Sonia Truere Rothschild was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1934, the youngest of six children of Ida Scherr and Joseph Truere. Ida was five years old when she emigrated from Odessa, Russia, in 1905, traveling with her mother and brother to join the rest of the family in Baltimore, Maryland. Sonia talks about her mother's siblings, all of whom remained in Baltimore and raised their families there. Ida married Joseph, also from Odessa, in 1918, and moved to his adopted hometown of Charleston. Sonia speaks fondly of her uncle Harry Truere, a father figure to Sonia and her siblings, who saw very little of their own father. Joseph, who acquired the nickname of Jew Joe, kept busy with his businesses, a mix of legal and illegal enterprises. He had friends on the police force and, Sonia says, "Anything that was illegal, he was in it." Nevertheless, "he had a very soft heart. He couldn't stand to see people go without." He was not a religious man, but was an earnest supporter of their Orthodox synagogue, Beth Israel. Joseph died when Sonia was fourteen. The interviewee recalls how poor the family was. Despite persistent financial struggles, her mother always set aside money in her pushke box for charities. The Trueres owned a store called Cash Grocery on the corner of Bogard Street and Rose Lane. Ida made extra money by catering regular meetings of the Kalushiner Society, a landmanshaft founded by immigrants from Kalusyzn, Poland. Sonia briefly discusses her siblings, in particular her oldest brother, Bob, who worked in radio and television with the local channel WCSC. Sonia describes her mother's cooking and how Ida observed the Sabbath. See Mss. 1035-067 for a second interview with Sonia Rothschild.
Lucille Bass Lipsitz joins her husband, Joseph Lipsitz, in this interview that takes place in the Lipsitz Department Store, at 825 Bay Street, in Beaufort, South Carolina. Joseph, the youngest of three children, was born in 1920 to Bertha Rubin and Max Lipsitz in what was once the family residence above the store. Max followed his father and two siblings to the United States from Lithuania around the turn of the twentieth century and, in 1902, at the age of sixteen, opened a business that sold groceries and clothing. Max and Bertha shifted to dry goods only in the 1920s and, two decades later, Joseph, his sister Ethel, and her husband, Henry Rabinowitz, took over. Henry died in 1964, and Ethel stayed on until 1972, when Joseph bought her out. Lucille was born in 1930 in Lowell, Massachusetts, and grew up the sixth of seven children of Lithuanian immigrants Esther Cohen and Nathan Bass in North, South Carolina, where Nathan ran a general store. Lucille talks about her siblings and growing up in the small town about thirty-five miles south of the capital city, Columbia. Lucille and Joseph describe how they met and recall their wedding in 1955. They raised four children in Beaufort: Sandra, Judy, Barry, and Neil. The interviewees consider whether they self-identify most as Jews or as southerners. Other topics mentioned include: Beth Israel Synagogue, Beaufort's Jewish merchants, and the street preachers who sermonize outside the Lipsitz's store. For related oral histories, see interviews with Hyman Lipsitz, et al, Mss. 1035-080; Sandra and Morey Lipton, Mss. 1035-181; and Joseph Lipton, Mss. 1035-156 and -447; and the panel discussion "Growing Up Jewish in Beaufort," Mss 1035-204. For related collections, see Beth Israel congregation records, 1905-1961, Mss. 1076, and the Lipsitz family papers, 1876-1953, Mss. 1102, in Special Collections.
Ella Levenson Schlosburg, the daughter of emigrants from Lithuania, recounts her family history and describes growing up in an Orthodox Jewish family in the small midlands town of Bishopville, South Carolina. Her father, Frank Levenson, one of a handful of Jewish merchants in Bishopville in the early 1900s, ran a general store that sold everything from groceries to mules. Ella married Elihu Schlosburg, the son of Anna Karesh and Harry Schlosburg, and they moved to Camden, South Carolina, where they established a liquor business.
Hyman Rubin describes his upbringing in Norway, South Carolina, and later in Columbia, where his family owned a wholesale dry goods store. He talks about his experience at the University of South Carolina, and recounts his political career and tenure on Columbia's city council (1952-1966) and in the state senate from 1966-1984. In 1940, he married Rose Rudnick of Aiken, South Carolina.
Cousins Max Furchgott and Dale Dreyfoos review their family history. Dale's maternal grandmother Lillian Furchgott married Pincus LeRoy Pinkussohn (he changed the spelling of the family name to Pinkerson during World War II), whose grandfather settled in Charleston, South Carolina, around 1850. Lillian's father, Herman Furchgott, and his brother Max, grandfather of interviewee Max, opened a dry goods store on King Street in Charleston in the 1860s. Max describes growing up in Charleston and recalls the moves his family made during the Great Depression to Orangeburg, South Carolina; Goldsboro, North Carolina; and Florence, South Carolina, before returning to Charleston. The Furchgotts have been members of Reform Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) since the first generation in Charleston. Max discusses the conflict that arose among members of the congregation in the 1960s during Rabbi Burton Padoll's tenure, and notes how KKBE has changed over the years. Max married Marcelle Kleinzahler and they raised three children in Charleston. Both interviewees discuss Jewish identity - Max, in terms of how he believes his children view themselves, and Dale, in terms of his relationship to his ancestors. Dale tells the story of his great-great-grandparents fleeing Atlanta during the Civil War in anticipation of General Sherman's arrival with Union troops. Other family surnames mentioned in the interview include Brown, Sorentrue, Foote, Ritzwoller, and Dreyfoos. For related information, see also Marcelle Furchgott's May 14, 2014 interview, Robert Furchgott's February 28, 2001 and April 18, 2001 interviews, the Arthur C. Furchgott papers (Mss 1043), and Furchgott and Brothers department store newspaper advertisement, 1910 (Mss 1034-090), Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
Eileen Strauss Rubin grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the only child of Isaac and Pearl Weinreich Strauss. Isaac, who was born in New York, moved in the 1870s as a teenager, first to Mayesville, South Carolina, where relatives, the A. A. Strauss family, owned a store. After relocating to Sumter, he invested in land and helped a nephew get started in the printing business. He died when Eileen was only five years old. Eileen recalls celebrating the holidays and attending Sunday school at Sumter’s Temple Sinai, where she was confirmed. As a girl, she visited her mother’s family in Ohio and, having made a number of friends there, decided to go to Ohio State University (OSU). She met her husband, Herman Rubin, at a fraternity dance at OSU. Herman was an M.D. and practicing in Akron. About a year after they married and shortly after their first daughter was born, Herman, who was in the army reserves, was called up for active duty. After five years in military service, the Rubins returned to Akron, where their second daughter was born. In the early ’50s, in search of a milder climate, the Rubins moved to Sumter. Eileen discusses her family history, her daughters, and the family’s real estate business. Interviewer Robert Moses, a Sumter native and friend of the Rubins, contributes to the conversation. Note: daughters Ellen Rubin Eber and Gayle Rubin provided additional information noted in the transcript during proofing.
Dora Altman grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where her father worked as a tailor. Her parents’ emigration from Poland was sponsored by a relative, a member of the Mendelsohn family. The Altmans attended the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom and, at some point, Dora switched to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, the Reform temple where services were conducted in English. Dora remembers playing with both Jews and gentiles as a child; the Henckel twins, members of the Coburg Dairy family, were among her closest friends. Dora was engaged to Samuel Turtletaub when he was killed in France during World War I. She never married. During the interview, Dora identifies certain photographs (see the Dora Altman collection, Mss. 1006 in Special Collections, College of Charleston), and is joined by interviewer Haskell Ellison, also a Charleston native, in recalling Charleston’s Jewish families and merchants of the early 20th century.
