A Tribe Apart: Jews of the American South

The Jewish Press ^ | Jason Maoz

[Alia]

.... maa-aaan... What would the liberal Jews back home in Ca say about that.. ;>

[Alia]

I have been enjoying my own witness of something making the buzz in media and other circles: The subject of "class" -- as in personal dignity and integrity. It's about time!

[Red Sea Swimmer]

The author wrote...

"Internally, the staunchly anti-Zionist mindset of the community – “For the majority of Southern Jews and their rabbis,” wrote Malcolm Stern, “America was their Zion, and they wanted no other” – was reversed over time, with the 1967 Six-Day War in particular triggering an avalanche of emotion and pride."

This article is full of specious presumptions and generalizations. Being a good patriot of one's country of birth or residence as Jeremiah instructed, i.e. "Seek the welfare of the nation you dwell in, until Moshiach instructs you to go the Holy Land" has no bearing on one's attitude to the State of Israel.

The two are mutually exclusive. One, of course, must seek the welfare of the place one lives in and if by doing this, this assists other people in places like the Holy Land then that is a good thing. People should remember that the universe is interconnected.

The author is trying to appropriate and compartmentalize the attitudes of these Southern Jews of the United States for his own purpose.

The article is far more interesting for it's historical reporting of Jewish history in the Southern States. There is no need to tie this in with a connection to attitudes about the State of Israel.
I wonder is the author knows anything at all about the very important Jewish personality of Mar Samuel ?

[familyop]

"In the south Jews enlisted overwhelmingly to fight for their country, not so in the north, there they were for the most part conscripted. (read drafted)"

In 1862, the Confederacy conscripted every man who was between the ages of 18 and 35.

[dixie sass]

It didn't matter what the Lady's religion was in the picture, she represented a whole generation of southern women whom most of us called Grandmomma. They didn't leave the house without their gloves, hats and pocketbooks. For them to wear shorts or pants wasn't ladylike. Everytime I see that movie, I see my grandmother and to a certain extent, my mother.

[yarddog]

My grandfather knew Sydney J. Catts who was the Governor of Florida. His family owned a large plantation in Alabama. After the war they moved to Florida.

He was extremely conservative. He was famous for originating the phrase. "The common man of Florida has only three friends. J.C. Penney, Jesus Christ, and Sydney J. Catts.

Later Lawton Chiles stole the line and substituted Sears and Roebuck for J.C. Penney.

Catts was Jewish only in ethnicity. He was a Southern Baptist Preacher.

[cyborg]

That was one of the best movies I ever saw. I took my grandmother to see it when she came to America. She went back thinking the movies weren't trash after all *LOL*

[familyop]

"During the civil war there were 150,000 Jews in both the north and south, of that population, only ten percent, or 15,000 resided in the confederacy, versus 135,000 in the north."

There were actually about 25,000 of them in the South then. That brings the ratio to nearly the same on each of the two sides.

From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America (Library of Congress)

And most of those who enlisted in the South were recent immigrants who were out to prove their worth to their new neighbors.

[groanup]

For years the hoity-toitys up at the Piedmont Driving Club would not admit Jews, so they said the heck with them and started the Standard Club

I could never understand. The Piedmont Driving Club had tennis courts and a great supper club. The Standard Club had a golf course. WHO was having more fun? LOL!

[groanup]

Well, if I had any idea what you are talking about I would respond. God bless you and yours.

[AnAmericanMother]

My dad always called them the "Piedmont Drive-In Club".

Before the Downtown Connector was built, there was a rib shack owned by a black guy just west of where the 14th Street bridge is today. He called it the "Piedmont Drive-In Club".

Rumor hath it that the Downtown Connector was routed specifically to take out the Drive-In Club . . . these social climbers just have no sense of humor . . .

My family have never been joiners, except for professional associations. My grandparents refused to let my mother make her debut at the PDC, they did not want her running with that crowd.

