Ben Chase, who served as president of the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom Beth Israel (BSBI) in Charleston, South Carolina, for two years, beginning in January 2004, discusses the circumstances that led to the founding of the breakaway congregation, Dor Tikvah (Generation of Hope), across the Ashley River from downtown Charleston. Before his term as president, he was on BSBI's board for ten years, during which time most of the congregation's members, whose average age was seventy, were happy with the status quo. Most members did not live within walking distance of the synagogue, which is located on the Charleston peninsula. While many drove to services on the Sabbath, getting to the synagogue was a hardship for young families who lived West of the Ashley and wanted to be strictly observant. Further complicating matters, a small contingent preferred to meet in the congregation's long-standing minyan house in the West Ashley subdivision of South Windermere. As president, Ben felt it was his "duty to make sure that anyone that wanted to practice strict Orthodoxy would be able to do that at BSBI." He also believed that Charleston's Orthodox Jews should be united under one roof and that the future of BSBI rested on the younger members. He describes the steps he took to push the congregation into making a decision about whether to move off the peninsula, and recalls the nature of the resistance he met from members who wished to stay in the downtown building. In 2004, the year Ben became president, Rabbi David Radinsky retired after thirty-four years at BSBI, and the congregation hired Rabbi Ari Sytner. Ben talks about how the new, very young rabbi meshed with members and performed his duties after dropping into a tense situation. Opposition efforts by members reluctant to move caused a delay in bringing the decision to a vote, which did not take place until 2006, just after Ben's two-year term as president ended. The interviewee provides details about the outcome of the first round of voting that failed to produce a majority and the second round of voting in which the group that wanted to stay on the peninsula prevailed. In 2006, the West Ashley Minyan (WAM) was formed. Worshipers met in homes initially, and then rented space on the Jewish Community Center campus on Wallenburg Boulevard in West Ashley. After four years, they hired Rabbi Michael Davies, and, in 2012, Dor Tikvah was incorporated. At the time of this interview, Chase, a member of the relatively new Modern Orthodox congregation, insists, "To this day, I still believe that the Orthodoxy in Charleston should be under one roof."
In this second of three interviews, Benedict "Dick" Rosen continues a discussion about intermarriage. When he was growing up in Georgetown, South Carolina, his family was strongly tied to its Jewish identity. The Rosens were members of Beth Elohim in Georgetown, and Dick took Hebrew lessons from Rabbi Allan Tarshish of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston. His family observed the holidays to some degree. Dick discusses why he doesn't go to synagogue services anymore, with the exception of Yom Kippur. He and his wife, Brenda, nevertheless donate to two synagogues: Beth Elohim in Georgetown, "for Mom and Dad," and Temple Emanu-El in Myrtle Beach. One gift went toward Emanu-El's Rosen Education Center, completed in 2002. Dick talks about meeting his wife, Brenda Wekstein, while he was attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They married in 1958 in Boston. Interviewer Dale Rosengarten mentions the role Sumter native Elizabeth Moses played in reviving the Georgetown congregation in 2004. Rosen outlines his career in engineering, starting at Sprague Electric in Massachusetts designing capacitors. Then he joined AVX, first in Massachusetts, then Myrtle Beach. Ultimately, he became CEO of AVX. Dick recalls his travels while in management at AVX. The company built factories all over the world and, when Kyocera bought AVX, he became their representative director. He mentions AVX CEO Marshall Butler and briefly describes the trichloroethylene lawsuits filed against the company. For a related interview, see Sylvan and Meyer Rosen, Mss. 1035-035.
Benedict "Dick" Rosen, in the third of three interviews, talks about his children, Andrew, Greg, and Heidi, and his grandchildren. He identifies primarily as a southerner, rather than a Jew. "That's because being Jewish has never made any difference in my life." And yet, interviewer Dale Rosengarten observes, he and his children married within the faith. He revisits the subject of growing up in Georgetown, South Carolina, noting that he did not experience any antisemitism. "I never had a feeling I was different than anybody else." The same has been true for him as an adult. Rosengarten speculates about the reasons why that may be so. Dick's recollection of segregation prompts a discussion of present-day issues of police brutality, black-on-black crime, mass shootings, gun control, and the death penalty. Dick and Dale share their personal views on Israel. Dick has no special affinity for Israel and doesn't see it as a Jewish homeland. "Being Jewish is not a nationality. It's a religion." Both Rosen and Rosengarten have served as trustees on the board of the Belle W. Baruch Foundation of Hobcaw Barony in Georgetown. Dale raises the question of how their Jewish identity might have been considered useful to the board's mission. Both touch on the effect the Holocaust has had on their lives. The transcript contains corrections made during proofing by Dick's son Andy. For a related interview, see Sylvan and Meyer Rosen, Mss. 1035-035.
