Rose Yospe Mark, the youngest of five, was born in 1927 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Lithuanian immigrants Frieda Miller and Morris Yospe. She grew up in "the Jewish neighborhood, right near the Lloyd Street Synagogue." Rose shares her memories of her parents and describes her mother's family and childhood. Rose was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, and the family went to shul on the holidays. Rose wasn't taught the significance of the specific practices, such as fasting, but her parents did make clear the importance of their Jewish identity. Rose discusses how she and her husband, Ernest Mark of Beaufort, South Carolina, met and became engaged. They married in 1944 while he was in the army. They settled in Beaufort in December 1945, after he was discharged. Rose notes that she loved the southern landscape "right away." The city girl in her appreciated the wide open spaces, clean air, and green flora. The interviewee relates stories of Ernest's childhood and his parents, Lena Mae and Joseph Mark. Joseph, a Russian immigrant, followed a sister to Beaufort in 1904, and established a store in neighboring Burton. The family ultimately moved to downtown Beaufort and operated grocery and liquor stores. Rose and Ernest opened a furniture store in 1946, also in downtown Beaufort. Rose recalls shifting the business from credit to cash, a move necessitated by competition from discount stores. The couple raised four children: Barbara, Janet, Larry, and Michael. Rose describes Larry's start in the furniture business. Unlike his parents, he discounted his merchandise, and he was so successful, Rose and Ernest sold their store and joined him. She talks about the African Americans who worked for the Marks, three of whom are featured on a mural Columbia artist Ralph Waldrop painted on the side of their building. When Rose came to Beaufort, Beth Israel Congregation was Conservative. While that was an adjustment for her, she was pleased with the sense of intimacy she felt when synagogue members met for celebrations such as community seders and Chanukah parties. Rose considers the changes in the congregation over the decades since she moved to Beaufort. At the time of the interview, their traditions were "Conservative bordering on Reform," but, Rose says, if they have to become Reform to get people in, they will. In 1996, when, Mark was nominated as the first female president of the congregation, Beth Israel had twenty-five member-families. She reports that they have had a hard time finding people who want to join and attend weekly services, though a large number of people come out of the woodwork for the community Passover Seders and High Holiday services. She remarks that Reform Congregation Beth Yam in Hilton Head Island, between Beaufort and Savannah, Georgia, is growing, largely due to retirees moving to the area. "We're not getting that in Beaufort." Rose reflects on why three of her children married out of the faith. She remembers Joe Young of Beaufort, who moved his family to Jacksonville, Florida, because he was concerned that his children "weren't exposed to very many Jewish people." The interviewee talks about her good friend Harvey Tattelbaum, who was interim rabbi at Beth Israel while serving as chaplain at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, from 1960 to 1962.
Joseph "Joe" Lipton was born in 1923 to Helen Stern (Sterenzys) and Samuel Lipton. Helen followed her brother Gabriel Stern to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919, escaping a marriage her parents had arranged for her in Poland. In 1912, Sam emigrated from Lithuania and settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he had relatives in the Lipsitz and Lipson families. He opened a small store in Grays Hill, South Carolina, just outside of Beaufort, and when America entered World War I, he enlisted in the army. In 1920, Sam took over the cobbler shop from the Young family at the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island. Joe describes his parents' personalities and growing up in Beaufort in the 1920s and '30s. The Lipton family, which included Joe's younger brother, Morey, were members of Beth Israel. They attended High Holiday services and sometimes went to shul on Friday nights. Nevertheless, Joe considers his parents, who were raised in Orthodox Judaism, to have been secular Jews. He responds to a question asking what made them secular: "What keeps the Jew a Jew? . . . Antisemitism keeps them a Jew. . . . When you let them out and let them enter society, they take every advantage of it." The interviewee recalls accompanying his mother and brother on a trip to Poland in 1930 where they visited Helen's family in Kielce. Joe makes note of two Sterenzys cousins, Ben and his sister Zosia, who survived the Holocaust and immigrated to the United States after World War II. Also present during the interview are Joe's wife, Nancy, and her daughter, Victoria Navarro. See also Joe's 2016 interview with Lilly Stern Filler, Mss. 1035-447. For related oral histories, see the 1998 panel discussion "Growing Up Jewish in Beaufort," Mss. 1035-204; the 1999 panel discussion "Growing Up Jewish in Small Town South Carolina," Mss. 1035-209; and interviews with Morey Lipton, Mss. 1035-181; Hyman Lipsitz, et al, Mss. 1035-080; and Joseph Lipsitz, Mss. 1035-093. For a related collection see the Helen Stern Lipton papers, Mss. 1065-012, in the Holocaust Archives, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
