In rural South, once-thriving Jewish congregations dwindling

By

Posted 8:10AM on Sunday, July 21, 2002

CLARKSDALE, Miss. - Gloria Himmelstein remembers working in the kitchen of Congregation Beth Israel with dozens of other Jewish women, making corned beef sandwiches for the annual antiques show. "The synagogue was so active," she recalls. "The Sisterhood had a big antiques show. They had vendors from Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama. The whole city looked forward to it." There hasn't been an antiques show here since the mid-1980s - most of the Jewish residents are gone. The synagogue is for sale. Himmelstein has watched the Jewish community dwindle over the years as younger generations, including her son and daughter, moved to urban areas offering more opportunities. "We used to have 100 families," in the 1950s, Himmelstein said. "At this point, there's nothing here for the children. Not just being Jewish, I'm talking Clarksdale as a whole." Clarksdale, like much of Mississippi's soil-rich Delta, offers few jobs outside farming and its casinos. As labor-intensive farm jobs gave way to mechanism, many working-age residents have had to search elsewhere for employment. The last time Himmelstein worshipped at Beth Israel, the town's only synagogue, the crowd was small. Though 200 can sit comfortably on the rows of green velvet-covered pews, only about 10 were in attendance. The situation is not unique to Mississippi, said Dale Rosengarten, curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston Library in South Carolina. "It is very common, unfortunately. It's a trend, certainly across the South, especially in small communities and small towns that lose enough of their Jewish population that they can't support their synagogue," Rosengarten said. "Small towns are becoming Jewish ghost towns." In recent years, rural synagogues or temples have closed in many states, including Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Arkansas. Rosengarten said this does not mean the South is losing its Jewish population. Major cities, such as Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and three cities in South Carolina, have rising Jewish populations. Mississippi is a slightly different story, Rosengarten said, because it's a mostly rural state with few metropolitan areas. Three other small Mississippi Delta cities - Cleveland, Greenwood and Greenville_ each have synagogues, all with declining congregations and no full-time rabbi. Jackson's Beth Israel Congregation has the largest membership in the state with about 200 families. Mississippi's Jewish population reached an estimated peak of 6,400 in the 1920s and has dropped to about 3,000 today, said Stuart Rockoff, the historian for the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson. At the same time, he said, the population of Southern Jews has increased due to the rise of Sunbelt cities such as Atlanta and Houston, which have very large Jewish populations. The institute works closely with smaller cities to preserve the history of the Jewish experience in the South and the traditions of Judaism. For instance, many small towns cannot afford a full-time rabbi, so the institute plans to hire someone who could travel from place to place to lead the services. "Also parents have a hard time giving their children a Jewish education," Rockoff said. "One of our programs is to hire a specially trained educator who would help train parents to be Sunday school teachers." The institute organizes literary and film festivals with Jewish themes across the South. Another of its goals is to preserve historic synagogues, whenever possible. "Down in Natchez, we've come up with an agreement that once the congregation can no longer function, we take over their synagogue as a satellite museum," he said. "We're working through government grants to get the funding. We don't have the money to save every single place." The institute is working with the Clarksdale congregation to try and find the best way to dispose of the synagogue's artifacts. The original congregation in Clarksdale was established in the late 19th century, said furniture store owner Jon Levingston, a past president of Beth Israel. He said the current building was constructed in the 1920s. Within the walls of the two-story, brick temple is nearly a century of history. Black-and-white photos of former Sunday school students line the walls of the education annex. The students were taught Jewish traditions and how to speak Hebrew before their confirmation, or graduation. The 1968-69 class was the largest, with 58 students, including adults. By 1993, confirmation was held for but a single student. The Torah, the first five books of the Bible handwritten in Hebrew on sheepskin, is tucked away in the ark behind the pulpit. A picture of the late Benjamin Schultz, Beth Israel's longest-serving full-time rabbi, hangs in the social hall. Arnold Himmelstein, current president of Beth Israel, said it's uncertain what will happen to the temple's religious artifacts, including colorful stained-glass windows on which family names were painted. "We're trying to contact families to see what they'd like to do with the windows," he said. We've got a lot of decisions to make. This is the first time I've been involved with the closing of a synagogue."