Benedict "Dick" Rosen was born on April 20, 1936, in Columbia, South Carolina, the first of two children, to Erma Levkoff and Sylvan Rosen. Sylvan completed law school a month later, and the Rosens moved to Sylvan's hometown, Georgetown, South Carolina. In this interview, the first of three sessions, Dick talks about the different branches of his South Carolina Jewish family tree, including the Suraskys, the Weinbergs, the Schneiders, and the Lewenthals. He notes that he lacks information about the Rosens. Dick describes growing up in Georgetown. At that time, there were no other Jewish children to play with, and he didn't belong to any Jewish youth groups. As a young child, nothing he ate agreed with him, and he was not thriving. When the doctor told his mother that bacon was the solution, her mother, Jennie Surasky Levkoff, who kept a kosher kitchen, stepped in to help. Rosen married Brenda Wekstein of Massachusetts. He says all his kids have Jewish spouses, but his grandchildren are marrying outside the faith. Dick discusses his father's education, political career, and involvement in Jewish organizations. Sylvan Rosen opened a law practice in Georgetown, where he served as councilman and mayor. For a related interview, see Sylvan and Meyer Rosen, Mss. 1035-035.
Claire Endictor Goldberg, born in 1934 in Cohoes, New York, to Sally Epstein and Irving Endictor, is joined in this interview by her husband, Benjamin Goldberg, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. When Claire was less than a year old, the Endictors moved to Detroit, Michigan, and ran a store there before moving back to New York in 1944, settling in Troy. Claire has one brother, William, who is four years younger. The family moved again in 1948, ending up in Charleston, South Carolina. Claire remembers visiting, as a young girl, her maternal grandparents, Pauline and Jacob Epstein, in Summerville, South Carolina, where her mother grew up. She recalls her reaction to segregation after moving to Charleston. "I was infuriated and I was a rebel. . . . That particularly made me want to leave Charleston." Although she left to pursue her nursing degree at Duke University in North Carolina, she returned to Charleston and began working at the Medical College of South Carolina in 1955. Claire shares a story about a specific discriminatory practice aimed at black nurses at the Medical College, and she describes working in a diagnostic clinic with Drs. Vince Moseley, Kelly McKee, and Bill Lee, where, among other procedures, they performed "the first heart catheterizations in South Carolina." Claire discusses how she met Benjamin; the adoption of their two children, Rachel and Joel; and the design of their South Windermere home. The Goldbergs talk about their children, and numerous friends and acquaintances, Jewish and non-Jewish. Benjamin identifies the leaders of the Jewish community in post-WW II Charleston, and offers his thoughts on the Kalushiner Society; his former boss, Louis Shimel; William Ackerman's run for mayor of Charleston against Palmer Gaillard in 1971; and the 1969 hospital strike by black employees of the Medical College of South Carolina, noting that the city's Jews were "not really involved very much in the Civil Rights Movement." Interviewer and Charleston native Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum adds this viewpoint regarding growing up in a segregated society: "This was the way things were. Black people were different . . . I never questioned it as a child." Other topics discussed include: freelance writer and Charleston native Robert Marks; 19th-century Jewish Charlestonians who were victims of violent crimes; and Jews in South Carolina politics and government, with speculation as to why there haven't been any Jewish mayors of Charleston. See Mss. 1035-387 for a previous interview with the Goldbergs on January 22, 2014.
Benjamin "Bennie" Goldberg, a Charleston native born in 1929 to Gussie Cohen and Harry Goldberg, talks about members of his extended family, as well as his siblings, Hannah Schwartz, Leon Goldberg, and Freida Meyerowitz, and his siblings' children. He recalls his father's grocery stores, particularly the one on Coming Street near Bogard Street, where the family also lived. It was a "mixed" neighborhood and he recalls no instances of antisemitism or problems between white and black residents. Joined in the interview by his wife, Claire Endictor Goldberg, Bennie shares his early memories of Charleston's Jewish community and tells a number of amusing anecdotes, mentioning members of these families: Altman, Baker, Breibart, Brickman, Doobrow, Fechter, Fox, Garfinkel, Geldbart, Karesh, Kurtz, Schwartz, Singer, Sonenshine, and Truere. Also discussed are Seymour Barkowitz, Bennie's Hebrew school teacher; Morris Finkelstein, the coach of the High School of Charleston basketball team; G. Theodore Wichmann, orchestra director of the High School of Charleston; and Judge J. Waties Waring. Bennie describes the George Street building where he attended Hebrew School; Harold's Cabin, the restaurant and gourmet grocery run by Harold Jacobs; and several movie theaters on the Charleston peninsula. A member of Aleph Zadik Aleph, Bennie says that the Jewish youth organization changed his life. "We learned a hell of a lot. We learned parliamentary procedure. We did civic things. We traveled to other cities to compete. There were oratorical contests." Regarding the synagogues in town: "I always say that you could sum up the history of the shuls in Charleston with one word: frum [pious]. You were either too frum or not frum enough." See Mss. 1035-388 for a second interview with the Goldbergs on February 5, 2014.
