Turn to the South : Essays on Southern Jewry

To be a Jew in the American South is to be affected by the culture of the South. When American Jewry has been studied in the past, the emphasis has generally been on the large urban communities of the North, especially New York. Until recently, the history of Jews in the vast region below the Mason Dixon Line has been a virtually unexplored field. This volume will considerably expand our knowledge of the southern Jewish experience. The fourteen essays that make up this volume emphasize that the experience of southern Jews differed both qualitatively and quantitatively from that of their northern brethrens. In contract to the situation in such northern cities as New York, where Jews were a major cultural force, Jews remained an almost invisible minority in the South, and they more readily absorbed its values and became part of it. The volume examines important and exemplary southern Jews as well as the general conditions of southern Jewish communities. The volume also discusses southern Jewish literature, the political situation of the southern Jew, and the relationships between Jews and other ethnic groups in the south.