In the second of two interviews, Mathilde Ezratty Lehem revisits in a bit more detail a topic covered in her first interview. She describes the assistance she and her fellow inmates received from American soldiers after World War II ended. Mathilde and her family were held in an internment camp set up by the Japanese for British and American civilians living in Shanghai. They learned from the Americans that there were gas chambers in Japanese-occupied China, but no gas. The interviewee tells anecdotes about growing up in Salonika, Greece, including some specifics about the Ezratty family's eating habits and the languages they spoke. While she says she did not experience any antisemitism, she relates a story about a Greek child refusing to eat matzoh because he believed it was made with Christ's blood. The Ezrattys were Sephardic Jews whose ancestors had lived in Greece for many generations. Nevertheless, Mathilde seems to suggest that they did not identify as Greek. Mathilde talks about her volunteer work preparing bodies for burial as a member of the chevra kadisha in Charleston, South Carolina, and discusses burial and mourning customs she learned from her elders in Greece. After moving to Charleston, she took a job in a bank, but was let go after requesting time off for the Jewish holidays. She then worked as a dressmaker, using the sewing skills she acquired as a young girl. See Mss. 1035-051 for Mathilde's first interview. For a related collection, see copies of her family photos in the Inventory of the Holocaust Archives Field Researchers Collection, Mss. 1065-049.
In the second of two interviews conducted on September 28, 2021, Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum describes how she came to marry, in 1955, Raymond Rosenblum, a native of Anderson, South Carolina. They lived first in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Raymond, an M.D. who had signed on with the U.S. Navy under the Berry Plan, was in residency, and then in Great Lakes, Illinois. By the time Raymond was discharged from service, the Rosenblums were parents to Rachel, Fred, and Bruce. They decided to settle in Charleston, South Carolina, Sandra's hometown, and Raymond went into private practice. One reason they chose Charleston was they wanted their children to grow up in a city where there was a significant Jewish presence. Sandra notes that Charleston's Jewish community was "pretty cohesive. . . . like one big extended family." Just as the Jewish Community Center (JCC) on St. Philip Street was a focal point in her life when she was growing up in Charleston, the new JCC in the suburbs became a central meeting place after she returned with husband and children in 1960. Sandra and interviewer Dale Rosengarten discuss how a heavily-packed public events calendar sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston was a factor in the eventual demise of the JCC and its programming. Sandra and Raymond's fourth child, Elaine, was born in 1963. With household help and childcare provided by Lavinia Brown and Albertha Blake, Sandra immersed herself in volunteer work in local Jewish organizations and with the medical wives auxiliary. The interviewee explains the reasoning behind the decision to send Rachel to public school, while sending the other three children to Charleston Hebrew Institute (later renamed Addlestone Hebrew Academy). When her second child, Fred, was about to enter college, Sandra started taking classes at the College of Charleston. She majored in early childhood education and special education and earned a degree in six years. She talks about being a resource teacher at Murray-LaSaine School on James Island and working with disabled children as an itinerant teacher for Charleston County. Among other topics she touches on: Raymond's family in Anderson, South Carolina; Nat Shulman, JCC director from 1945 to 1972; traveling with Raymond; vacationing with family on Sullivan's Island; and Raymond's bar mitzvah at age seventy. In 1996, Sandra began volunteering with the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina, recording interviews with South Carolina Jews for the Jewish Heritage Collection Oral History Archives. Considering recent interviews she conducted regarding the acrimony among members of Brith Sholom Beth Israel (BSBI) and the events that led to a split in the congregation and the establishment of the Modern Orthodox synagogue Dor Tikvah, Sandra lends her view of what transpired. She also shares her feelings, as a lifelong member of BSBI, about the changes that have taken place and what she thinks the future holds for Orthodoxy in Charleston. Sandra and interviewer Dale Rosengarten talk about the changes taking place across the country in how Judaism is observed by participants in each of the major traditions and the responses of those traditions to societal conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sandra reflects on how her identity is rooted in being American, southern, and Jewish. She reports having conflicting feelings about how the Civil War and the lives of Confederates such as Robert E. Lee are being interpreted in the twenty-first century, which leads to a brief discussion about critical race theory. Sandra added comments and corrections to the transcript during proofing. See also the interview (Mss. 1035-582) that precedes this one. For related oral histories, see interviews with Sandra's cousins Ellis Kahn in 1997 (Mss. 1035-142) and Jack Kahn in 1998 (Mss. 1035-182); and Sandra's husband, Raymond Rosenblum, and his siblings in 2008 (Mss. 1035-134).