Benjamin Berendt, born in 1912 in Charleston, South Carolina, is interviewed by his great-nephew Jason Berendt using the list of questions in the Interview Guidelines provided by the Jewish Heritage Collection Oral History Archives. The Berendt family came to the United States in the 1880s, spending time in New York and Georgia before settling in Charleston in the early 1900s. Benjamin's parents, Mary Ward [Warshawsky] and Isaac Berendt, were from Konin, Poland. Isaac ran a shoe repair shop at 367 King Street. Benjamin recalls the other businesses that were on the same block. Sometime after Isaac died in 1921, Benjamin's brothers, Emanuel, Jack, and Harry, sold Isaac's shop and opened a wholesale leather and shoe supply company at 631 King Street that later moved to 205 Meeting Street. Benjamin joined his brothers in the business after graduating from the College of Charleston in 1935. Thirty years later, they moved to East Bay Street and opened a wholesale handbag business that they ran until 1971. The Berendt brothers had one sister, Blanche, who married Dave Leff of New York. The Leffs lived in Hartsville, South Carolina, where they operated a dry goods store. Benjamin discusses the benefits of belonging to the B'nai B'rith youth group Alpeh Zadik Aleph; he was a founding member of Charleston Chapter No. 143. He shares memories of his teachers at Charleston High School and the activities he enjoyed growing up in Charleston. He describes how the family observed the Sabbath and the holidays, and how Brith Sholom Beth Israel has and has not changed over the many decades he has been a member. Benjamin married Anna Gelson of Charleston and they raised two sons, Gerald and Alan, in Charleston. Comments and corrections to the transcript made by the interviewee during proofing are in brackets with his initials. For related materials in Special Collections, College of Charleston, see the Benjamin Berendt and Anna Gelson Berendt papers, Mss. 1089.
Helen Mazursky Berger, audio interview by Elizabeth Moses, 9 June 2000, Mss 1035-242, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Helen Mazursky Berger, born in 1919 in Mayesville, South Carolina, was raised from the time she was four years old in nearby Sumter. In this interview conducted by Sumter native Elizabeth Moses, Helen discusses her family history and provides details about her grandparents, aunts, and uncles on both sides. Her mother, Mary Blatt, was born in Philadelphia to Austrian immigrants who followed family south to Charleston, South Carolina. Mary married Abe Mazursky, a Russian immigrant and dry goods merchant who had settled in Mayesville. Shortly after Helen’s brother, Morris, was born in 1923, the family moved to Sumter, where they became members of the Reform congregation, Temple Sinai, and Abe opened a dry goods store called The Hub. Helen met Harry Berger in 1940 when he came to town to manage the Polly Prentiss factory, a local enterprise that had been sold to a New York firm. The couple married the following year, before Harry enlisted in the navy. When he was discharged in late 1945, Harry accepted Abe’s invitation to join him in the business. In 1969 Abe remodeled, changed his inventory line, and renamed the store Berger’s. Helen also talks about her children and grandchildren, and addresses the issue of antisemitism.
Helen Laufer Dwork Berle describes growing up in her native city, Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s and 30s. She discusses in detail Jewish merchants and the St. Philip Street neighborhood. Her parents, Harry and Tillie Hufeizen Laufer, who immigrated from Mogelnitsa, Poland, owned a mens clothing store on King Street before opening a restaurant. Laufers was Charlestons first kosher restaurant and served as a social hub during World War II.
Helen Berle, a daughter of Harry and Tillie Hufeizen Laufer, immigrants from Mogelnitsa, Poland, reminisces about her parents’ business, Laufer’s Kosher Restaurant on King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Popular among local merchants and military servicemen stationed in Charleston and Beaufort, the eatery served Jews and non-Jews for about two decades beginning in the early 1930s. Berle describes some of the kosher-style dishes that Jews from the Old Country brought with them to America. “Everything was just good, plain, old, basic cooking. . . . I think seasoning had a lot to do with it.” While blacks could not eat at Laufer’s, they were hired to work in the kitchen, and she recalls that the relationship between members of the Jewish and black communities of Charleston were good in the years before the Civil Rights Movement. She briefly mentions a branch of her mother’s family, the Hufeisens of France, who were also in the restaurant business. Note: the transcript contains additions and corrections made by Helen during proofing.