[Minus_The_Bear]

Great article

[paul_fromatlanta]

>>I've always heard liberal whiney babies reference the supposed anti-semitism crap about the South, blah, blah.
<<

Let's be frank - there is plenty of anti-Jewish sentiment in the South.

I grew up in the Southern Baptist church confused as to how God could love the Jews in the bible but all the good Christians looked down on them.

Fortunately I was ignorant of Jewish last names and didn't realize that a quarter of my school was Jewish.. by the time I figured it out, it was impossible for me to stereotype since the Jewish students were just like everybody else - mostly nice but some not so nice, mostly smart but some not so smart, some athletic, some not.... everybody should be so lucky as I was.

[blam]

I remember my dad (bless his soul), describing his hometown of Mobile this way:

"Owned by the Jews, run by the Catholics and enjoyed by the .......(N-word)".

[wardaddy]

Let's be frank - there is plenty of anti-Jewish sentiment in the South

I could not disagree more.

What kind of school did you go to in the South that was 25% Jewish?

Your's is the first South-critical post on a Southern thread...we went 73 before your's. A record I'd bet.

This article exemplifies what I've tried to explain to non-Southern Jews for 30 years.

I now live in Nashville which has a large Jewish community and am unaware of any exceptional negativity towards Jews period. In my hometown of Jackson Mississippi, my SBC church never encouraged "all good Christians to look down on them". When the Klan got edgy with liberal Jews during the Civil Rights era 40-50 years ago, that caused most middle and upper-middle class Christians to denounce violence or the talk of it towards Jews and accelerated the Klan's dive into oblivion.

I lived thru all that and I'm sorry your experience whenever it was had a negative impact on you. I'm also glad experiences such as your's were the exception rather than the rule.

Southern goys hold no more generalized views about Jews than anywhere else but being Southern, they are more polite about it in any event.

The Antebellum South could be argued as the first truly free existence for Jews since the diaspora. They had freedoms many had never experienced in Europe.

[paul_fromatlanta]

>> What kind of school did you go to in the South that was 25% Jewish?

Your's is the first South-critical post on a Southern thread...we went 73 before your's. A record I'd bet.<<

A private school in Atlanta

As for being South -critical - I am a proud Southerner but I try to be an honest one too. For example many of key clubs for business in Atlanta are not open to Jews to this day.

Apparently it is better here than other places though.

The Georgia Encyclopedia has a pretty balanced look at it -
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/HistoryArchaeology/TheProgressiveEraandWorldWarI/GroupsOrganizations-6&id=h-2731

[paul_fromatlanta]

Also the school that I went to had many Jewish graduates who were well qualified but woulod not hire Jewish teachers until recently and that only came as a result of a threat from the Ivy League to stop recruiting there.

[dixiechick2000]

"I grew up in the Southern Baptist church confused as to how God could love the Jews in the bible but all the good Christians looked down on them."


WOW! I'm Southern Baptist, from a small town in MS.
We have a large Jewish community.
I have never seen the kind of antisemitism that you describe.

I agree with wardaddy...we could not disagree more.

Maybe private school had something to do with it.
What kind of private school is it, and...

how old are you?

[paul_fromatlanta]

>> Maybe private school had something to do with it.
What kind of private school is it, and...

how old are you?<<

Most of family lived in smaller Georgia towns and that was the main place I saw specific anti-jewish sentiment. But it usually didn't come up - they were just white people.

I'm 41 so I was a young child when Atlanta elected Sam Massell, it's first and only Jewish Mayor - so I don't want to over-state the case.

[Clemenza]

This NY-raised Goy would like to put in his two cents:

For all the talk about NY being a "Jewish city" and metro area, it is actually VERY mixed. I should also mention that, at least among older folks, there was ALOT of anti-semitism among white Catholics, whether Irish, Italian, German, or Polish. Some of it was brought from the old country, some of it simple resentment of the meteoric rise of Jewish-Americans in American society relative to other ethnic groups. Jewish-Americans may talk of how they "loved" growing up around Italians, but they never knew what was said about the "mezzocristi" when they left the room.