The first substantial history of the Jews in the industrial south This is the first substantial history of the Jews in any inland town or city of the industrial South. The author starts with the Reconstruction Period when the community was established and he carries the story down into the 1970’s. First there were the “Germans,”' the pioneers who built the community; then came the East Euopean emigres who had to cope not only with the problem of survival but the disdain if not the hostility of the already acculturated Central European settlers who had forgotten their own humble beginnings. After World War I came the fusion of the two groups and the need to cooperate religiously and to integrate their cultural, social, and philanthropic institutions. Binding them together and speeding the rise of a total Jewish community was the ever present fear of anti-Jewish prejudice and the “peculiar” problem, a real one, of steering a course between the Christian Whites and the Christian Blacks.

Regional Jewish history at its best. This book is an anthology of essays designed to introduce readers to key issues in this growing field of scholarship and to encourage further study. Divided into five sections--"Jews and Judaism," "Small Town Life," "Business and Governance," "Interaction," and "Identity"--the essays cover a broad geographical and chronological span and address a variety of topics, including economics, politics, roles of women, ethnicity, and race. This organizational structure enhances the volume's historical treatment of regional Jewish history and lends itself to cross-disciplinary study in fields such as cultural studies, religious studies, and political science.

A Jewish Yankee journeys through the American South to explore the lesser-known Jewish culture, music, food, and history of the region; she engages with the civil rights movement and legacy of the Civil War and reckons with a changed perspective on her place in American history.

From the late nineteenth century through World War II, popular culture portrayed the American South as a region ensconced in its antebellum past, draped in moonlight and magnolias, and represented by such southern icons as the mammy, the belle, the chival

"A Jewish Yankee journeys through the American South to explore the lesser-known Jewish culture, music, food, and history of the region; she engages with the civil rights movement and legacy of the Civil War and reckons with a changed perspective on her place in American history."

Evangelical Protestant groups have dominated religious life in the South since the early nineteenth century. Even as the conservative Protestantism typically associated with the South has risen in social and political prominence throughout the United States in recent decades, however, religious culture in the South itself has grown increasingly diverse. The region has seen a surge of immigration from other parts of the United States as well as from Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, bringing increased visibility to Catholicism, Islam, and Asian religions in the once solidly Protestant Christian South. In this volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, contributors have revised entries from the original Encyclopedia on topics ranging from religious broadcasting to snake handling and added new entries on such topics as Asian religions, Latino religion, New Age religion, Islam, Native American religion, and social activism. With the contributions of more than 60 authorities in the field--including Paul Harvey, Loyal Jones, Wayne Flynt, and Samuel F. Weber--this volume is an accessibly written, up-to-date reference to religious culture in the American South.

Fascinating and inspiring stories, rich traditions, and compelling color and black-&-white photographs celebrate the heritage and hard-won success of Jewish Americans.