Conie Spigel Ferguson was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the daughter of Geneva Fulk and Julian Spigel. She talks about her great-uncle Joel Spigel and her grandfather David Manuel Spigel of Prussia, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s. The brothers, who were jewelers, lived for a time in the Newberry-Columbia area, where David met and married Theresa “Daisy” Mittle. The Spigels, Joel included, moved to Spartanburg in 1903, where they opened a jewelry store. Conie’s father, Julian Spigel, was pushed to go to medical school by his parents. He met Geneva at a hospital in North Carolina where she was working as a nurse. Geneva came from a family of Moravians and was expected to leave school before completing her education to work on the family farm. However, she left home, took a job and a room with another family, graduated from high school, and earned a nursing degree. She married Julian in 1941, and they moved to Texas where Julian, an M.D., worked at a hospital before being called home to Spartanburg by his father in 1947, shortly after Conie’s brother, Joel David, was born. Julian helped out with the family jewelry business and took over after David Spigel’s death in 1949. He did not work again in medicine. Although Geneva did not convert to Judaism, she raised Joel and Conie in a Jewish household, insofar as they observed all the holidays. The children attended Sunday school, and Geneva was active in the B’nai Israel Sisterhood and B’nai B’rith. As the daughter of a gentile mother, Conie discusses how she was received by the rabbi and members of the temple. She recalls Rabbi Max Stauber who was hired in 1955 and served the congregation for nearly 30 years, noting that he was “like a second father” to her. The interviewee describes her devotion to Jewish religious observance and what she values in a rabbi. She relates incidences of antisemitism she experienced while in secondary school and at Spartanburg Junior College (now Spartanburg Methodist College). Conie responds to questions about race relations in Spartanburg, and reports that she never witnessed any conflicts between black and white students in her high school.
Isidore Denemark was born in 1910 in Mayesville, South Carolina, the son of Eastern European immigrants Sara Lee “Lizzie” Siegel and Jacob Denemark. Jacob arrived in New York and, at some point, moved to Georgetown, South Carolina, where he worked for the Fogel Brothers in their general merchandise store. Isidore doesn’t know when or where his parents married. He describes a number of moves the family made after Jacob left Georgetown. They ran stores in Mayesville, South Carolina, Sumter, South Carolina, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. They returned to Sumter around 1935 where Jacob went into business with Sara’s brother Harry Siegel on Main Street and Sara opened the Smart Shop, which sold dresses. Isidore recalls his father packing up his merchandise and following the tobacco workers around during harvest season in the Carolinas and Tennessee. The interviewee talks about his family’s religious observances as Orthodox Jews when he was growing up and his practices as an adult. He and interviewer Robert Moses are members of Sumter’s Temple Sinai, a small Reform congregation. Both men express frustration and concern about the lack of attendance at Sabbath services by members of the younger generations. They contemplate the reasons for the low levels of participation and compare the Jewish community of Sumter to the large and vibrant one in Charleston, South Carolina. Isidore earned an accounting degree at New York University and returned to Sumter in 1936 to work for Boyle Construction Company as a CPA. He was joined by his first wife, Gladys “Jimmy” Goldsmith, and they raised two children, Bennett and Adele. He talks about how he met Jimmy, who died in 1966. He married Rae Nussbaum Addlestone, originally from Charleston, who was present at this interview. Isidore was one of six or so people who put up money for a new summer camp for Jewish children. They bought more than two hundred acres in Cleveland, GA, and named it Camp Coleman, for the man who made the largest donation. Isidore and Robert discuss the absence of antisemitism in Sumter and how Jewish residents have been prominent in every part of Sumter life. Isidore addresses the issue of the Confederate flag flying on the South Carolina statehouse grounds.
Morris Rosen is joined by his cousin Dorothy “Dutch” Idalin Gelson Cohen and her husband, Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen, in this interview. Morris’s son Robert is also present as interviewer and videographer. Morris, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919, was one of four children of Annie Blatt and Sol Rosen. Sol and his siblings, including Dutch’s parents, Zelda Rosen and Louis Gelson, emigrated from Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century, following their older sister Ida and her husband, David Goldberg, to Poughkeepsie, New York, where Dutch was born in 1919. The cousins talk about the Rosen (Rachelkin) and Gelson (Getchen) families of Poughkeepsie and their ancestors in Russia. Morris briefly mentions his maternal grandparents, Mamie Wildman and Morris Blatt, who ran a bakery in Columbia, South Carolina, before moving to Charleston. Morris and Dutch describe how the Rosens wound up in Charleston. Their uncle Sam Rosen moved to the area from Poughkeepsie for reasons unknown and opened a store in Awendaw, a small settlement about twenty-five miles north of Charleston. In about 1919, Sol Rosen and Zelda and Louis Gelson followed and bought an established country store from a member of the Geraty family in Yonges Island, nearly twenty miles south of Charleston. Louis died within a year, and Sol sold his interest in the store to Zelda, who moved the business and her three children to Meeting Street in Charleston after a few years. Sol was in the grocery business and later opened liquor stores. Morris traces his father’s moves from Yonges Island to King and Romney streets in Charleston, to the town of Meggett, and back to Charleston at King and Race streets. Morris and Dutch discuss growing up in Charleston in an area of the city where there were no other Jewish families. They did not experience antisemitism and Morris blended easily with the Catholic teens who lived nearby. The cousins did connect with other Jewish children when they frequented the neighborhoods around the synagogues and while attending religious school. They didn’t notice any friction between Charleston’s Reform and Orthodox Jews and played with children from both groups. Dutch was confirmed and Morris became a bar mitzvah at Brith Sholom on St. Philip Street. The two consider the degree to which their parents were observant Jews and speculate as to why their parents and others of their generation did or did not adhere to certain Jewish traditions. Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen was born in 1916 in St. Matthews, South Carolina, where his father, Isaac, ran a dry goods store and two farms. All the general merchandisers in St. Matthews while Mortie and his two brothers were growing up were Jewish. They met for High Holiday services in the town’s Masonic temple and were joined by families from Orangeburg, Ehrhardt, and Elloree. Most of Mortie’s friends were Christians; he doesn’t remember experiencing any antisemitism in St. Matthews. Mortie recalls how he came to know the Rosens, and he and Morris describe the role of the drummers, or sales reps, who visited retail storeowners when their fathers were in business. Morris talks about how he met his wife, Ida Tanenbaum. Her brother Lou Tanenbaum came to Charleston and opened a clothing store with his brother-in-law Louis Lesser. Morris, an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, was assigned to a LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in the Pacific. The group discusses what they and other American Jews knew about what was happening to Jews in Europe under Hitler.
Interview with James Michael Graves by Cherisse R. Jones, June 20, 1995, AMN 500.001.006, in Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston.
