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1. Jewish Heritage Collection Panel Discussion: Growing Up Jewish in Beaufort
Description:
“Growing up Jewish in Beaufort” is a panel discussion held in 1998 at the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina’s fall meeting held in Beaufort, South Carolina. Beaufort natives Joseph Lipton, Stanley Farbstein, Michael Greenly, Gerrie Lipson Sturman, and Thomas Keyserling share childhood memories from the 1920s through the 1960s. Topics addressed include antisemitism, assimilation, and the transition from Orthodox to Conservative practices in Beth Israel. The panelists recall rabbis and lay leaders who served the congregation, and identify Jewish merchants, tradesmen, and professionals.
2. Jewish Heritage Collection Panel Discussion: Oldtimers and Newcomers
Description:
“Oldtimers and Newcomers” is a panel discussion held in 2004 at the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina’s spring meeting convened in Georgetown in honor of Temple Beth Elohim’s centennial year. “Oldtimers” Philip Schneider and Meyer Rosen provide background on Georgetown’s Jewish history, noting former mayors, prominent members of the community, and their own family stories. “Newcomers” and New York natives Ariane Lieberman and Gene Vinik discuss how their experiences, growing up in New York among a large population of Jews, differ from the small-town, southern culture of Georgetown. Bari Heiden, born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, joined the Georgetown congregation just six months before the panel met. She describes raising her children in Florence, South Carolina, where they were members of Beth Israel. Audience members contribute their memories of growing up in Georgetown and share their small-town stories.
3. Jewish Heritage Collection Panel Discussion: Temple Beth Elohim's 100th Anniversary
Description:
This panel discussion was held in October 2004 in observance of the one hundredth anniversary of Temple Beth Elohim in Georgetown, South Carolina. Relying on local records, L. C. Sloan reviews the history of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Jews of Georgetown, in particular, Marcus Moses (1830-1884) and his children. Robin Heiden Shuler describes growing up in the 1960s and ’70s as a member of a small, close-knit Jewish community in predominantly Christian Florence, South Carolina, and how she drifted away from Judaism as a young woman in Charleston, but returned to it as a mother. Robert Schimek provides his perspective as a transplant from the Northeast. He proposes that the line between Conservative and Reform Judaism is becoming increasingly blurred and that Beth Elohim’s goal is to “make as many as we can . . . feel comfortable under our umbrella.” Panelists and audience members also briefly discuss the question of antisemitism in Florence and touch on the history of Temple Beth Or in Kingstree, South Carolina. For Mr. Sloan’s research materials, see L. C. Sloan collection, Mss 1036, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
4. Jewish Heritage Collection Panel Discussion: The Founding of Synagogue Emanu-El
Description:
This is a panel discussion held in 1997 at the 4th annual meeting of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, convened on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Charleston’s Conservative congregation, Synagogue Emanu-El. Topics include the reasons for establishing Emanu-El, who the leaders were, and how the controversial split from the Orthodox Brith Sholom affected individuals and families in both congregations. Among the speakers is Lewis Weintraub, Emanu-El’s first rabbi, who provides details of many of the synagogue’s “firsts.”
5. Jewish Heritage Collection Presentation: Adath Yeshurun Synagogue’s 75th Anniversary Founders Day Celebration
Description:
Adath Yeshurun in Aiken, South Carolina, celebrated its 75th anniversary on May 4, 1996. Presentations by Sunday school students and performances by guest singer Gloria Greenbaum and the men’s chorus were followed by a series of speakers who shared their memories of the Jewish community and congregation, as well as histories of some of Aiken’s early Jewish families—Efron, Franzblau, Persky, Panitz, Polier, Rudnick, Sawilowsky, Schneider, Surasky, and Wolf. Other subjects of discussion included the Sons of Israel Cemetery, the murder of Abraham Surasky, and a short-lived Jewish farming association established in nearby Montmorenci in 1905, dubbed “Happyville” by its promoters.
