Vestigial Judaism, Part III: Urbanization Along the Cotton Belt.

The first two parts of this lengthy exploration of southern Judaica attempted to re-acquaint the readers with what in this day and age may defy typical expectations: Jewish enclaves in small towns throughout the rural Deep South. From approximately 1850 to 1950, in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama—as well as the other southern states—immigrants from Germany, France, and Eastern Europe forged new enterprises through department and variety stores along the main streets of towns that barely earn a dot on the map today. The evidence of their influence in these communities often survives through cemeteries with eastward-facing gravestones, temples, synagogues, and old commercial buildings downtown with unmistakably Jewish names. Today, the Jewish population in towns such as St. Francisville LA, Port Gibson MS, or Selma AL is at or near zero (precisely what most of us would expect them be), and sometimes the remnants of their settlements in these communities is buried so quietly that the search almost becomes an archaeological endeavor.

By today’s standards, the idea that the rural South should host Jewish communities seems bizarre, and it’s true that Jews exert far less of a demographic or cultural influence in Dixie than they do on the coasts. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Jews comprise approximately 2.2% of the nation’s population; but the only states in that region commonly perceived as the American South where the percentage exceeds the national percentage are Maryland (4.2%) and Florida (3.7%). Of the remaining states, only Delaware (1.6%), Georgia (1.4%), and Virginia (1.3%) exceed 1% Jewish. And among these five states, it is commonplace to find people from Maryland and Delaware who do not identify themselves as southern. Most of the remaining states in the South have populations that are less than .5% Jewish. Thus, the notion that the South has a relatively small Jewish population is, by many metrics, true: Jews tend to concentrate heavily in a few southern metropolitan areas, such as Atlanta or Miami, while large Jewish enclaves elsewhere in the South are uncommon.

But Jews are certainly not impossible to find in cities like Little Rock, New Orleans, and Jackson. In fact, most of the Jews of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi now reside in or near these largest cities in their respective states. Perhaps many of the Jewish families in those smaller communities such as Donaldsonville or Port Gibson migrated to the urban regions over the past fifty years, where employment opportunities have been more abundant, reflecting the steady urbanization of American settlement. And within these cities, the Jewish community has often migrated en masse from one part of town to another. New Orleans claims a number of buildings with discernible Jewish origins in neighborhoods that are devoid of Jews, yet the Jewish population in the metro remains over 10,000. These telltale indicators of a formerly thriving Jewish community further illuminate the migration patterns of a religious faith which remains a statistical blip across most of this region of the US.

The Goldring Woldenberg Institute for Southern Jewish Life chronicles the emergence of New Orleans’ Jewish population, from the first arrivals in the mid 18th century, when the Code Noire laws prohibited Jews from settling in the French colony of Louisiana—a fiat that local colonists blithely ignored in their zeal to trade with commercially savvy Jewish merchants. For much of the next century, as Louisiana shifted to Spanish control, then back to French, then American, Jews made no effort to forge an organized religious culture in the city, no doubt due to the shifting laws and public acceptance of Judiasm (particularly low under Spanish rule). Most of the Jews in the nascent southern towns were male, and they overwhelmingly intermarried. By the time Louisiana became part of the United States, they flourished under the political freedoms enshrined in the Constitution; the population of New Orleans exploded after the Louisiana Purchase, and Jews from Germany and France took great advantage of New Orleans’ critical role as the pre-eminent southern port. Many of these successful entrepreneurs forged retail businesses, whose names remain familiar to most Louisianans over the age of twenty—Godchaux’s, Maison Blanche, and Krauss all survived until the end of the 20th century. Jews were generally accepted in the city’s social and political life, with a population that burgeoned in the two decades prior to the Civil War. For a city that flourished on the slave trade, it should come as no surprise that most of the white citizens—including the Jews—supported the Confederacy, including (and contrary to many smaller southern towns) some of the rabbis.

After the war, a new wave of Jewish immigration elicited a bifurcation in the Jewish population: the successful German and Alsatians moved further Uptown, along with the rest of city’s old money; the newcomer Eastern Europeans settled much closer to the Central Business District. By the late 19th Century, the Dryades Street corridor served as the highest concentration of Jewish congregations in region; it may have been the single most intensely Jewish neighborhood in the entire South. It boasted shuls (Yiddish for “synagagoues”) from Galicia, Lithuania, and Poland, among others. Like many other Jewish settlements in cities across the Northeast and Midwest, the Dryades Street commercial district served a mixed race population, catering to African Americans as well.