David Alexander Cohen, Jr., born and raised in Darlington, South Carolina, recalls stories of the Hennig and Witcover families while sorting through documents, among them, mortgages, deeds, and bonds acquired by his grandfather, Henry Hennig, a lien merchant. Henry, a German immigrant, operated a general merchandise store in Darlington, and boarded at the home of Dora and Wolf Witcover before marrying their daughter Lena. David’s father, who was in the wholesale grocery and fertilizer business in Darlington, offered his African-American customers credit, and acted as a protector of sorts for those who needed help with personal matters. His great-uncle Hyman Witcover was a respected architect who designed the former Park Hotel in Darlington and numerous buildings in Savannah, Georgia, including city hall. David remembers going to the Florence train station with his father to pick up Rabbi Raisin of Charleston’s Beth Elohim, who conducted services one weekend a month for the Florence and Darlington congregations. In later years Darlington Jews hired rabbis from Sumter and Florence to lead services. David married Kathleen Hyman and they raised four children in Darlington. He describes his and other family members’ involvement in the Darlington Hebrew Congregation and Beth Israel Congregation of Florence. Note: Corrections and additions made during proofing by the interviewee’s wife and son are in brackets with their initials. Mr. Cohen provided interviews on three separate days. The July 12, 1995, and October 26, 1995, interviews were recorded on Tape 1. The October 27, 1995, interview was recorded on Tape 2. Mr. Cohen donated his papers, the subject of most of Tape 1 and all of Tape 2, to Special Collections, College of Charleston. See the David A. Cohen, Jr. collection, Mss. 1021.
Virginia Moise Rosefield, born in 1909 to Anita Harby and David DeLeon Moise, describes growing up in her hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. She relates stories about a number of Harby and Moise ancestors, among them the first to arrive in South Carolina, Abraham and Sarah Moise, who fled a slave uprising in St. Domingue in 1791; their grandson and Virginia's great-grandfather Edwin Warren Moise, who raised a cavalry regiment in the Civil War and established the law firm Lee & Moise in Sumter; and her great-grandmother Octavia Harby Moses, daughter of Isaac Harby, a founder of the Reformed Society of Israelites in Charleston. Virginia explains why her father changed his given name from Harmon to Davis. Davis, who followed his father, Marion Moise, into the law practice co-founded by Edwin Warren Moise, was a South Carolina legislator. Virginia describes a trip she took across country in 1931 to visit her cousin Alva Solomons, who was a naval officer stationed in California. She married New Englander Herbert Rosefield, whose father opened a hosiery factory in Sumter. Also present are Virginia's daughter, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, and fellow Sumter native and distant relative Robert Moses. The three discuss their congregation, Temple Sinai, in particular, its rabbis, lay leaders, and Sunday school when they were growing up. They note the changes in the rituals of Reform congregations that have occurred across three generations of the Rosefield/Rosenberg family.
Corinne Levy Philips, born in 1923 in Sumter, South Carolina, to Pauline Greenwood Gardner (of Savannah) and George Davis Levy, relates her father's family history, including stories dating to the Civil War. She describes how her family celebrated the Jewish holidays, noting that they were ultra-Reform and members of Temple Sinai in Sumter. She recalls decisions made by their rabbi, Samuel Shillman, that she believes drove members away. He held Sunday school classes on Saturdays, in direct competition with a popular local theater program. In later years he refused to marry Corinne and her husband, John Philips, because John was Catholic. John, a New Jersey native, met Corinne during World War II when he was a cadet at Shaw Field, an army air base in Sumter. The interviewee discusses her feelings about being Jewish and the changes she has observed in Reform practices. "I feel like they're running people away. Instead of modernizing, they're going backwards. . . ." Corinne and interviewer Robert Moses, a friend and neighbor, talk about Jewish stereotypes and their desire to "not be different." They also share their impressions of school integration in Sumter in the 1960s. Note: the transcript includes comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
George Chaplin talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of Netty Brown (Bojarski) and Morris Chaplin (Tschaplinsky). Morris emigrated from Bialystok to the United States around 1906 and worked in shoe factories in Massachusetts. He followed his friend and landsman, Max Citron, to Columbia, South Carolina, where he peddled before running a retail, and later, a wholesale shoe business with his brother. Netty came to the United States from Lithuania, and worked in New York and then Boston, where she met Morris. The two were married in Columbia by Rabbi David Karesh. George names a number of Jewish residents who lived in Columbia during his childhood, and recalls that there wasn't much "mingling" between the Orthodox and the Reform Jews. When he was a sophomore in high school, the Chaplin family moved to Greenville, South Carolina, where Morris opened a pawnshop. George briefly outlines his career as a journalist, which included working alongside Charlestonian Earl Mazo in Greenville. He reflects on differences between American-born fathers and fathers like his, who were born in Europe, and he makes note of antisemitism he experienced in the South. About being Jewish, he says, "In the South, in those days, you were not permitted to forget it." George's wife, Esta Solomon Chaplin, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, joins him for a short time during the interview. They married in 1937 and raised two children. See Mss 1035-041 for a follow-up interview on October 3, 1995.
Sylvan and Meyer Rosen, brothers and natives of Georgetown, South Carolina, recall growing up in the coastal city and socializing regularly with gentiles. The Jewish congregation, Beth Elohim, too small to support a rabbi, received support from Charleston’s Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. The brothers name of some of Georgetown’s Jewish families and provide background on their extended families, the Lewenthals, Weinbergs, and Rosens. Their father, Harry Rosen, and their uncle Albert Schneider, who married sisters Dora and Fannie Lewenthal, operated The New Store, which initially sold men’s and ladies’ clothing and later furniture and appliances. Besides practicing law in Georgetown, both men held political office—Sylvan as mayor and Meyer as a state legislator.
Isaac Jacobs, who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, discusses his family history, including the 1855 immigration of his grandfathers Louis Pearlstine, who settled in Branchville, South Carolina, and Isaac Jacobs (Karesh). Jacobs, a native of Poland, operated a dry goods store in Charleston and was a founder of the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom. The interviewee’s father, Louis Jacobs, ran a shoe store in Charleston for 28 years before switching to the hosiery business. In 1931, he opened Jacobs’ Hosiery Company, and was joined by his sons, Isaac and Melvin. Isaac describes how his father got started in the wholesale sock industry and his own experiences as a traveling salesman selling merchandise to immigrant Sephardic store owners in Myrtle Beach, among others. Isaac briefly worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, and served in the army in the Pacific theater during World War II. He married Ruth Bass of North, South Carolina, who joins him in this interview. Note: The audio quality of this recording is poor. Corrections and additions to the transcript were made by Isaac and/or his wife, Ruth, during proofing. See Mss. 1035-009 for the second part of this interview, dated February 22, 1995, and Mss. 1035-173 for another interview on January 26, 1998.
In the second part of an interview, Isaac Jacobs continues his discussion of his family history, including how his mother’s family name, Farber, was changed to Pearlstine in Trestina, Poland. His mother, Ethel Pearlstine of Branchville, married Louis Jacobs (Karesh) in 1908, and the couple raised eight children in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina. Isaac describes his siblings, his aunts and uncles on the Jacobs side, and relays anecdotes passed down in the family about life in Charleston. Isaac also talks about his experiences in the military during World War II. He married Ruth Bass of North, South Carolina, who joins him in this interview. Note: The audio quality of this recording is poor. Corrections and additions to the transcript were made by Isaac and/or his wife, Ruth, during proofing. See Mss. 1035-005 for the first part of this interview, dated February 1, 1995, and Mss. 1035-173 for another interview on January 26, 1998.
Moses Kornblut grew up in Latta, South Carolina, the son of Leon Kornblut and Lizzie Schafer. He operated the family business, Kornblut’s Department Store, for 76 years, served on the Latta City Council for over three decades, and was a leading member of the Dillon synagogue, Ohav Shalom.