6. Jewish Heritage Collection Speech: The Jewish Community of Beaufort in 1905 and the Founding of Beth Israel Congregation
Description:
Helen Goldman and Stephen Schein delivered this talk titled “The Jewish Community of Beaufort in 1905 and the Founding of Beth Israel Congregation” at the April 2005 meeting of the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina (JHSSC), held in Beaufort, South Carolina, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Beth Israel Congregation. Bernard Warshaw, president of the JHSSC, welcomes audience members and reads the governor’s proclamation honoring the anniversary, and Julian Levin introduces the speakers. Goldman and Schein discuss the history of the congregation and, more specifically, their grandfathers and founding members, David Schein and Morris Levin and their families.
7. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abel Banov
Description:
Abel Banov draws on memories of his childhood in Charleston, South Carolina, to describe his familys customs, the synagogues, his fathers business ventures, the local merchants, and the differences between the citys uptown and downtown Jews. In 1939, he was hired by the North American Newspaper Alliance to cover stories in Spain just after the Spanish Civil War ended and, in the 1940s, he was founding editor of El Mundos English newspaper in Puerto Rico. He married Joan Heinemann, who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.
8. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abraham Stern
Description:
Abraham Stern, audio interview by Robert Buxton, 11 April 1999, Mss 1035-211, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA., Abraham “Abe” Stern was ten years old in 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland. At the time his father owned a textile factory in Lodz and the family was well-off, but antisemitism, promoted by the government and the Catholic Church, was commonplace. Shortly after the German occupation, the Stern family was forced to move to the ghetto in Lodz, where they lived until 1944, when they were transported to Auschwitz. Abe describes the systematic approach to genocide practiced by the Germans, which began in the ghetto, included forced labor, and ended in death for many who never believed it would come to that. He recalls the degrading conditions in Auschwitz and the high death rate in the labor camp in Ahlem, Germany, where he was housed while working in Hannover. After liberation by the Americans, Abe and some buddies made their way to Bergen-Belsen in search of surviving family members. He recounts what they saw when they arrived. Abe caught up with his three sisters in Poland, and they returned with him to Marburg, Germany, where he worked in a kitchen for the American army while waiting to obtain permission to come to the United States. Abe lived in New York for a year before traveling to California, where a man associated with the Workman’s Circle introduced him to someone who gave him a job. A year or so later, in 1948, he joined the United States Air Force, which ultimately brought him to Sumter, South Carolina, where he met and married his wife, Rhea, and where they raised their three children. Abe discusses how he copes with his memories of the Holocaust, how he is bewildered by those who deny that it occurred, and his feelings about providing reparations for the victims.
9. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Alex Davis and Suzanne Lurey
Description:
Alex Davis, joined by his niece, Suzanne Lurey, who speaks only briefly, discusses his family history and his experiences growing up in Greenville, South Carolina. His father, Victor Davis, opened an auto parts store in Greenville in 1926 and, after he died, Alex and his two brothers, Jack and Louis, ran the family business for nearly four more decades. Alex married Lillian Zaglin, also of Greenville, and they raised two children. He recalls the early leaders of Congregation Beth Israel, Greenville’s Orthodox synagogue, and describes the relationship between Beth Israel, now Conservative, and the Reform congregation, Temple of Israel.
10. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Alex Garfinkel
Description:
Alex Garfinkel discusses his father, Harry Louis Garfinkel, who emigrated from Divin, Russia, around the turn of the twentieth century to avoid conscription. He was followed to the United States by two sisters, four brothers, and his father. Harry heard there were landsmen (countrymen) from Divin in Charleston, South Carolina, so he moved there and worked as a shoemaker until he bought a mattress factory. He married Celia Hannah Lapidus of Charleston. At some point, Harry turned over the mattress business to his brother Sam and opened a junk yard, which grew into a successful scrap metal business. Alex grew up on Line Street, one of eight children. He attended Hebrew school at Beth Israel and briefly mentions the split between Beth Israel and Brith Sholom, the Orthodox synagogues. Alex talks about King Street merchants, his father’s businesses, and taking over the scrap yard as a young man, which exempted him from military service during World War II. He invited his cousin Max Garfinkel of Baltimore to join him in the growing business, and they remained partners for over forty years. See also interviews with other members of the Garfinkel family: Helen Rosenshein, Olga Weinstein, Sandra Shapiro, Nathan and Frances Garfinkle (Nathan spells the family name differently), Max and Jennie Garfinkel, and Philip Garfinkel.