Sara and Henry Rittenberg, married for fifty-four years, cover a wide range of topics in this interview. Henry talks about his father, Sam Rittenberg, a Lithuanian immigrant who arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1891, and worked for M. Hornik & Company. Sam married Elinor Flaum who died as a young woman. His second wife and Henry's mother was Sadie Livingstain. Henry and interviewer Dale Rosengarten briefly consider Sam's remarkable success as a South Carolina state representative during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, and Henry describes his input in choosing the road that would be named Sam Rittenberg Boulevard in Charleston, in honor of his father. Sara was born in Poland in 1919, the fourth of five children of Rachel Miller and Joseph Zucker (Zuckercorn). The family immigrated to the United States in 1920-21 and settled in Charleston where Rachel's parents operated Liberty Furniture on King Street. The Millers were from Kaluszyn, Poland, and Sara notes the first Kalushiner Society banquet was held on the porch over the store. Sara recalls a family trip to Glenn Springs, a resort in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, when she was a girl. Her first husband was Louis Mescon, who died in 1955 after only ten years of marriage, leaving Sara with two young daughters, Harriett and Libby. The girls were about nine and seven when Sara and Henry married. Charles Rittenberg was born two years later. Sara describes how she and Louis came to live in South Windermere, the same year he died. The new suburban development was situated across the Ashley River from the Charleston peninsula on farmland once occupied by the Wessel family. Interviewers Donna Jacobs, a West Ashley historian, and Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum, a resident of South Windermere since 1964, share stories with the Rittenbergs about South Windermere and other points of interest in the West Ashley area, prior to suburbanization. For a related collection, see the Rittenberg-Pearlstine family papers, Mss. 1008, Special Collections, Addlestone library, College of Charleston. For related oral histories see: Henry Rittenberg, Mss. 1035-104; Sara Zucker Rittenberg and Harriett Rittenberg Steinert, Mss. 1035-184; Mary Lourie Rittenberg, Mss. 1035-411 and 424.
Terri Wolff Kaufman, in the first of two back-to-back interviews, describes her family tree with a focus on her paternal grandparents. Henry Wolff, a Polish-German immigrant, opened the Henry Wolff Department Store in Allendale, South Carolina, in 1901. He married Rachel "Ray" Pearlstine, daughter of Rebecca Tobish and Louis Pearlstine, of Branchville, South Carolina, and they raised their children, Cecile, Sura, and the interviewee's father, Louis Michael Wolff in Allendale. When Henry, who was much older than Rachel, died in 1914, Rachel took over the business and adopted the name "Ray" after their regular vendors declared, "We don't do business with women." Sura's husband, Sam Wengrow, assumed control of the store upon Ray's death in 1936. Terri, born in 1955 in Columbia, South Carolina, shares her memories of visiting the store as a young child and refers, during the interview, to photographs taken when her grandfather was the proprietor. Louis Wolff married Elsie Benenson in 1952. Elsie, the interviewee's mother, hailed from Atmore, Alabama, near Mobile. Terri discusses her father's education and career as an architect. He received his undergraduate degree from Clemson College in 1931 and his architectural degree from the University of Pennsylvania two years later. Considered a modernist, Louis became a principal in the firm Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff in 1946. An example of his work is the former Tree of Life Synagogue at 2701 Heyward Street in Columbia, South Carolina, completed in 1952. Terri briefly mentions other buildings in Columbia that the firm designed and her father's various jobs early in his career, including his stint in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Europe during World War II. See Mss. 1035-565 for Terri's second interview and Mss. 1035-212 for an interview with Terri's aunt Sura Wolff Wengrow. For a related collection, see the Wolff family papers, Mss. 1045.