But neighborhoods change, and while the Uptown area three to five miles from the CBD remains a stronghold of the Jewish and Gentile elite, the portion of Uptown closest to the historic center of New Orleans has followed a different economic trajectory. Today, the neighborhood of Central City, just upriver of the CBD and only blocks away from the popular, touristy St. Charles Avenue streetcar corridor, is one of the most heavily disinvested portions of the entire metro. The purple outline on the map below approximates the very loose boundaries, which extend off the edge of the frame.

Much of this area did not flood during Hurricane Katrina, and yet the area is so depopulated that parts of it appear as though a disaster hit just yesterday. But I’m not going to dwell on abandonment, especially when the area closest to St. Charles is starting to benefit from newly constructed affordable housing. Among the surviving structures on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard (formerly the aforementioned Dryades Street, and indicated on the map above by the red outline), many of them obliquely or overtly reference the heritage of this once ostensibly Jewish neighborhood. Handelmann’s was one of several successful dry goods stores when Dryades/Oretha Castle Haley served as the main street to this bustling Jewish enclave.

As was the case in towns like Selma and Port Gibson, a number of other commercial enterprises show clear Jewish origin, judging from the last names climbing up the sides of the buildings.

An apartment building just a block or two away from O.C. Haley Boulevard features a decorative Star of David as a relief pattern against a backdrop of gray bricks.


But the most prominent structure in this section of Central City is the old Beth Israel Synagogue, built in 1924 on Carondelet Street (two blocks away from Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard), though the congregation predates the structure by about 20 years.


I drove past this structure more than 100 times over the course of year before I noticed all the Jewish details.



The synagogue still references its city of origin on the capitals of the columns, with subtle fleur-de-lis abutting a seemingly Byzantine-inspired crown molding pattern.

Despite all these ornamental gestures, I’m willing to give myself a pass for not recognizing the structure for so long: it hasn’t been a synagogue for forty years. Throughout most of the 1950s and 1960s, the Jewish population in the area dwindled to nearly nothing, with many of the Orthodox Jews moving further Uptown or to the large suburb of Metairie. The congregation bought property in the affluent Lakeview neighborhood in the mid 1960s and relocated in 1971. (Incidentally, Hurricane Katrina badly flooded the newer Beth Israel Synagogue, while the structure featured here suffered minimal damage.) Today, the building houses New Home Full Gospel Ministries, a principally African American congregation. Both the old Beth Israel Synagogue and this neighboring building in the photo below remain among the best maintained structures in this impoverished neighborhood:

According to online documentation, this less striking edifice held the Menorah Institute, built in 1925 to accompany the Beth Israel Synagogue as a Hebrew school. The fact that the façade only features Hebrew lettering suggests that the neighborhood was once so intensely Hebraic that English signage was unnecessary. I have been unable to determine what the building’s use is today. It could be sealed most of the year and used minimally, though, like the synagogues in Port Gibson MS and Selma AL, it shows all evidence of diligent caretakers, while most other vacant buildings in the area have been left to decay.

New Orleans, famed for its evocative cemeteries, not surprisingly hosts Jewish burial grounds far larger than its rural counterparts. Most of the cemeteries are tucked away in the Uptown, Lakeview, and Gentilly neighborhoods, though one in Mid-City, at the end of the Canal Street streetcar line, has blended in with many of the city’s popular cemetery tours, no doubt due to its age and proximity to some of the most elaborate burial grounds of wealthy Uptown families.

The majority of Gates of Prayer Cemetery is in better shape than this Perpetual Care Tablet; it no doubt helps that this and the other cemeteries in this cluster sit along Metairie Ridge, keeping the area above sea level while surrounded a part of town that flooded badly after Hurricane Katrina.



As is expected, all the graves face in the direction of Jerusalem to the east, evidenced by the sunset photo below:



Other corners of the town, long disassociated from any Jewish community (if there ever was one to begin with), still feature apocrypha through none-too-subtle architectural features.