Stanley Karesh grew up in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s and ’30s. His family kept kosher and attended Brith Sholom. Stanley describes the shoe store his grandfather Charles Karesh built at 545 King Street. Charles immigrated with his wife, Sarah Orlinsky Karesh, to Charleston, circa 1878, from their hometown of Trestina (Trzcianne), in Polish Russia. They operated a store in the small town of Greeleyville, South Carolina, for a few years before returning with their growing family to Charleston, eager to live in a larger Jewish community. Stanley refers to a number of Charleston families, including Rittenberg, Friedman, Bielsky, Barshay, Kaminski, Jacobs, Banov, Livingstain, and Pearlstine, many of whom are related to the Kareshes. He also mentions his maternal grandparents, Harry and Anna Smolensky Feinberg, and cousin Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia. Stanley attended dental school in Baltimore, where he met Charlot Marks. The couple married in 1945 in her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. They raised three daughters in Charleston, and they were one of the first families to move to South Windermere, a subdivision west of the Ashley River. Stanley discusses the changes over time in relations between members of the Orthodox and the Reform synagogues and between the two Orthodox congregations, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. He and Charlot, the youngest charter members of Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, which broke away from Brith Sholom in 1947, recount its origins and offer their view of how its members differed from the Orthodox congregants from whom they split.
Hannah Prystowsky Rubin, born in Charleston in 1916, recounts the story of her grandparents’ immigration to the United States from Zabludow, Poland, circa 1890. Ezra and Mollie Prystowsky followed the Jacobs family, also from Zabludow, to Charleston, South Carolina, where Ezra repaired shoes for a living before opening a men’s clothing store. Hannah’s father, Mike Prystowsky, was a tailor and worked with his brothers in the family’s King Street store, “E. Prystowsky & Sons, Mike-Sam-Jake.” She describes growing up on St. Philip Street, surrounded by extended family, and recalls members of two branches of the Mazo family—the Uptown Mazos and the Downtown Mazos—who operated delicatessens above and below Calhoun Street. In 1938 Hannah married Samuel Rubin of Columbia, son of wholesaler Joseph Rubin and Bessie Peskin Rubin. Within five years they had three small children. Hannah discusses Sam’s two-year stint in the army during World War II, and how she helped two German Jewish families, who survived the war, become acclimated to life in America after settling in Columbia.
Flossie Ginsberg Arnold and her son, Norman Arnold, discuss their family history. Flossie and her parents, Isaac and Pauline Ginsberg, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Russia around 1908, when Flossie was about one year old. Flossie recalls living on Hanover Street in the neighborhood they referred to as “Little Mexico,” where her family owned a small grocery store. Ultimately, the Ginsbergs moved to a home on Ashley Avenue and Isaac opened I. Ginsberg, Inc., on Meeting Street, selling cigars, candy, and notions. Flossie was working behind the cash register when her future husband, Ben Arnold, walked in. Charleston was a port of call for the Clyde Line steamer Ben was taking to New York from Florida, where he operated drugstores in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach. Flossie and Ben married in 1928 and shortly after, moved from Florida to Charleston, lured by the presence of family and a Jewish community, and Isaac’s offer to include Ben in the family business. Isaac and Ben developed a wholesale tobacco and drugstore enterprise with locations in several South Carolina cities, including Columbia, the state capital. Ben ran the Columbia store, which they expanded to include liquor. Around 1940 Flossie, Ben, and their son, Arnold, moved to the capital city, and in the mid-’40s, Isaac and Ben split up the business, Isaac keeping the tobacco distributorship, and Ben assuming full control of the liquor operation.
George Chaplin, in follow-up to his September 27, 1995, interview (Mss. 1035-040), recalls some of the other Jewish families that lived in his native city, Columbia, South Carolina, in particular his relatives, the Berkovitzes. He remembers sensing a separation between Columbia's German Jews and the more recent Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland. He describes incidences of antisemitism he experienced in school, noting he was "made to feel something of an outsider." When Chaplin was in high school, his family moved to Greenville, where his father opened Piedmont Pawnshop across the street from Zaglin's kosher meat market. The interviewee attended Clemson Agricultural College, at that time a military academy, and was responsible for ending compulsory church attendance each Sunday for the cadets. Chaplin, who comments on the necessary functions of newspapers and their editors, discusses his long career in newspaper journalism. First he worked for the conservative Greenville Piedmont in Greenville, South Carolina, right out of Clemson (he took a leave of absence from the Greenville Piedmont to accept the year-long Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, where he studied race relations and formed a discussion group consisting of Nieman fellows and black graduate students); then the Stars and Stripes Pacific during World War II; David Stern's Camden, New Jersey, papers, prior to and during a strike in 1947; the liberal San Diego Journal in the late 1940s, when the paper won a national award for investigative reporting; David Stern's "crusading paper," the New Orleans Item, which ultimately was sold to its competitor, the Times-Picayune; and finally the Honolulu Advertiser, from 1958 to retirement, during which time the paper won sixty national awards. Chaplin talks about his younger sister, Kay, and her family; his perception of race relations in Charleston in the late 1940s; his religious practices, and why he and his wife, Esta Solomon Chaplin, who both came from strict Orthodox families, chose to raise their two children in the Reform tradition. He is joined briefly during the interview by Esta. His daughter, Jerri, provided comments and corrections to the transcript during proofing.
Joseph Schafer, raised in Little Rock, South Carolina, was the grandson of Abraham Schafer, who emigrated from Germany around 1870. Abraham married Rebecca Iseman of Darlington, South Carolina, and established a dry goods store in Little Rock. Joseph describes his family history, race relations in Dillon County, and how his father, Sam, got started in the beer distribution business in the 1930s. He also discusses his children and his siblings, particularly his brother Alan, who was the founder of South of the Border, the all-inclusive rest stop for travelers on I-95 in Dillon.
Philip Schneider, born and raised in Georgetown, South Carolina, and Charlestonian Alwyn Goldstein, who moved to Georgetown in 1938 to open a store, discuss the town’s Jewish religious and business life. Among the merchants were Philip’s grandmother, Sally Lewenthal, and his father, Albert Schneider, who went into business with Philip’s uncle, Harry Rosen. Both interviewees recall the effects of the Great Depression in their native cities.
Raymond Stern grew up in Andrews, South Carolina, where his father, the son of emigrants from Eastern Europe, established Stern’s Dry Goods in 1932. Raymond recalls Melvin Hornik, a Charleston wholesaler, and discusses his childhood friends and Jewish merchants in Andrews, Lane, and Kingstree, including his uncle Charlie Tucker, who was from Baltimore. Tucker was one of the first Jewish merchants to come to this rural region between the midlands and the coast. The Sterns were members of Congregation Beth Elohim in Georgetown and, later, Raymond’s parents also attended services at Kingstree’s Temple Beth Or. After he graduated from the University of South Carolina and served four years in the air force, Raymond returned home and joined his father in the family business. He assumed control of the store around 1965. At the time of this interview, it was still open. Raymond married Florence Harris, a school teacher, and they raised four children in Andrews, Georgetown, and Charleston. Note: audio quality is poor.
Robert M. Zalkin grew up in Charleston during the Great Depression, a grandson of Lithuanian immigrant Robert (Glick) Zalkin, who opened Zalkin’s Kosher Meat and Poultry Market on King Street. Robert served in the army during World War II, earned an engineering degree from the University of South Carolina, and married Harriet Rivkin, whose father ran a delicatessen in Columbia.
Henry Barnett’s grandfather, B. J. Barnett, emigrated from Estonia in the 1830s or ’40s and settled in Manville, South Carolina. He fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War and, around 1880, moved to Sumter where he opened a dry goods store and became a landowner and cotton farmer. Henry married Patty Levi, also of Sumter, and a descendant of Moses Levi, who had emigrated from Bavaria and settled in Manning, South Carolina.