Terri Wolff Kaufman, in this second of two interviews, talks about growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, where she was born in 1955 to Elsie Benenson and Louis Wolff. Louis, an architect, designed the large modern house in which Terri and her younger siblings, Frances, Michael, and Bruce, were raised. Terri notes instances of antisemitism that she experienced as a child and tells the story of how her father and his business partners at Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle & Wolff handled discriminatory treatment directed at Louis by the Summit Club in Columbia. Louis's awareness of prejudice against Jews and African Americans in Columbia was evident when he discouraged Terri from meeting a black friend out in public, knowing that the association would make life more difficult for Terri and the family. The interviewee shares stories about her siblings, describes her parents' social life and civic activities, and recalls the African Americans who worked for her family in their home. The Wolffs belonged to Columbia's Reform congregation, Tree of Life, and observed the Sabbath by lighting candles on Friday nights before going to services. While they did not keep kosher, Louis insisted that a couple of food restrictions be followed. Terri was studying to be an actor in New York when her father died suddenly. She ended up earning a graduate degree in media arts and working in the television industry in Los Angeles. Terri and her ex-husband, Jack Kaufman, raised their son, Alex, in the Jewish tradition in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The interviewee finds it more "comfortable" living as a Jew in large northern cities as compared with the South, where Judaism is not as familiar or well understood. However, she thinks Jews who live in places with smaller Jewish populations are more likely to get involved in Jewish organizations as a way to connect with other Jews, as she has since her recent move to the Charleston area. Terri is married to a non-Jewish man, Vernon Dunning, and they are members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim in Charleston, South Carolina. See Mss. 1035-564 for Terri's first interview and Mss. 1035-212 for an interview with Terri's aunt Sura Wolff Wengrow. For a related collection, see the Wolff family papers, Mss. 1045.
Brothers Harold and Sol Kline describe what it was like to grow up in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1930s and '40s. The youngest of five children of Ella Weinstein and Myer Kline, they discuss their family history and how their parents met in Baltimore. Myer, a Lithuanian immigrant, had tried his hand at a couple of different businesses, including peddling, when he fell into the scrap metal trade in 1923 in Columbia. Two years later, his brother Philip joined him in Kline Iron and Metal Company, renamed Kline Iron and Steel Company when it incorporated in 1956. Harold and Sol, their brother, Morris, and Philip's son, Bernard, all worked in the family business, which earned a reputation for honesty and integrity. The interviewees also talk about their wives, children, and grandchildren.
Ethel Oberman Katzen, in this follow-up to her 1996 interview, talks further about her father's business ventures. Isaac Oberman, who emigrated from Poland in 1906, started out as a peddler, later owning a furniture store on King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. On Sundays, he drove out to the country to collect weekly payments from his customers. Ethel recalls her mother, Sarah Kapner Oberman, spending much of her day in the kitchen and describes the foods she made for the family. The Obermans were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in Charleston. Ethel explains why her father ultimately left that congregation. The interviewee married Julius Moses Katzen of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1942, while he was serving in the United States Air Force. She briefly touches on his service during World War II, and notes that he had played semi-professional baseball for the Piedmont League. He died of a heart attack in 1952 at the age of thirty-six. Ethel and Julius had two children, Florence and Marvin. Ethel discusses the childhood "syndrome" that Florence developed, making it impossible for the family to care for her at home. Florence died in 1959 when she was sixteen. Ethel recounts some of the Jewish funeral customs her family observed, including sitting shiva, and makes note of her awareness of a social strata within the Jewish community of Charleston. See Mss. 1035-085 for Katzen's first interview, dated July 31, 1996. For the Ethel Oberman Katzen papers, see Mss. 1034-027, in Special Collections.