My apologies for the swirled appearance of these photos, but it shouldn’t be so hard to make out a Star of David art window in the attic of these shotgun homes. Nothing about this area, near the intersection of Napoleon and Claiborne Avenues, remotely suggests that it would sit in a Jewish neighborhood today—New Orleanians would most likely perceive it is an extension of the impoverished Central City area, even though it sits well over 2 miles from the old Beth Israel Synagogue featured earlier, and on the other side of Claiborne sits the much wealthier Broadmoor neighborhood. But many old Jewish neighborhoods hide their pulses.

The homes from the rain-soaked photos above sit in the area I indicated with the green oval on the map, while the Chevra Thilim Synagogue sat at the point indicated by the red “A” marker. According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, this site was the second location for the Chevra Thilim congregation, which operated there from 1948 until 1998, when declining membership forced it to merge with another and form a new congregation, Shir Chadash, now located in suburban Metairie. Today, this strip of Claiborne Avenue forms a powerful socioeconomic divider, with a generally affluent population to the north and working class to the south. The Jewish embellishments on these humble shotgun homes suggest that Chevra Thilim may have accommodated an economically diverse population at the time.

Most significant within the context of this lengthy examination, though, is the fact that the current manifestation of Chevra Thilim is now in its third location since 1948; its first was at the intersection of Baronne and Lafayette Streets, right near the city’s Central Business District. Thus, over the course of the lifetime any 65-year-old, the synagogue has moved steadily away from the heart of town, first from downtown to its inner city location on Claiborne Avenue, then out to the ‘burbs. Nothing new here: Chevra Thilim’s move simply parallels the decentralization and suburbanization of just about any constituency that had the financial ability to migrate away from the city center. But is there anything different about Jewish migration patterns from that of the white, gentile (often Anglo-Saxon and Protestant) majority? I have drawn my own conclusions, many of which are clear generalizations based largely on observations, but empirical evidence is the lynchpin of most of my blog articles, and I always welcome others to refute my assertions, either with credible research or more astute observations. Here’s what I have noticed:

1) Jews are settlers but not colonizers; they are not usually the first one in the door. When Alsatian, German, and Eastern European Jews first started arriving to the American South in discernible numbers in the early 19th century, they confronted an area dominated by plantation homes and small villages—a tremendous contrast from the rapidly urbanizing North. But despite the extreme discrimination these immigrants often encountered in Europe, they nonetheless sought to assimilate into mature networks with American gentiles, and they found this in the scattered small-town markets throughout the South. Rather than forging their own new, all-Jewish towns certifiably free of prejudiced goyim, they gravitated toward thriving communities such as Port Gibson, Selma, Donaldson, and Natchez, where their business acumen helped the towns grow. I also find very little evidence of Jews who moved to the south to establish a slavery-dependent plantation in the middle of vacant, uncultivated land; Jews were generally merchants, not farmers, and thus their role in the economy often derived from distribution rather than production, from services rather than manufacturing. In addition, Jews may have been more attuned to the injustices of slavery than gentiles, having experienced personal restrictions of freedom in their respective countries across the Atlantic. Though the attitudes of southern Jews towards African Americans’ rights were mixed, few Jews demonstrated open support for slavery by actually owning slaves. Through most of the South, slaves were a rural enterprise, and Jewish settlement patterns have proven unequivocally urban across the past two centuries.

2) As mobile as most Americans are, Jews take it to an extreme. It doesn’t seem like a very flattering term, but it may only be apt to call Jews “hyper-mobile”. The Jewish outmigration from towns to the big cities is now more or less complete: virtually no Jews live in rural south. Even Mississippi, with an infinitesimal Jewish population of 1,500 today, hosts the vast majority of the remaining Jews in Jackson, the state’s capital and largest city. Understanding Jewish mobility depends upon understanding the ability or capacity to move; it takes money. Jewish merchants were routinely among the wealthiest persons in their southern towns, so as the economic fortunes of these communities deteriorated and people left for the big cities, Jews often seemed to lead the way. The depopulated old Jewish settlements throughout the neighborhoods of larger cities, whether in New Orleans’ Central City or West Philadelphia, reveal the capacity for Jews to relocate as the economic climate of their part of town took a turn for the worse. Jews consistently have among the highest rates of educational attainment of any religious or ethnic group, and in meritocratic America this usually equates to wealth. Wealth endows a person with the ability to move.