Morris Mazursky, audio interview by Dale Rosengarten and Robert A. Moses, 9 February 1995, Mss-1035-006, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Morris Mazursky, who grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, recounts his father Abe Mazursky’s emigration in 1909 from Kobrin, Russia. Abe lived briefly in New York City before moving to Barnwell, South Carolina, home of his uncle Barney Mazursky, who hired him to work in his store. Abe soon moved to Mayesville, South Carolina, to help out in his cousin’s store, and later operated a dry goods business there with the help of wealthy lien merchant Henry Weinberg. When Abe and Henry’s partnership ended, Abe established his own store, The Beehive, also in Mayesville. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia introduced Abe to his future wife, Mary Blatt, the daughter of Austrian immigrants Morris and Mamie Blatt, who had settled in Charleston in the late 1800s. Abe and Mary married in 1919 and moved with their two children, Helen and Morris, to Sumter four years later, where Abe had just opened another store called The Hub. Morris received his law degree from the University of South Carolina and worked with the firm Lee & Moise before starting his own practice in his hometown. He was elected to Sumter City Council in 1958 and served for twenty-eight years. With input from interviewer Robert Moses, also a Sumter native, Morris discusses the impact that segregation and poverty had on African Americans in the community, the effects of integration on the school system, and how the city upheld the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In addition, the two men recall Sumter’s efforts to improve its economic base by attracting industry and note the decline of Temple Sinai’s congregation as the area’s Jewish population dwindled. Morris describes how he met his wife Marcia Weisbond Mazursky—they, like his parents, were married by Rabbi Karesh—and talks about their three children.
Jerome Moskow, born in 1917 in Andrews, South Carolina, grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the oldest of four children. He describes how his father, Robert Moskow, at about age twelve, circa 1905, made his way from Russia, to South Carolina, via New York City. Robert, while working as a packer for a New York merchandiser, accepted an offer from customer John Heinemann to join him in South Carolina. Heinemann employed Robert in his dry goods store in Andrews and enrolled him in high school. Jerome discusses his mother's ancestry and how his parents met. Eva Cox Moskow, born into a Christian family, converted to Judaism, Robert's faith. The Moskows observed the Sabbath, attended services at Temple Sinai in Sumter, and invited their Christian friends to their Passover Seders. Jerome recalls the names of a number of merchants in Georgetown, Williamsburg, Clarendon, and Sumter counties. His father ran a few small shops before joining H. Brody & Sons in Sumter. In 1934 the Moskows moved back to Andrews and opened their own business. Jerome recounts how he met his wife, Mary, who, like his mother, converted from Christianity to Judaism. He talks about his siblings, his three children, his accounting business, his involvement in civic organizations, and the Andrews town offices that he has held, including chair of the school board during integration in the 1960s. He has been a member of Beth Or in Kingstree since its founding in 1945. He provides some history of the congregation and reports on its status at the time of the interview.
Rosa From Poliakoff was born in Union, South Carolina, in 1914, to Israel and Bertha From, who emigrated from Ponevezys, Lithuania, around the turn of the twentieth century. The Froms settled in Union in 1905 and, two years later, Israel, who initially was a peddler, opened I. From Dry Goods & Notions. Rosa reports that they were the only Jewish family in Union. The Froms acquired a Torah and hosted services in their home for Jews who lived in nearby towns. Eventually, they joined Spartanburg’s B’nai Israel and donated their Torah to that congregation. Rosa notes that her mother was very observant and both parents stressed the importance of education and their Jewish identity. Rosa graduated from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta and taught in that city for three years before marrying Myer Poliakoff. She recalls how she met her future husband at a Yudedum Club dance in Columbia. They raised their three children in Abbeville, South Carolina, where they ran the D. Poliakoff Department Store, established in 1900 by Myer’s father, David. Rosa describes a From family car trip to Worcester, Massachusetts, to visit Israel’s family, the effects of the Great Depression on local Jewish merchants, and how the Poliakoffs came to settle in Abbeville. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.
Saul Krawcheck was born in 1926 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Esther Freda Bielsky and Jack Krawcheck, immigrants from the Bialystok region of present-day Poland. Jack ran Jack’s Clothiers, a cash-only business, located first on the corner of King and Vanderhorst streets, later moving to 313 King Street. Saul talks about his extended family, including his Krawcheck and Bielsky grandparents, aunts, and uncles. His grandfather Zorach Bielsky served as the cantor for Beth Israel for a time. Saul and his family were members of Brith Sholom, and Saul attended junior congregation every Saturday morning as a boy. The interviewee recalls Agnes Jenkins, an African-American woman who cooked for the family for sixty years. She came from Wadmalaw Island and prepared traditional southern meals for the Krawchecks, while adhering to kosher standards. Saul discusses social divisions in the local Jewish community he observed growing up and laments the self-segregation of Jews in Charleston at the time of the interview. They “have ghettoized themselves. . . It didn’t used to be that way. It has only become that way.” He notes that the Greek community has isolated itself more than any other group in Charleston. Saul describes his father’s civic activities, in particular his work in the historic preservation movement. Jack was president of the Preservation Society of Charleston for two terms, and his store at 313 King, which he bought in 1938, was the first property to undergo adaptive-use restoration, for which he received the first Carolopolis Award. Saul talks briefly about his daughters Maxine, Marcy, and Beth, and their families. For a related collection, see Jack Krawcheck business records, Mss. 1026, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Florence Mazo Nirenblatt was born in 1911, one of ten children of Essie Tandet and Elihu Mazo, Russian immigrants who ran a kosher deli and grocery store at 478 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Florence, whose nickname is “Boomalee,” talks about her parents and siblings and describes the family business. Elihu’s brother Dave Mazo opened a grocery store at 171 King Street and turned it over to another brother, George. Dave then opened another business in Folly Beach, South Carolina, a little over ten miles from Charleston. Florence speaks briefly of her cousins (George’s children) Norma, Earl, and Frances Mazo. She remembers the Truere family, in particular, Harry and “Jew Joe” Truere. The interviewee moved to New York City when she was about eighteen and eloped with Brooklynite Bernard Nirenblatt. In later years, Florence moved back to Charleston, bringing her husband and children, Norman and Marilyn, and their spouses with her.
