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Rambler V22i2 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY SPRING 2018 VOLUME 22, NUMBER 2 SJHS in Mobile: Exploring “Southern Jews, American Citizens” When the Southern Jewish Historical law at George Washington University Society meets in Mobile, Alabama for its Law School and president and CEO of 43rd annual conference from October the National Constitution Center in 26–28, 2018, conference-goers will Philadelphia. His 2016 book Louis D. dialogue with outstanding scholars from Brandeis: American Prophet (Yale University across the nation on the conference Press) argues for the ongoing relevance theme, “Southern Jews, American of the nation’s first Jewish Supreme Citizens.” We will explore how southern Court justice. Brandeis grew up in Jews have negotiated their regional, Kentucky and Rosen will reflect on how national, and ethnic identities, hearing his perspective as a southern Jew shaped and discussing presentations on a variety his historical and contemporary legacy. of topics rooted in communities (Arrangements for the appearance of throughout the South. These include Jeffrey Rosen made through Greater southern Jewish involvement in national Talent Network LLC, New York, NY.) movements, Jewish military service and commemorations, and contributions The University of South Alabama, an made by Mobile’s Jewish community. institution endowed and supported by several Jewish families, will host the Mobile is an ideal setting for the conference on Saturday. A day of conference. Alabama’s oldest city stimulating panels will be capped by the (founded by the French in 1702), it has Helen M. Stern Cultural Encounter. strong military ties and an active Jewish Judah Cohen, professor of musicology community. Our Friday morning bus and Jewish studies at Indiana University, tour will explore the city’s Jewish sites. will discuss 19th-century Jewish Well-known novelist and journalist Roy American music, with a Mobile twist. Hoffman will join us for lunch at Spring University of South Alabama music Hill College. A Mobile native whose professors Laura Moore (piano) and writings have addressed Jewish life in the Thomas Rowell (tenor) will accompany South, Hoffman will give personal Cohen’s talk, performing period music reflections and stories about his town. composed and arranged by Mobile’s That afternoon, we will learn about the own Joseph Bloch and the Schlesinger Mobile Christian-Jewish Dialogue brothers. Saturday evening will be free Board, one of the nation’s oldest such to relax or explore the city on your own. organizations. Top: Mobile skyline from Fort Conde. The keynote address, presented by the Middle left: Roy Hoffman. Panel presentations on Sunday morning Beeber Family Speaker Series of the Middle right: Jeffrey Rosen. will bring the conference to a close. It Helen M. Stern Memorial Foundation, Bottom: Congregation Sha’arai Shomayim occupied will be a rich three days in Mobile, as we will follow supper at Springhill Avenue this temple from 1907 to 1955, when it moved to explore significant and, in some cases, Springhill Avenue. Special Collections, College of understudied features of southern Temple. We are especially excited to Charleston Libraries. have with us Jeffrey Rosen, professor of Jewish history. Hope you can make it! SJHS Conference Hotel Information – Reserve Soon! The conference hotel is the Admiral Hotel Mobile, Curio Collection by Hilton. Reservations must be made by September 28 to receive the conference rate of $119 per night. This includes breakfast but not taxes. Book your room by going to jewishsouth.org/upcoming-conference and clicking on the link, or call the hotel at 800-445-8667 and request the SJHS rate using the group code MOBCUQ. Find us on Facebook. Search for “Southern Jewish Historical Society.” Visit our website: jewishsouth.org. 1. President’s Message By Dan J. Puckett Officers and Board 2018 PRESIDENT This October we’ll meet in Mobile, Alabama, for only the second time, the first Dan J. Puckett way back in 1981. Known for its Moonpies and Mardi Gras (the oldest annual Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S.), Mobile is home to the oldest Jewish VICE PRESIDENT community in Alabama and one of the oldest in the South, with its first Phyllis Leffler congregation established in 1844. Today, the community is served by two Jewish SECRETARY congregations, the Springhill Avenue Temple/Congregation Sha’arai Eric Goldstein Shomayim and Ahavas Chesed Synagogue. TREASURER This year also coincides with the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Mobile, and Les Bergen indeed the entire state of Alabama, has had a close connection to the military (no other event IMMEDIATE PAST shaped Mobile as much as did the Second World War). Our theme of the meeting, “Southern PRESIDENT Jews, American Citizens,” capitalizes on this theme and other expressions of citizenship. Our Ellen Umansky program committee, led by former SJHS president Scott Langston, has put together a program BOARD OF DIRECTORS