3) Jewish relations with American pluralism proved both a catalyst toward their prosperity and a threat to their survival. Jews often sailed across the Atlantic to escape persecution in Europe. American gentiles could be anti-Semetic and likely barred Jews from visiting some of their most exclusive/exclusionary institutions, but the populace was generally relaxed about Jewish-Gentile parings, no doubt in part because southern business leaders have long recognized Jews as savvy entrepreneurs. Though scandalous if not forbidden in much of Europe up until World War II, the idea of intermarriage between Jews and gentiles rarely aroused suspicion in the US. The ability to marry outside of one’s religion supports the notion that Jews were accepted into mainstream Southern society, and it often proved the only opportunity for male immigrants alone in the US to find a bride—a Christian one. If intermarriage galvanized the networking capacity of Jews in America, it also diluted their religious identity. Jews resided in cities such as New Orleans and Selma decades before they could establish a temple, mainly because intermarriage only weakened religious self-identification, so fundamental aspects of Jewish culture remained neglected. Regions with a large percentage of Catholics (such as south Louisiana) seemed the most amenable to crossing religious lines through tying the matrimonial knots. Jews flourished in cities such as New Orleans, but population through natural growth was slow, since many husbands assumed their wife’s Christian faith or became non-observant altogether. Intermarriage rates can serve as a proxy variable for public acceptance of Jews in general, and it is highly possible that the Southern towns with visible Jewish history were among the least prejudiced as well (at least not prejudiced against whites). To this day, Jews routinely intermarry and often eventually repudiate their faith, but a country such as America, founded upon religious freedom, generally fosters a more peaceful co-existence between the general public and religious minorities. Unlike Europe, anti-Semitism has rarely driven policy in the US, so Jewish immigrants most likely always found southern communities perfectly acceptable compared to what they had experienced before—and they remain to this day in the cities with high economic opportunities.

This bird’s-eye scan of Jewish settlement across the South hardly accounts for nuances or even exceptions. But it reveals that a small but influential religious minority, persecuted in Europe, may prove the best example of American restlessness. All across the country, plaques and historical markers remind us of what building used to stand in X location, and all too often that ghost building is a church. Just as we change religion or religious denomination routinely, the physical incarnation of our faith sometimes seems like a pawn in our often fickle spirituality. Churches, cemeteries, storefronts, and even housing have emerged and then disappeared, as the population that animates them grows fidgety. I conclude with three handsome black & white photos (the first time for this blog) of yet another example of vestigial Judiasm, this time in Concordia Hall, an old building in central Little Rock. The photos are courtesy of Nicolette English.


Ever mobile, we abandon the old and obsolete, and, for those aspects of our heritage we care about the most, we erect a sign. This may seem like a cynical statement, but that’s mostly because, as I mentioned earlier, I prefer that my search for Jewish heritage to resemble an archaeological dig, free of written clues or overt references. A good writer knows that showing is always better than telling.

Vestigial Judaism, Part I: Louisiana small town archaeology.

[My apologies for the delay in getting this blog post out, but it will cover a broader geographic spread than most, and assembling these photos takes some time.]

Americans tend to be restless. Amidst all differences in ethnicities, religions, national origins, and political allegiances, one trait that seems to unite the people of this country is our unrelenting propensity to move. I’ve blogged about it in the past, and it was obvious then that it wouldn’t be the last time: physical manifestations of our wanderlust crop up everywhere, and they’re far too expressive for me to ignore. In that previous blog article, I looked at the spatial polarities of the Protestant faith across metropolitan America: the mainline denominations (Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians) often cluster in city centers or in the older neighborhoods where the median age tends to be higher, due to the relative absence of children. Conversely, the non-denominational Evangelical churches, teeming with kiddos and their youthful moms and dads, dominate the outer suburbs. This dichotomy isn’t particularly difficult to understand, since people routinely cluster in micro-communities based on shared values, and religion, a transcendently important value, will understandably elicit its own foci in the form of new churches.

But how does spirituality shape a community, when the faith in question is a minority almost everywhere it goes? Such has long been the case for Jews who migrated to the American South, a region not usually perceived as prominently Jewish, with the possible exception of south Florida. Yet up to the middle of the previous century, Jews were dispersed throughout the South, often exerting a noticeable social and economic influence, despite—or because of—their relatively small numbers. The truth is, Jews were never abundant in the South, but at a time when less than 50% of the nation’s population could be considered urban, the presence of Jews in small-town Southern life seems particularly bizarre today—much more than it did a century ago.