Norman Baum was born in 1921 in Camden, South Carolina, the elder of two sons (the younger was Bernard Jr.) of Bernard Baum and his second wife, Minnie Tewel. Minnie was a private-duty nurse from New Jersey who accompanied a patient to Camden and ended up staying to work in the local hospital. When she was introduced to Bernard, he was a widower with two sons, Williams and Herman. Norman discusses Baum family members of note, including a relative named Eltenbaum who fought in the American Revolution and three of his nephews who settled in Camden and fought in the Civil War. Marcus Baum died in the war. His brothers, Herman and Mannes, survived and returned to their dry goods store. The Baums were lien merchants and became landowners, acquiring acreage through foreclosures. Norman recalls three plantations the family owned in the Camden area: Lockhart, Vinegar Hill, and Lugoff. His father was a planter, a merchant, the supervisor of a cannery, and the first bottler of Coca-Cola in Camden. Norman describes how his mother used her business acumen to supplement the family’s income. The family lived in a home known as the Greenleaf Villa on Broad Street in Camden. He talks about his brothers and tells stories about members of the extended family, including the Baruchs, also of Camden. The Baums attended Temple Beth El, a small Reform congregation in Camden. The interviewee remembers attending Sunday school at the larger Temple Sinai in Sumter and notes that as a child he was unfamiliar with many Jewish religious traditions and did not receive instruction in Hebrew. Norman and his nephew Garry Baum, who participated in the interview, recount instances of antisemitism, although Norman adds that that he never experienced antisemitism while working in the movie or clothing industries. One of his jobs was working in 20th Century-Fox’s costume division on the movie set for Cleopatra; he was responsible for Elizabeth Taylor’s costume, which required frequent altering during filming. For related collections, see the Minnie Tewel Baum papers, the Williams Baum papers, and the Baum family papers in Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1908, expands upon the stories she shared in her first interview. A daughter of Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg, of Vitebsk Gubernia, Belarus, Russia, she talks about her mother’s family and her parents’ wedding, which took place in the Old Country. She notes that her father worked in the Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa before the marriage. Edna reads from some of her writings about life in the Jewish neighborhood of upper King and St. Philip streets when she was growing up. The Ginsbergs were strictly kosher and Edna describes their diet and the meals her mother cooked. She tells a number of stories, including how the family didn’t know her birth date and how her father disciplined her when she was a young girl for taking something that didn’t belong to her. Edna remembers an African American woman they called Old Suzy, who worked for the Sam Banov family for years, Edna’s in-laws, and later worked for Edna and her husband, Milton Banov. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Fannie Appel Rones shares her memories of growing up on St. Philip Street in Charleston, South Carolina, between the world wars. The neighborhood was diverse—home to blacks, whites, Catholics, Jews, Greeks, and Italians. Fannie talks about her parents, Abraham and Ida Goldberg Appel (Ubfal), emigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, and recalls stories her mother told her about the Old Country. She discusses the differences between Charleston’s “uptown” and “downtown” Jews and the Orthodox synagogues, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. Fannie also relates her experiences as a member of Charleston’s Conservative synagogue, Emanu-El, and Reform temple, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, in the third of three interviews, talks about her father-in-law, Sam Banov and his men’s store on the corner of King and Spring streets in Charleston, South Carolina. Sam, who emigrated from Russia by way of England, dispensed a number of home remedies from his shop, which Edna describes here and in her first interview. She reads from her memoirs a passage she wrote about Suzy, an African American woman who worked for the Banovs for decades. The interviewee discusses the cake-baking business she started with Hattie Kronsberg that targeted homesick Citadel freshmen, and notes that she “started the first market research business in Charleston.” Edna recalls childhood memories of shnorrers, Jewish men collecting for charities, coming through town, and Yom Kippur services held in Brith Sholom, one of Charleston’s Orthodox synagogues. She had difficulty relating to Orthodox religious practices and “felt more at home” in the Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, organized in 1947. She and her husband, Milton Banov, were among the founding families; she explains the motivations of those families in leaving Brith Sholom and offers details about her own spiritual practices. Edna is joined near the end of the interview by Beatrice “Beatsie” Bluestein Solow, a cousin, and the two briefly reminisce. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 2, 1995 (Mss. 1035-045) and November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Solomon “Sol” Breibart was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1914, the oldest of five children of Russian immigrants Ida Goldberg and Sam Breibart. The Breibarts moved from New York to Charleston in 1914, where they opened a corner grocery store. Sol describes the physical layout of his parents’ store on Meeting Street and how his father ran the business. He recalls the locations of his uncle Harry Goldberg’s grocery stores and identifies the owners of other markets and bakeries he knew while growing up. The interviewee discusses two groups of Charleston Jews known to locals as the Uptown Jews and the Downtown Jews: who they were in terms of origin, which synagogues they attended, and how they related to one another. He speaks briefly about the merger of Beth Israel and Brith Sholom and describes the first Beth Israel building on St. Philip Street. The Breibarts were Orthodox Jews and they kept kosher, yet Sam closed the store only on the High Holidays. Sol remembers how the shochet killed chickens for his mother and the dishes she cooked for the family, and he talks about his siblings, George, Mickey, Sidney, and Jack. Note: See Mss. 1035-279 for a second interview with Solomon Breibart dated March 16, 2004. Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston is the repository for the Solomon Breibart professional papers, Mss. 1084, and the Breibart family photographs, Mss. 1034-108.
Nat Shulman was born in 1914 in Newark, New Jersey, to Bessie Tanzman and Abraham Shulman, who emigrated from Poland and Romania, respectively, in the early 1900s. Nat talks about his Jewish education at Adas Israel in Newark, his bar mitzvah, his mother’s preparations for the Sabbath, and his father’s produce business and wine-making avocation. Nat and his sister, Gertrude, and brother, Joseph (“Jerry”), grew up hearing Yiddish, Polish, and Russian spoken at home. Nat learned how to read and write Yiddish. In 1938, two years after graduating from Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey, Nat married Lillian Rosenstein, also of Newark. They moved to Baltimore in the early 1940s, where Nat worked for the National Jewish Welfare Board (NJWB), one of the agencies that comprise United Service Organizations (USO). He describes the services the NJWB provided for the military men stationed in the Baltimore vicinity. He was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1943, where he and Lillian raised their children, Elaine, Sanford, and David. During the remainder of World War II, Nat coordinated with Jewish communities up and down the South Carolina coast to provide services and entertainment for Jewish military personnel. The NJWB sought to organize Jewish groups at the local level during peacetime as well, using the wartime model. The result in Charleston was the opening of the Jewish Community Center in September 1945 on St. Philip Street. Nat was its first director, a position he held for twenty-seven years. The interviewee discusses a number of topics regarding Charleston’s Jewish community: a failed attempt to organize a community center on George Street in the 1920s; relations among congregants of the Reform and Orthodox synagogues; distinctions made between Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews; how World War II, the Holocaust, and the State of Israel unified Jews; prejudice toward African Americans; school integration and the change in residential patterns that followed; memories of Joe Truere, Rabbi Jacob Raisin, and Rabbi Burton Padoll. Nat recalls what American Jews knew about what was happening to the Jews in Europe during the Second World War and comments on their response. He summarizes his efforts to fight discrimination against African Americans in the 1940s and ?50s; the founding of the Charleston Jewish Community Relations Committee in 1959; and the 1972 establishment of the Charleston Jewish Welfare Fund, later renamed the Charleston Jewish Federation (CJF). Nat details how the CJF has sponsored the settlement of more than 100 Russian refugees beginning in 1980, and he offers his view of what constitutes an antisemitic incident. Note: Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston, is the repository for the Nat Shulman papers, the Jewish Community Center papers, the Charleston Jewish Community Relations Committee papers, and Charleston Jewish Federation publications.