that should satisfy our academic and non-academic members alike. Ron Bayor In addition to meeting in a community where we haven’t Michael Cohen met in quite a long while, we’ll be able to introduce new Sharon Fahrer faces and new institutions to the Southern Jewish Dana Herman Historical Society. One of the sponsors of the meeting is Jeremy Katz the recently established Jewish and Holocaust Studies Adam Meyer Program at the University of South Alabama, and one of Josh Parshall the key individuals organizing the local arrangements is Jim Pfeifer Dr. David Meola, the Bert & Fanny Meisler Assistant Shari Rabin Professor of History and Jewish Studies at USA. David, Teri Tillman along with many other volunteers and supporters Mardi Gras in Mobile, 2010. Carol M. Bernie Wax (emeritus) throughout the Mobile community, has been busy Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress. CORRESPONDING ensuring that our time in the Port City is well spent. SECRETARY It’ll be good for the SJHS to return to Mobile after so long. Looking forward, over the next few Shari Rabin years, we’ll be meeting in places that we’ve never visited, and old haunts that will make us JOURNAL EDITOR wonder why we haven’t returned sooner. Stay tuned! Mark Bauman Phone: 678.828.7484 Cell: 678.428.3622 [email protected] Houston Jewish History JOURNAL MANAGING Archive Is Launched EDITOR Bryan Edward Stone The Program in Jewish Studies at Rice [email protected] University, in partnership with the Woodson JOURNAL FOUNDING Research Center in the Fondren Library, MANAGING EDITOR announces the launch of the Houston Jewish Rachel Heimovics Braun History Archive (HJHA). Its mission is to collect, preserve, and make accessible the RAMBLER EDITOR documents and memories that tell the story of Deborah R. Weiner Jewish life in Greater Houston and South The Rambler welcomes submissions Texas. on news relevant to southern Jewry. Send editorial inquiries to Planning for the HJHA was well underway [email protected]. when Hurricane Harvey hit last August. Jewish institutions located in the devastated Send address changes to: Meyerland district lost countless records, Barbara Tahsler SJHS lending a new urgency and a new impetus to PO Box 71601 the effort. Since then, Joshua Furman, Rice’s Marietta, GA 30007-1601 Stanford and Joan Alexander Postdoctoral Congregation Beth Jacob in Houston commissioned [email protected] Fellow in Jewish Studies, and Melissa Kean, this nine-foot-long banner in 1942 to honor local the university’s centennial historian, have Jewish men and women serving in World War II. It MEMBERSHIP worked to rescue materials damaged in the lists more than 200 individuals. Gold stars indicate Bonnie Eisenman those who were killed in action. The banner was Phone: 804.741.9010 storm. Their efforts received a boost in March when the HJHA was awarded a $23,000 recovered from a garage in southwest Houston after [email protected] Hurricane Harvey and will be preserved in the HJHA. Chairman’s Emergency Grant from the NEH. A fundraising effort to restore it is underway. continued on page 6… Houston Jewish History Archive. Rambler, Spring 2018 2. Mobile: Alabama's Oldest Jewish Community By Shannon Lundgren Phillip Phillips, one of Mobile’s first movement in 1873. In 1870, Mobile Jewish community members, arrived faced the dreaded yellow fever and in 1835 from South Carolina with his residents with means fled the city. young bride, Eugenia. Elected to the Sha’arai Shomayim’s rabbi, Alabama state legislature and then to Abraham Laser, remained to tend to the U.S. House of Representatives, the sick and eventually succumbed to he enjoyed a successful career before the illness. He was the first rabbi deciding to open a legal practice in buried in the Magnolia Cemetery. Washington, D.C. in 1855. When the The city rebounded in the late 19th Civil War broke out, Phillips—a century and began to attract Eastern committed Unionist—remained in European Jewish immigrants. In Washington. 1894 they founded an Orthodox His wife, in contrast, achieved fame congregation, Ahavas Chesed. Both (or infamy) as a Confederate spy. congregations grew in the early 20th Arrested for espionage, she was century and laid the cornerstones to released thanks to her husband’s new synagogues. political influence. The couple moved Despite Jewish civic involvement, to Richmond and then to New antisemitism was not unknown. In Orleans, where Eugenia Phillips 1910 defense attorney William C. again got in trouble with federal Fitts made antisemitic remarks to a authorities. jury in regard to the robbery of Julius The Phillips family’s political W. Olensky’s pawnshop. Prominent involvement may have been Jewish figures published a letter of especially notable, but they were not protest in the Mobile Register and Fitts the only politically-involved Mobile eventually apologized. th Jews in the mid-19 century, at a This activism continued into World time when Jews faced restrictions in War II when local Jewish, Catholic, other states.
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