish community in Portland is presented along with a general description of the condition of how both German and Eastern European Jews through their settlement, business occupation, and pace of assimilation came to envision their integration into the American mainstream. In order to fully appreciate Wise’s commitment to social progressivism in Portland, this study will look i to detail how Liberal Judaism, Ethical Culture, and the Social Gospel movement provided Wise with the means to combine his rabbinate with public advocacy in the prophetic tradition. The thesis then focuses on Wise’s social activities and struggles against child labor, gambling, and prostitution with a special interest on the Chinese Exclusion Acts that struck the small but active Chinese community of Portland.

Southern Jewish History, 2019

Within a few years into his appointment as rabbi of Baltimore’s historic Har Sinai Congregation, Edward L. Israel began to display the marks of a true progressive by speaking out against labor inequality in Maryland and throughout the country. Serving as an arbitrator for the Western Maryland Railroad strike in behalf of disgruntled workers, Israel led an ecumenical investigation team whose report was praised throughout the country. However, missing from this report was the black worker. Between 1926 and 1936, the rabbi evolved from a progressive voice in the labor movement to become an interracial and interfaith advocate who was forced to acknowledge the dehumanization of Jim Crowism after being challenged by the key leaders of the early civil rights movement in Baltimore. His activism represented a lesser-known black-Jewish alliance that became an essential element of the black freedom struggle in Baltimore and Maryland during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Reconstruction, 2003

“Painting a New Picture of American Jewry.” A Portrait of the American Jewish Community. (Norman Linzer, et al.) Reconstruction (Fall 2003): Vol. 3, No. 4. http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revPortaitAm.html. [site no longer functional]

Southern Jewish History, 2022

Rabbi Fred V. Davidow’s multipart “Reconstructed Rebel: My Journey from Good Ole Southern Boy to Center-Left Democrat” provides the literary ba-sis for the following, redacted selection. Davidow’s manuscript began with his participation in a memoir-writing class at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, in February 2020. Retired from active pulpit life, Davidow, who has been keeping notes for the pur-pose of writing a memoir since late childhood, wrote from a twenty-first century perspective selectively concentrating on how he experienced race and ethnicity in his youth and young adult years. Davidow came of age at the beginning of the civil rights movement that would change the Ameri-can South and the American nation. He witnessed many of these changes at the ground level while simultaneously witnessing the resistance to change within the white and Jewish communities as well as the incom-plete success of the civil rights “revolution.”