Rose Iseman Jacobs Webster begins this interview by reading excerpts from the Weinberg family history researched and written by Robert A. Weinberg. Rose’s mother, Edith Weinberg, was the daughter of Rosa Iseman and Abram Weinberg of Darlington, South Carolina. Edith and her siblings were raised Jewish. One of Abram’s brothers, Isaac, who also settled in Darlington, married a gentile, and they did not raise their children as Jews. Because Rosa did not approve of the intermarriage, the cousins were not close. Rose’s father, Theodore Cecil Jacobs, grew up in Kingstree, South Carolina, the eleventh of twelve children of German immigrants Mary Gewinner and Louis Jacobs. Louis, who arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1859, according to a short memoir he wrote, served in Bachman’s Battery, Hampton Legion, in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Reading from his account, Rose relates how he ended up in Kingstree after the war and lists the various positions he held in local government and the businesses he ran in Kingstree and Charleston. Rose, born in 1926, describes growing up in Kingstree with her older brother Harold, noting that they had very little exposure to Judaism. Although she had two good friends who were Jewish, she spent a lot of time with her Christian friends, including attending church services. Her father and one of his brothers owned a grocery store and farms with black and white sharecroppers. Rose, who attended Winthrop College, recalls her first job as a home demonstration agent in Darlington and Conway, South Carolina. She married Joe Webster, a Christian, in 1950, and their three children, Neal, Roseanne, and Ted, were born in Dillon, South Carolina. After her youngest was born, Rose converted and joined the Baptist Church. “I told Joe I wanted the children raised in his faith. I had felt sort of like a fish out of water in Kingstree, and I wanted them to have a feeling of belonging.” Joe joins Rose for a portion of the interview and talks about what they did with the farms they inherited from Rose’s father in the early 1960s, as well as the changes that occurred in the farming industry by the 1970s. Also present is co-interviewer Sadie Bogoslow Want, who married Rose’s cousin, LeRoy Manuel Want. For related materials in Special Collections, College of Charleston, see the Weinberg family papers, Mss. 1002; the Solomons and Weinberg family papers, Mss 1134; and the Weinberg and Moses family papers, Mss. 1135. Note: photocopies of the documents that Rose reads from in her interview are available in the Jewish Heritage Collection Fieldwork Files, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Sam Rogol, born in 1914 to Gussie Roseman and David Rogol, talks about growing up in Williston, South Carolina, nearly forty miles east of Augusta, Georgia, where his maternal grandparents lived. Sam describes his father’s store in Williston, a dry goods business David ran from 1911 until his death fifty-two years later. The interviewee recalls the wholesalers his father patronized and the drummers who came through town, hoping to sell their wares. A number of Jewish families lived in Williston or in nearby towns; Sam remembers the Bergers, Gaisers, Garbers, Mazurskys, Shapiros, and Wengrows. He discusses the Great Depression and speculates as to why his father fared as well as he did. The Rogols didn’t keep kosher, but observed the Sabbath at home and attended High Holiday services in Augusta, where Sam also studied for his bar mitzvah. After graduating from law school in the late 1930s, Sam and his first wife, Lillian Katz, settled in Darlington, South Carolina, where Sam worked for Samuel Want. Rogol was drafted by the army during World War II and served as a court martial clerk. He then graduated from Officer Candidate School and was assigned to the war crime trials in Japan. After discharge from the army, he returned to Darlington and Want’s law practice, leaving it to open his own office upon Want’s death in December 1953. When the Rogols moved to Darlington, there were established Jewish congregations in Darlington and Florence (about ten miles to the southeast), but neither had a building. Sam and Lillian tended to go to Florence for services since the congregation had a younger membership. Sam observes that after World War II ended, the city of Florence expanded—and with it the Jewish population—while the Darlington congregation began to shrink. When Florence’s Beth Israel built a synagogue in 1949, the Rogols joined the congregation. Sam remarks on the status of the congregation at the time of the interview and discusses his involvement in civic affairs in and around Darlington, noting he has not experienced antisemitism. Sam talks about his son, Marshall, and daughter, Martha, and Lillian’s illness that led to her death in 1974. Sam’s second wife, Beatrice “Bea” Katz Sodden Rogol, who joins him for a portion of the interview, is Lillian’s cousin. The interviewee comments on the Darlington school system and the degree to which it remains segregated. Regarding Jewish involvement in civil rights: “We Jews kept quiet. We didn’t stick our neck out for the blacks.”
Samuel "Sam" Appel, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1929, talks about growing up on St. Philip Street in a neighborhood he remembers as predominantly Jewish. Sam and his sister, Faye "Fannie" Rones, who sits in on this interview, describe their parents, Ida Goldberg and Abe Appel (Ubfal), both immigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, and their brothers, Harry and Sidney. Sam recalls his mother performing the Jewish ritual shlug kapores during the High Holidays, and he shares memories of his bar mitzvah and his activities as a member of Boy Scout Troop 21 and Aleph Zadik Aleph. Although the Appels were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in town, Sam says "We were not Orthodox," reasoning that while his parents, especially his mother, followed many of the Sabbath rules of observance, they made compromises. For example, Abe and Ida opened their King Street furniture store on Saturdays. The siblings consider the interviewer's question about perceived differences between what some locals call Charleston's Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. Sam, who earned an accounting degree at the University of South Carolina, ultimately settled in Atlanta, Georgia, because there were not enough single Jewish women to date in Charleston. He married Judy Eagle of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1960, and the couple raised three children in Atlanta. Sam became a lawyer after taking night classes at Emory University. He discusses his involvement in the Jewish Georgian, an independent community publication based in the Atlanta area.
Libby Friedman Levinson, the youngest of seven children of Betty Alpern and Isadore Friedman, was born in Grajewo, Poland, in 1909. Isadore immigrated to the United States a month before Germany declared war on Russia in 1914. He settled in Charleston, South Carolina, home to a number of Betty’s relatives and landsmen from Trestina (Trzcianne), including the Karesh, Pearlstine, and Jacobs families. Betty and the children intended to follow as soon as they could sell their house and furniture, but World War I prevented their emigration until just after the fighting ended. Libby describes how her mother and siblings survived the war and their trip from Poland to Charleston afterward. She discusses family members, in particular, her sister Annie, who married Louis Lourie of St. George, and her sister Minnie, who married Jake Kalinsky of Holly Hill. Libby married Charles Levinson of Bishopville; after living briefly in Branchville and North, South Carolina, they moved to Barnwell, where they raised two children. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.
