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Subject Guide: American South

CJH & Partner Programming

Dispatches from the Lost Jewish South with Sue Eisenfeld

Sue Eisenfeld is a Yankee by birth and a Virginian by choice, an urbanite who came to appreciate the rural South while understanding the need to interrogate its complexities. In Wandering Dixie: Dispatches from the Lost Jewish South, she travels to nine states, uncovering how the history of Jewish southerners converges with the region’s complex, conflicted present. Learning how southern Jews benefited from slavery and escaped some discrimination by not being on the lowest rung of society’s ladder, she finds herself on an African-American history journey as well, investigating the unexpected ways that race, religion, and hidden histories intertwine.

Judah Benjamin: Counselor to the Confederacy

Judah P. Benjamin (1811–1884) was a lawyer in New Orleans, and one of the first Jewish members of the U.S. Senate. He then served in the Confederacy as secretary of war and secretary of state, becoming the confidant and alter ego of Jefferson Davis. In this biography in the Jewish Lives series at Yale University Press, journalist and scholar James Traub grapples with the difficult truth that Benjamin, who was considered one of the greatest legal minds in the United States, was an enslaver who deployed his oratorical skills in defense of slavery.

Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: Discoveries from the Shapell Roster

A virtual tour of the Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the American Civil War, an ongoing reappraisal of the military service of Jews who served in the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies from 1861 – 1865.  An introduction is guided by Adrienne DeArmas (Director, Shapell Roster) and Professor Jonathan Sarna(Lincoln and the Jews: A History, co-authored with Benjamin Shapell). Meticulously compiled since 2009, the Shapell Roster is a publicly accessible digital history resource granting access to thousands of men who served. 

Poet Laureate of Southern Jews: Personal Remembrances of Eli Evans

A panel of Eli Evans’ colleagues, friends and family gather together to remember the man whose passion for southern Jewish history provided a legacy that has thrived for five decades. This event is in partnership with the Southern Jewish Historical Society, Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, The Covenant Foundation and the American Jewish Historical Society.

Online Resources

The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience

The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience explores the many ways that Jews in the American South influenced and were influenced by the distinct cultural heritage of their new homes. Through exhibits, collections, and programs focused on the unique and remarkable history of Southern Jews, the Museum encourages new understanding and appreciation for identity, diversity, and acceptance.

Southern Jewish Historical Society

Since 1977, the Southern Jewish Historical Society has worked to foster scholarship about the experience of southern Jews. On the website, you can access a detailed bibliography of published work on southern Jewish history as well as information about archival resources across the region. The first fourteen volumes of our outstanding journal Southern Jewish History are also accessible.

Southern Guide to Tashlich and other recipes and writings from Michael W. Twitty at Afroculinaria

Twitty's blog covers food culture, food history, Jewish cultural issues, African American history and cultural politics. His work is a braid of two distinct brands: the Antebellum Chef and Kosher/Soul. Antebellum Chef represents the vast number of unknown Black cooks across the Americas that were essential in the creation of the creole cuisines of Atlantic world. Kosher/Soul is the brand that deals with what Michael has termed “identity cooking.” Identity cooking isn’t about fusion; rather its how we construct complex identities and then express them through how we eat. Being Kosher/Soul is about melding the histories, tastes, flavors, and Diasporic wisdom of being Black and being Jewish.  Both cultures express many of their cultural and spiritual values through the plate and Kosher/Soul is about that ongoing journey. 

Mapping Jewish Charleston by College of Charleston

Jews have lived side-by-side with other Charlestonians throughout the city’s history, and since the city itself grew and changed over the years, we cannot rely on a single map or web page to tell the panoramic story. On this site, you can explore the Jewish presence in Charleston over the centuries through images and texts from our archives, plotted on historical maps that document the shifting geographical distribution of Jews and Jewish institutions across the urban landscape.

Jewish Shopkeepers in the American South: How Jewish entrepreneurs changed the nature of the South

A brief look into The "Jewish" Store and Southern Jewish entrepreneurs.