Naomi Weisbond Warner, the second of three daughters of Anna Block and David Weisbond, was in born in 1920 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before he married, David was a professional boxer under the moniker Eddie Forrest. He traveled to various cities and, while in Buffalo, New York, met Herman Warner, a Jewish tailor, who offered to host David whenever he was in town. Warner's generosity launched a lifelong friendship between the two families and a marriage: Naomi would marry Herman's son, Warner Tobias Warner, in 1940. Naomi describes her husband's difficult childhood and her own youth, which was constrained by an overprotective mother. She quit high school in her senior year, having been offered a full-time job in the office at Lit Brothers in Philadelphia, a large department store. Though her parents urged her to finish school, she felt she couldn't turn down the opportunity to help with family finances, which were hard hit by the Great Depression. In addition, David was in ill health. The Weisbonds, who lived on the outskirts of Philadelphia, did not attend synagogue services, nor did they observe the Jewish holidays. "And yet we knew we were Jewish," says Naomi, and she knew she was expected to marry a Jewish man. After marrying Warner, she joined him in Buffalo, where he managed four jewelry stores. When the store owners offered him a management position in South Carolina, the couple moved to Sumter with two children in tow and a third on the way. Five years later, in 1956, they opened their own store. Naomi discusses the changes she has observed over the years in Temple Sinai, Sumter's Reform congregation, and she contrasts living in a big city, such as Buffalo, with life in a small city like Sumter. Naomi talks about their children, Jan, Edwin, and Bonnie, and the close relationship they enjoy as a family.
Evelyn Lifchez Siegel, the second of three children, was born in 1927 to Jennie Burkom and Isaac Lifchez of Columbia, South Carolina. The Lifchezes were members of the Orthodox synagogue, House of Peace. Evelyn recalls Rabbi David Karesh and his prominence in their lives, and discusses how her mother, who was from Baltimore, kept a kosher home. Growing up, the interviewee had both Jewish and non-Jewish friends. She recalls that Columbia's "Jewish girls would take over the USO on the hill" on Sundays during World War II. Evelyn describes how she met her husband, Martin Siegel, whom she married in 1950.
Frederica (Freddie) Weinberg Kronsberg, born in 1910 in Staunton, Virginia, to Johanna Barth and Abraham Weinberg, discusses her father's start in the retail business. He emigrated from Holland to Baltimore, Maryland, as a teen and worked for Hamburger's, a men's clothing store. He opened his own clothing store in Staunton, Virginia, nearly two hundred miles away, where he met Johanna, a member of a family that operated a successful dry goods store in town. After their marriage, the two stores consolidated and became Barth, Weinberg & Company. Freddie recalls growing up in Staunton and her father's role in building the synagogue for House of Israel, a Reform Jewish congregation. She describes the degree to which her family observed the Sabbath and High Holidays. The interviewee talks about her brothers Irvin, Solomon, and Herman Weinberg and their careers. She met her husband Milton Kronsberg in Baltimore, where both were attending college. They parted company in 1932 when he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where his brother Edward lived, looking for a job. Freddie went to work for Merrill Lynch in Washington, D.C. after graduation. She recounts how they reconnected and married eight years later. They initially lived on Smith Street in Charleston, where a number of other Jewish couples lived. Freddie explains why she started keeping a kosher house and the process for kashering silver, glass, and dishes. At the time of their marriage, Milton was attending Brith Sholom, one of two Orthodox synagogues in the city. Freddie notes she felt uncomfortable at the services because she wasn't familiar with Hebrew, the women sat apart from the men, and the women conversed with one another instead of participating in the service. For these reasons, she was glad to switch to a Conservative synagogue. She talks briefly about the establishment of Emanu-El, Charleston's Conservative congregation, in 1947. The Kronsbergs were among the founding families. Their daughter Regina was the first bat mitzvah in South Carolina, celebrated at Emanu-El in 1955. Freddie and Milton had two children after Regina: Miriam ("Mickey") and Abram. The interviewee summarizes Kronsberg family history, including Milton and Edward's brothers, Macey and Meyer. The four Kronsberg brothers grew up in Tilghman Island, Maryland, where the family, after moving away, retained ownership of a parcel of land. Freddie describes how the brothers donated the land to the town for a park. Note: the transcript has comments and corrections made by Mickey Kronsberg Rosenblum, Freddie's daughter. For related interviews, see Avram and Edward Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-255; Jonathan, Edward, and Jason Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-531 and Mss. 1035-532.