The Jewish presence in small southern towns ostensibly peaked in the decades from 1890 to 1930. Though it is hardly fair to draw all migratory conclusions from the history of one state, the chronicle of Jews in Mississippi is particularly strong, no doubt enhanced by the fact that the city of Jackson hosts the Goldring/Woldenburg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. The truth is, the movement patterns of Jews in other states largely echo that of Mississippi, and the Magnolia State, one of the most rural in the nation, has seen its Jewish population plunge 75% over the past century. In nearly all chronicles, the earliest southern Jewish settlements, often from the first half of the 19th century, took place in the most advanced and populous cities—places like Charleston, SC, Mobile, Natchez, Vicksburg, and, of course, New Orleans, the South’s largest city. However, many others sought the outlets made by the emergent centers of industry that slowly developed during the Reconstruction era, as the South was forced to industrialize after the civil war. Unaccustomed to owning land in their native European countries (where Jews typically were not allowed real estate), they combined the entrepreneurial skills they had developed under segregated conditions in Europe with their experience in trade as traveling peddlers. And if a growing town had an untapped market, it was natural that at least a few Jewish families would move there and try their luck. Thus, it is not surprising to see downtown commercial buildings with a Jewish name above the cornice line, even in some of the smallest Southern communities. In Mississippi alone, the Jewish community peaked before the Depression at over 6,400, with an epicenter in the Delta region.

But where did they all go? Today, Mississippi only has about 1,500 Jews and only two full-time rabbis. Other southern states experienced a similar retreat. Some of this population decline took place amidst the turbulence of the Civil Rights Era, a time in which Jewish desire not to interfere with the Southern status quo proved violently at odds with the all-too-familiar injustices they witnessed committed against blacks under Jim Crow. Rabbis often spoke out against discrimination the witnessed, sometimes resulting in threats against their temples and personal safety. The struggles of the 1960s no doubt discouraged other Jews from moving to the South, but the principal impetus for the diaspora was economic: the growing prevalence of national department store chains paved the way for the eventual obsolescence of localized Jewish retail, and entrepreneurs could not pass failing businesses on to their sons and daughters. These same children often left their home town for educational opportunities elsewhere, and then, with that college degree, they would move to larger, more prominent cities. The Jewish communities in many southern towns have dwindled to a mere handful of people, the majority of whom are septuagenarians or older. New synagogues are simply not opening in most of the South—in fact, the small town houses of worship are steadily shutting their doors.

With so many Jews leaving the smaller towns and cities of the Deep South, what becomes of their properties? The remnants of Jewish communities sometimes require a keen eye, as in the case of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, population 7,500.

This intermittently picturesque town about 30 miles south-southeast of Baton Rouge is one of the oldest settlements in the state, with Acadian migrants as its original inhabitants. The town celebrated its 200th birthday in 2006, and it was briefly made the state capital from 1830 to 1831. The town’s prominence surpassed the Louisiana state capital throughout much of the 19th century, and the rail access along the main street brought new industry, as well as a variety of French, Alsatian, and Prussian immigrants after the Civil War. The Bikur Cholim Synagogue was constructed in 1872 along Railroad Avenue, Donaldsonville's main street, and it prospered up through the early years of the Great Depression. Unlike many other small-town Jewish communities, Donaldsonville’s population largely dwindled due to intermarriage, which apparently was more common between Jews and Catholics (still the dominant religion of south Louisiana) than between Jews and the Protestants that dominated most other southern states. Other Jews in Donaldsonville remained childless. The synagogue closed in the 1940s after the town lacked the population to support it, but the structure remains, barely recognizable under its new use:
Though the Wikipedia article on Donaldsonville mentions this structure, and this thoughtful portrait on small synagogues describes it in great detail, it took a tour guide and town historian to point out the synagogue to me. The new owners long ago replaced the vestibule with a retail façade, though according to the tour guide, the ornamental feature at the top of the gable hosted a Star of David until the 1970s.