Edna Ginsberg Banov, the second of five children, was born in 1908 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Russian immigrants Pauline Kop and Isaac Ginsberg. Pauline’s sister Freda had settled in Charleston and married Hyman Bluestein. Pauline and Isaac opened a grocery store on America Street, at the corner of Hanover, and they lived above it. Edna describes the store, their home, and the neighborhood, which was called Little Mexico. When she was about ten years old, they moved to King Street and opened a wholesale tobacco shop. The Ginsbergs were Orthodox Jews and Edna recalls attending Sunday school classes and, as a teen, Hebrew school with Rabbi Glasser. The interviewee shares stories of her siblings, Flossie, Lilla, Izzy, and Bernice; her teachers at Courtenay School; two African Americans who worked for the family; Uncle Willie Banov, whom Edna tried to match with Henrietta Givner; Fannie Warshavsky, who taught Pauline English; her children Charles, Linda, and Karen; and her grandson Michael. Edna married Milton Banov, son of Sam Banov. She talks about her father-in-law’s men’s store on upper King Street, where he also dispensed home remedies for illnesses. See also Edna Banov’s interviews of November 9, 1995 (Mss. 1035-046) and November 14, 1995 (Mss. 1035-048). For a related collection, see the Edna Ginsberg Banov papers, Mss. 1039, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Herbert Keyserling, born in 1915 to Jennie Hyman and William Keyserling, talks about his father’s immigration to the United States in 1888 from Lithuania, and how William ended up in Beaufort, South Carolina. He describes the extended family members who also emigrated, including William’s brothers, Joseph, Michael, Mark, and Israel; their mother, Bathsheba; and their dead sister’s children, Rose and Harry Segel. William worked for and, ultimately, became full partner in the MacDonald-Wilkins Company. The partners were general merchants with several stores in the Beaufort area and they also managed cotton farms, and ginned and brokered the cotton. Although Herbert’s mother, Jennie Hyman, was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home in New York, she was not very religious and didn’t keep kosher in her own home. Nevertheless, she never served pork, and she helped to organize the Sunday school and the Sisterhood at Beth Israel in Beaufort. While William was observant of the Jewish holidays, he did not attend Sabbath services until later in life, which he did “because the congregation was small and to keep up attendance.” Herbert recalls that “when I was growing up, the men and women sat on different sides of the synagogue in Beaufort,” and they prayed in Hebrew. Jewish families who lived in and around Beaufort in the 1920s and 1930s included the Epsteins, Farbsteins, Getzes, Lipsitzes, Levins, Neidichs, Pollitzers, Rabinowitzes, Rubensteins, and Sheins. Herbert discusses his siblings, Leon, Rosalyn, and Beth; his father’s philanthropic activities; the survival of the Peoples Bank in Beaufort during the Great Depression; the creation of a food co-op in the 1920s; and William’s role in building ice plants to keep produce headed to market from spoiling. Herbert is joined in this two-part interview by his wife Harriet Hirschfeld Keyserling. He offers his impression of the Ku Klux Klan in Beaufort while he was growing up, and Harriet describes attending a meeting of the Beaufort Klan with New York Times correspondent Flora Lewis in the mid-20th century. Herbert, a physician, provides a brief overview of his educational background and his service in the navy during World War II. He and Harriet married in 1944 and raised Judy, Billy, Paul, and Beth in Beaufort. For related collections, see the Keyserling family papers, Mss. 1049; the Leon H. Keyserling papers, Mss. 1052, and Tapes and Transcripts from “Land of Promise,” Mss. 1069, in Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Sam Levenson, born in 1918, and his sister Ella Levenson Schlosburg, born in 1920, talk about growing up in Bishopville, South Carolina, where about two dozen Jewish families lived, many of them relatives. The siblings and their brothers, Leonard and Jacob, were the children of Nettie Cahn and Frank Levenson, immigrants from Lithuania. Sam and Ella describe their parents and extended family members, and they discuss how their father came to own his general merchandise store in Bishopville, in which the inventory included mules. The Jews of the town spoke Yiddish, and most kept kosher. They met in the Masonic hall for services, led initially by immigrant rabbis they hired out of New York. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia, South Carolina, served as their shochet for a time. Also interviewed is Sam’s wife, Carolyn Baruch Levenson, born in 1925, in Camden, South Carolina, to Theresa Block and Herman Baruch. Herman partnered in the clothing store, Baruch & Nettles, and later, sold insurance. The three interviewees offer a number of stories that impart a sense of life in Bishopville and the region during the first half of the twentieth century. The tales range from conflicts among locals that ended in violence to wealthy antisemitic northerners wintering in Camden. For a related collection, see the Levenson-Baruch family papers, Mss. 1034-017, Special Collections, College of Charleston. See also Ella Schlosburg’s interview of May 25, 1995, and Carolyn Levenson’s interview with Debby Baruch Abrams on May 5, 1998.
Alice Bailey Stevens’ Edisto roots go back to 1720. She was born at Blue House Plantation, where she lived until 1929, when the family moved to Brookland Plantation. In 1945, she married Johnson Stevens of Lambs Bluff Plantation on Yonges Island. They had three children. She attended high school on Edisto, graduated from Winthrop, and did advanced studies in South Carolina history at the Citadel. She taught primary school for 26 years in Charlotte, Charleston, and Yonges Island. Asked to speak about the history of transportation on Edisto, Alice noted that every facet of life was affected by transportation or the lack thereof. She detailed the early modes: long boats owned by the plantation owners that could make their way to Charleston from North Edisto through a series of cuts. Those on the south end side had a much longer way to row. Lack of transportation also affected early Islanders’ opportunities for worship; they had to travel by boat to Church Flats on Dixie Plantation until they successfully petitioned to have their own church. It limited romantic opportunities as well, as travel between islands was challenging: ‘Some just had to marry the local girls,’ Alice noted. ‘They're still doing it.’ By 1910 the Stevens Line Company began providing daily service to Edisto. Alice gave a snapshot of her lineage: In the early 1800s, her great-grandmother married Ephraim Mikell and moved to Blue House, which his son, Ephraim Jr., inherited. It began as an indigo plantation, but also grew rice, some cotton, and had an orchard. After the boll weevil destroyed the cotton industry, truck farming took over (beans, cabbage, and seed potatoes that came from Prince Edward Island). The black women would sit in a circle, cutting potatoes, and singing spirituals, some 60 years after the Civil War had ended. She also talked about other African American traditions that endured: in cooking, in the language, and in agriculture. Other reminiscences: riding horses at Sea Cloud plantation, the bounty of Blue House, Brookland’s devastation, the practices of people from the Burrough, She ended her talk with a dramatic recounting of two catastrophic events on the Island (the 1886 earthquake and the 1893 hurricane), the first of which involved a crack in the earth in which water bubbled up as if it had ‘come straight up from hell,’ the second of which told of a tragedy that left a lone family survivor ‘fierce,’ and determined never to set her foot in water again.
Marian Calhoun Murray was born in Evanston, Illinois, and later moved with her family to Asheville, where she attended high school. While at Agnes Scott College, she was invited to a house party at Edisto, where she met her future husband, J.G. Murray, a native Edistonian. They married in 1935, in Asheville; she was henceforth known on Edisto as ‘the girl from off.’ The couple moved to the Island after a brief stay in Mt. Pleasant, where J.G. worked with Micah Jenkins at Boone Hall. Coming from the city, Marian had much to get used to when they moved to Edisto: the smell of pluff mud, no electricity, water delivered by a pump, and a wood stove to cook on. J.G. had gotten a job as landscape architect for the Edisto Beach State Park, being built by CCC workers. Marian and a friend tried to teach the young CCC workers to read and write—her first foray into teaching. Marian spoke briefly about the economy on Edisto in those early days, mentioning a repair shop, an oyster factory, several stores (Perry’s, Bailey’s, Posner’s), and farming, the backbone of the economy. By the mid-1940s, J.G. was managing the farm at Cypress Trees Plantation. Farming was done with mules, carts, and wagon, using the task system developed in the plantation days. Major crops were cabbages and potatoes. She also recounted memories of the hurricanes of 1940 and 1959 on Edisto, as well as wartime rationing. In 1941, when a vacancy came up at the Edisto Island School, Marian got a job teaching English, Latin, science, and biology. Parker Connor was the principal; other teachers during her time there included Sally Pope, Arlene Jenkins, Sarah Hopkinson, Lena Armstrong, Florence Park, and Clytie Sayer. Marian spoke of the strong support from the parent organization and from churches—only two at that time, she said, Presbyterian and Episcopalian—which put on annual holiday parties, operettas, and minstrel shows. The school underwent many changes during her 30-yeare tenure, including consolidation with mainland schools. The Edisto Island School closed in 1971, and Marian went on to teach at St. Paul’s Academy through 1976, serving in 1977 as headmistress. But she mourned the loss to Edisto: ‘We were sorry to see the school close,’ she said, ‘because that ended the main community spirit that held us together.’
Interview with Felder Hutchinson by Edmund L. Drago and Eugene C. Hunt, July 16, 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
Interview with J. Michael Graves by Edmund L. Drago, March 7, 1985, AMN 500.001.006 1985, in the Avery Normal Institute Oral History Project, of the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston
