Aaron Small, born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1939, to Sara Berry and Harry Smolowsky, changed his surname when he was eighteen years old because it "was not a business name." Aaron graduated from mortuary school in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1959 and returned to Columbia to work for a funeral home that also had an ambulance service. While working as an EMT on the ambulance service, he met his wife, Betty, an emergency room nurse. They married in 1961. Betty, a Christian, converted to Judaism prior to the wedding, but returned to the church sometime later. Aaron was drafted into the army in 1962 and served for eighteen months in the Fort Bragg mortuary outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 1965, after returning to civilian life, Aaron bought a funeral home in Denmark, South Carolina. There were a number of industries in the small town about fifty miles south of Columbia, which he felt was a positive indicator for growth. However, in the following decade, companies began leaving. The interviewee believes this was attributable to white parents pulling their children from the public schools. Aaron describes daily life in Denmark and mentions the other Jewish families living there at the time—the Druckers and the Nesses. The Small family moved back to Columbia around 1975 and Aaron sold firetrucks to South Carolina municipalities while working on establishing a new funeral home business. In 1978, he opened McMillan-Small Funeral Home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with Stephen McMillan, Sr. After developing an allergy to formaldehyde, Aaron left the partnership, and took a position with the Myrtle Beach Fire Department, assuming command of the volunteer rescue squad in 1987. Up to that point, he had been a volunteer firefighter-EMT in the various places he had lived and had launched the volunteer rescue squad in Denmark. Aaron discusses the other firefighting jobs he held in Myrtle Beach, Richland County, and the state. By 1997, the family had returned to Columbia to help care for Aaron's mother. Aaron talks about antisemitism he experienced in Columbia while in high school; his two children, Michelle and Stuart; the Jewish community of Myrtle Beach, in particular, the recent Israeli immigrants; and how the FBI handled student protesters at Voorhees College (HBCU) in Denmark in the late 1960s. "The FBI came in one day and they just took over the funeral home" so they could make use of the two-way communication system he used for his ambulance service.
Alan Kahn was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1940, the first of two children of Katie Bogen and Irwin Kahn. Alan talks about his paternal grandfather, Myron B. Kahn, who emigrated from Russia to New York in 1904, and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked as a carpenter and builder. Ethel Kaufman Kahn, his first wife and Irwin's mother, died when Irwin was about two years old. Myron moved to St. Augustine, Florida, and finally to Columbia in the late 1920s, where he established a construction company, first partnering with another builder; later they separated and Kahn formed M. B. Kahn Construction Company. A second marriage didn't work out, and Myron married a third time, to widow Bessie Peskin Rubin of Columbia. Irwin, who joined the family business after graduating college in the mid-1930s, was responsible for broadening the company's scope to include construction management. Alan describes the construction management process and compares it to development practices. Irwin married Katie Bogen, a native of Denmark, South Carolina. Alan shares memories of his mother, her siblings, and their parents, Joseph and Bella Bogen. He discusses his involvement with Aleph Zadik Aleph, how he met his wife, Charlotte Segelbaum, and Charlotte's experiences as a Jewish French National living in Egypt after Gamal Abdel Nasser became president. She was a teenager when her family left Egypt in 1957 and started a new life in Washington, D.C. Alan and Charlotte married in 1965, settled in Columbia, and Alan joined Kahn Construction. The couple raised three children, Kevin, Charles, and Monique. Referring to how older members of Columbia's Beth Shalom reacted to the Civil Rights Movement, Alan notes, "We had a Jewish community that was afraid to speak out when I was growing up." They feared a backlash targeting the Jewish community, and it affected who they hired as their rabbi. Alan attended Duke University and describes the school's integration and quota policies during the late 1950s, early '60s. Alan shares his vision of the Kahn family legacy and his personal philosophy on life.
Raymond Lifchez was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1932, to Jennie Burkom and Isaac Lifchez. He talks about his two older sisters and growing up in the capital city where his father ran Liberty Loan and Luggage on Main Street. Raymond did not feel very connected to the Jewish community in Columbia, although the Lifchezes were members of the Orthodox synagogue, House of Peace. After his mother, Jennie, died, Raymond, only nine years old, became very close to his neighbor Lula Belle Campbell, and they remained lifelong friends. As a teen, he began to notice instances of antisemitism and remembers feeling frightened by stories of Jews being rounded up by the Nazis in Europe. Raymond earned his architecture degree from the University of Florida and taught at Columbia University in New York City as a graduate student. He met his wife, Judith Lee Stronach, at Columbia; they married in 1967 and moved to California three years later. He joined the faculty at University of California, Berkeley, which, he notes, "was one of the first schools to really open its doors to the disabled." He describes his work in architectural accessibility. The interviewee discusses aspects of his spirituality, including the appeal of Sufism, his return to Judaism, and his attendance at a number of churches and synagogues. He offers his view of American Jews and how he sees himself in terms of his Jewish identity.
Ira Rosenberg was born in New York City in 1937, eight years after his brother, Monte, to Bessie Lipschutz and Alan Rosenberg. The family moved to Richmond, Virginia, in the early 1940s, where Ira grew up in the midst of a sizable Jewish community. The Rosenbergs were Orthodox but Ira says his parents “were not very active” in the local synagogue. However, Alan insisted Ira go to shul every Saturday morning and attend Hebrew school in preparation for his bar mitzvah. Ira is joined in this interview by his wife, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, originally of Sumter, South Carolina. They married in 1963 while Ira was serving in the United States Air Force. Ultimately, they moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where they raised their children, David, Virginia, and Mindelle. Ira describes his career as a pharmacist after he was discharged from the military in 1966. In the 1980s he changed professions and opened his own business as a realtor and real estate appraiser, Rosenberg & Associates. Ira and Anita discuss changes in Reform Judaism and in their synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. They talk about Rabbi Stephanie Alexander, KKBE’s first female rabbi, and the degree of acceptance extended to lesbian and gay members by the rabbi and the congregation. Anita recalls being on the national commission of a program begun in the 1970s by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, a former president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The program, called Outreach, was designed to encourage acceptance and inclusion of intermarried couples and their families. See also a follow-up interview (Mss. 1035-461) with the Rosenbergs, conducted on November 4, 2016.
In this follow-up to their June 23, 2016, interview (Mss. 1035-452), Ira and Anita Rosenberg talk about their children and grandchildren and how they observed Judaism as a family when the children were growing up. Ira notes that he was a co-founder of Dragon Boat Charleston, served on the boards of Charleston Jewish Community Center and Charleston Jewish Federation, and is a past president of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. He discusses the benefits of Jewish community centers, his thoughts on the recent transition of the local center to one without walls, and his feelings about the presence of Chabad in the area.