According to the Small Synagogues website, only two Jews remain in Donaldsonville, one of whom maintains the Bikur Cholim Cemetery. The fortunes of the Jewish population of the town rose and fell along much the same trajectory as Natchez, Mississippi, 150 miles upriver. Both were advanced settlements a time when such communities were scarce, and their roles as major cities in the overwhelmingly rural south made them amenable to concentrations of businesses, in which Jewish merchants participated with often great success. As the automobile began its ascendancy, these two river cities failed to integrate with a strong highway network. Both suffered a population loss, and while the Jewish population in Donaldsonville is essentially gone, a handful of mostly elderly Jewish people remain in Natchez. In recent years, their prospects have bifurcated: Natchez has the advantage of being older, larger, and wealthier than Donaldsonville, with a moderately active tourist industry capitalizing on its antebellum mansions and well-preserved downtown. Donaldsonville has not been so lucky; it is the only section of Ascension Parish that has continued to lose population, while the rest of the parish has prospered as a bedroom community to Baton Rouge. Poverty is high and the main street has lost some of its historic architecture, though efforts to revitalize with art galleries and restaurants are clearly visible. Both communities were among the most prominent cities in their states for much the twentieth century. And while Natchez remains well known to aficionados of Southern history, Donaldsonville has devolved to little more than a bold word on a map with slightly bolded lettering; only people among the River Parishes near Baton Rouge are likely to be very familiar with the town. Such communities have lost nearly all viability among Jews, manifested in the synagogue-to-hardware-store we witness in Donaldsonville.

Clearly the diminished prominence that these towns suffered was not borne exclusively by their Jewish populations; people of all faiths left as the country shifted toward a primarily urban basis for settlement. However, it is likely that the Jewish role in trades and merchandise was badly affected by the agglomeration of industry in larger cities and the seeming obsolescence of small towns, resulting in a rural-to-urban migration that was more pronounced among Jews than the southern, Christian population at large. Upriver of Donaldsonville and north of Baton Rouge is the prosperous town of St. Francisville, another community which claimed a thriving Jewish population a century ago.

Though much smaller than Donaldsonville (less than 2,000 people) it seems to have found a new raison d'être in the service economy and is now a tourist attraction, thanks to the cluster of plantation homes nearby. (The town itself is distinctive enough to be worthy of a blog entry, which I hope to write at some point in the future.) Like Donaldsonville, it is sufficiently close to Baton Rouge to function as a bedroom community, but unlike the former town it clearly has capitalized on this condition: St. Francisville enjoys a median household income much higher—and poverty rate much lower—than the norm for the state. Yet, according to the Institute for Southern Jewish Life, the diaspora that began in 1920s St. Francisville effectively reduced the Jewish population to zero. The Temple Sinai was dedicated in 1903, at a time when the burgeoning Jewish population justified a new house of worship. But the leadership could never secure a full-time rabbi, and after multiple attempts, the members of the congregation lost confidence in their own ability to maintain a footing in the town. In 1921, they sold Temple Sinai to a Presbyterian congregation that used the building until the end of the century, at which point it sat abandoned until it was refurbished a few years later and integrated into historical tours of the town. Successful retailer Julius Freyhan, perhaps the town’s most prominent Jewish figure, purchased a plot of land in 1891 that eventually became Hebrew Rest Cemetery.

As I was passing through the town, the clear feature that distinguished it from other cemeteries was the directional uniformity of the tombstones: all of them face east toward Jerusalem.


The gate to Hebrew Rest is locked, and the signs offer no information as to when the cemetery might be open to the public (if ever). The property boundaries and plant growth prevented me from going to the other side where I could effectively see the text on the graves. But the area itself was no doubt well out of the St. Francisville boundaries when it was first constructed; the housing immediately across the street fits the ranch typology popular in the mid 20th century.

By the time these homes were built, St. Francisville had most likely already bid farewell to the last of its Jews.

Spotting the remnants of Jewish life in the rural south is akin to an Easter egg hunt; yes, I’m aware that the analogy is a bit uncouth. But the evidence here flies in the face of what most Americans—including, I suspect, most Jewish Americans—assume about Jewish settlement: that they are largely in the major metropolitan areas, on the coasts (particularly the East Coast), and often in the central cities themselves or inner-ring suburbs—rarely in the exurbs. Yet the evidence shows that, although never more than 10% of a town population, Jews were widely scattered across the rural South for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The second half of this blog post will explore the Jewish influence on southern settlements outside of Louisiana, as well as movement patterns in a much larger southern city. Stay tuned, and because of the vastness of the subject, I welcome any other comments or observations that can help me hone in on the essence of southern Jewish settlement—at this point, the engine to my research is my photograph collection.