In this second of a two-part interview, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg describes her career after graduating from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She first took a job as music director at WPTF radio in Raleigh, North Carolina. When she and her husband, Ira Rosenberg, moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1960s, she went to work at WKTM radio, owned by her cousin Ansley Cohen, selling advertising spots, and doing whatever else was needed. Anita notes that working at WKTM was exciting because it was FM, which "was coming into its own," and it was "Charleston's first rock station." After a few years, she went into "the advertising agency world" and was active in the local professional association, Advertising Federation of Charleston, and the national association, American Advertising Federation, which recognized her work with their Silver Medal Award. One of her clients was Pearlstine Distributors, who hired her to run its marketing and advertising department. Anita talks about other jobs she held and the various types of work she did in advertising. "Just every different avenue of this profession has been fun and interesting, and very rewarding to do." In Charleston, the interviewee has been involved in numerous Jewish and non-Jewish community organizations and events as part of her professional work and her personal commitment to giving back. She recounts how she met her husband, Ira, the son of Bessie Lipschutz and Alan Rosenberg. "Two different worlds met each other." Ira's parents, Orthodox Jews from New York, raised him in Richmond, Virginia. Anita grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, in a Reform temple. Anita and Ira's three children are David, Virginia, and Mindelle. Anita discusses how and why she and Ira were able to adopt Virginia in 1967 as an infant. The Rosenberg family belonged to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), Charleston's Reform synagogue. The interviewee talks about her children and grandchildren. Her son, David, and his wife, Marcie, are members of the relatively new Modern Orthodox Dor Tikvah in Charleston. Anita and Ira started keeping kosher years ago?something they did not do while raising their children?to accommodate family members who are kosher. Anita considers how practices have changed at KKBE: they have their first female rabbi and their first gay rabbi; the revised prayer books have English and Hebrew with transliterations and translations; the cantor's role has expanded and is more inclusive. She says, "Conservative and Reform are moving closer to each other in today's world," and adds "from a historical point of view, the ancestors were Sephardic Orthodox Jews who settled here. That's my beginnings. So I don't feel like this is so strange, it's just a part of who I am." Anita briefly covers a number of other topics, including KKBE's past rabbis; its present-day choir; how the influx of people from other states has changed the congregation; the current status of Charleston's Jewish congregations and how/why they get along so well; her opinion about the presence of Chabad in the area; Jewish-gentile relations; and her thoughts on the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center in her hometown of Sumter. In a postscript to this interview, Anita recalls Alfreda LaBoard of Johns Island, the African-American woman who "was our nursie" from the time the Rosenberg kids were small. "She raised my children. I could never have done all the things that I did in the community, as well as Ira and I both busy with our careers, if it hadn't been for Alfreda." Comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing have been added to the transcript. For part one of this interview, see Mss. 1035-554. For related interviews, see Anita's interviews with her husband Ira Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461, and with her son, David Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-175. Also see a 1995 interview with her mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, Mss. 1035-007.
Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, born in 1940, was raised in Sumter, South Carolina, the eldest of two children of Virginia Moise and Herbert A. Rosefield. Anita discusses her family history, noting that on her mother's side, their genealogy reaches back "to Luis de Torres, who sailed with Columbus and was probably the first Jew to set foot on the North American continent." The Harbys, another maternal line, arrived in North America in the 1700s. Her grandmother Anita Harby married Harmon DeLeon Moise, who changed his given name to Davis to avoid being confused with another Sumter lawyer of the same name. Davis Moise was part of a South Carolina legislative delegation that traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, to recruit industries willing to move south. Frank Louis Rosenfield, husband of Leah Rachel Kleiger and a hosiery manufacturer, took the opportunity and moved his factory and his family to Sumter, changing their name to Rosefield. Anita's father, Herbert, met her mother in Sumter's Reform synagogue, Temple Sinai. Herbert was the South Carolina vice president for Ezekiel & Weilman Company, a restaurant supply business headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Also a musician, Herbert served as Temple Sinai's cantor for fifty years. Anita talks about a few of her ancestors and their accomplishments, including Penina Moise and Rachel Lazarus, as well as relatives she knew, such as her aunt Nina Moise Solomons Phelps and her uncles Lucius Clifton Moise, Davis DeLeon Moise, and Marion Moise. Anita recalls that before Sunday school, Grandfather Rosefield treated her and her younger brother, Herbert Jr., to breakfast at Jim's Waffle Shop, owned by Jim Karvelas, a member of the Greek community in Sumter. Anita says in the interview, "My Jewish education was Classical Reform." She was confirmed and she belonged to Temple Sinai's youth group, Southeast Federation of Temple Youth, which was very active in South Carolina. Anita's father wanted her to get an education so she could support herself. Her parents expected her to work during the summers rather than be idle. Anita started working at twelve and, by fourteen, she "was on the air at WSSC in Sumter doing commercials, playing music back in the old days of being a DJ." The summer she was fifteen, she attended theater school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the following summer she worked for the university's radio and television stations. Anita briefly describes her involvement in the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, serving as an officer locally, regionally, and nationally. The interviewee concludes by observing that "Sumter was a totally socially integrated city." Her parents were involved in productions at the local theater; Anita went to a Roman Catholic kindergarten; young Jewish ladies were invited to make their society debut alongside their non-Jewish peers; and Jewish and Christian professionals went into business together. "We were so southern, and we were so Sephardic, we looked down our nose at anybody who came from off." Comments and corrections made by the interviewee during proofing have been added to the transcript. This is the first part of a two-part interview, conducted on the same day; see Mss. 1035-555 for part two. For related interviews, see Anita's interviews with her husband Ira Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461, and with her son, David Rosenberg, Mss. 1035-175. Also see an interview with her mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, Mss. 1035-007.
Anne Stern Solomon is joined in this interview by her nieces Marcie Stern Baker and Beryle Stern Jaffe. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1921, Anne grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, one of five children of Rose Sribnick and Gabriel Stern. The Sterns ran a number of stores in Columbia and tried their luck for a time in Charleston before opening a dry goods store in Lexington, on the outskirts of Columbia, in the early 1930s. In 1938, they moved the business to 1424 Assembly Street in Columbia. Anne relates childhood memories of Stern's, which catered mostly to black clientele. She believes her parents were the first store owners in the city to hire a black man to wait on customers. The three interviewees discuss relations between their family and local African Americans; the Sterns were "taught that everybody was the same." Anne talks about how she met Ted Solomon; they married in 1945 and raised four children in Columbia. Ted and Anne's brother, Henry Stern (Beryle and Marcie's father), took over the store upon returning from service in World War II. After a fire in 1957, they reopened as a discount shoe store in the same location. Marcie and Beryle describe their mother, Sarah Kramer Stern; her family in Summerville, South Carolina, where she grew up; and how she met their father. See also Anne Solomon's interviews on August 31, 2015 (Mss. 1035-485), and September 8, 2015 (Mss. 1035-486).
Anne Stern Solomon sits down for a third interview in 2015 (see also Mss. 1035-484 and -485) and adds details about her life, especially in the years before, during, and after World War II. She worked at Fort Jackson in her hometown of Columbia, SC, following her graduation from Winthrop College in 1940. About three years later, she left the fort to help her father, Gabriel Stern, in his dry goods store on Assembly Street. She describes what information they were getting about events in Europe during the war years; they were aware that people were trying to leave, but they did not know specifics about the treatment of Jews. Shortly after her fiance, Ted Solomon, returned from overseas duty in 1945, they were married by Rabbi David Karesh in House of Peace Synagogue on Marion Street. Ted and Anne's brother, Henry, also newly returned from service in World War II, took over Gabriel's store. Anne discusses race relations in Columbia in the 1960s and says of her family: "We were all taught not to be prejudiced because we knew that, especially in Europe, how bad it was when it came to antisemitism." She cites a few examples of antisemitism that she and her sister experienced, but notes that it generally was not an issue in Columbia. Anne recalls the arrival, in 1949, of Holocaust survivors Ben and Jadzia Stern, with their daughter, Lilly, the interviewer; they were sponsored by Anne's father, who was an uncle. Anne talks about her children, Bonnie, Teri, Charlene, and Joel, and about a program she started at the Jewish Community Center, called Stems, which engaged girls, ages ten through thirteen, in activities for enrichment, fund-raising, and recreation. Anne was active in local civic organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, and went to work for realtor Tillie Lewenthal after her children were grown. When Tillie retired, Anne took over the business. The interviewee describes her involvement in Hadassah, her feelings about the State of Israel, and her Jewish identity.
Anne Stern Solomon, in this follow-up to a June 26, 2015, interview with her nieces (see Mss. 1035-484), covers the same topics as before, including her family history, living in Lexington and Columbia, South Carolina, as a child, her father's stores, and growing up with her four siblings. Her sister Sylvia opened a dance studio as a teen and was involved in choreographing the dance known as the Big Apple. See also Anne's Solomon's third interview, Mss. 1035-486.