Larraine Lourie Moses, born in in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1949, the middle child of Toby Baker and Solomon "Sol" Lourie, talks about her extended family, particularly her grandparents, Clara Kligerman and Frank Baker, and Ann "Annie" Friedman and Louis Lourie. The Bakers were Reform Jews who did not keep kosher, nor celebrate Passover. The Louries were Orthodox and Annie kept a strictly kosher home in St George, South Carolina. After Louis Lourie died, Annie married Hyman Simon in 1950 and moved to Columbia where they opened Mitchell's Men's Shop on Main Street. Just two years earlier, Annie's eldest son, Sol Lourie had established Lourie's Department Store, also on Main Street. Larraine recounts stories about her brothers, Frank and Barry; her grandmother Clara Baker and Clara's grocery store in Columbia; and her aunt Freda Baker Kornblut, who married Moses Kornblut of Latta, South Carolina. Larraine's parents raised Larraine and her brothers in Columbia's Beth Shalom during the time the congregation changed its affiliation from Orthodox to Conservative. The interviewee discusses her father's love of the game of bridge; he was a life master and traveled to tournaments in other U.S. cities, accompanied by her mother. While they were out of town, Margie Robinson, an African-American woman who worked for the family, would stay with the Lourie children. Growing up, Larraine was unaware of discrimination against African Americans. Looking back, however, she notes that her father was the first merchant on Main Street to hire a black man, Walter Jones, for a job that was not janitorial. He ran the receiving room and had the keys to the store. Larraine describes how she met her husband, Jeff Moses, who is related to one of the Berry (Sam and Lou) families of Columbia. She and Jeff have two children, Sam and Heidi, whom they raised in Columbia's Reform synagogue, Tree of Life. In the decades that the Moses family have been members, Larraine has noticed a decline in attendance at services. She explains how "being a good Jew is not necessarily going to the services," and offers her thoughts on what constitutes being religious.
Paul Garfinkel, member and past president of the Orthodox Brith Sholom Beth Israel Synagogue (BSBI) in Charleston, South Carolina, talks about events leading to the formation of Congregation Dor Tikvah in 2012 by former members of BSBI. He notes that the idea of moving the synagogue out of the downtown area was a topic of discussion even before he took his first position on the BSBI board as recording secretary in 1973. Leaders of the synagogue on Rutledge Avenue resisted moving but did allow the establishment, in 1965, of the South Windermere Minyan House, in association with BSBI. The Minyan House, located in the South Windermere subdivision just across the Ashley River from downtown Charleston, was home to many Jewish Charlestonians who had moved off the peninsula to the suburbs in the 1950s. Decades later, a number of observant Jewish families had settled in the neighborhoods surrounding the Jewish Community Center (JCC), which in 1966 had relocated west of the Ashley—too far to walk to BSBI or the South Windermere Minyan House. Paul describes the efforts of Ben Chase, president of BSBI from 2004 to 2006, to lead the congregation in settling the question of whether to move. The vote, which took place right after Chase's term ended, found that a slim majority of congregants wished to stay downtown. Besides wanting to have a synagogue nearby, some members who lived near the JCC were dissatisfied with how the congregation was being run. They felt decisions were being made by a select few in leadership positions. In 2006, they formed the West Ashley Minyan (WAM). A few BSBI congregants tried to find a way for the WAM to become a second minyan associated with BSBI, but members of WAM found the conditions required by synagogue leaders too difficult to meet. Paul discusses reasons some BSBI members did not want to move the synagogue. One person, who lived a block from the downtown synagogue, was determined it would not move. He was "such a powerful force in the congregation that people did not want to go against him personally." Another strong factor has been sentimental attachment to the building itself. Paul remains a member of BSBI, remarking that he was "literally brought up in that building," and he thinks "it's important to keep the family tradition going." However, he points to the depletion of BSBI's financial resources. Although membership is declining, the congregation continues to spend large amounts of money to repair ongoing structural problems on the property. He believes a small city like Charleston will be unable to support two Orthodox synagogues and would like to see the congregations reunited. See transcript for a correction made by the interviewee during proofing.
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.
Siblings Melvin Solomon, Frances Solomon Jacobson, and Naomi Solomon Friedman—three of five children of Sophie Prystowsky and Sam Solomon — are joined in this interview by Melvin’s wife, Judith Mendell Solomon, and Naomi’s husband, Morris Friedman. Sam Solomon (Checzewski was the family name) immigrated to the United States in 1902 from Zabludow, Russia. After working for a time in New York, Sam moved to Charleston, South Carolina, following the Prystowsky family, friends from the Old Country. He opened a wholesale dry goods store that offered credit to peddlers, and married Sophie Prystowsky. The siblings and their spouses tell stories that impart a sense of daily life, including descriptions of Sam and Sophie, various Prystowsky family members, and the African Americans who worked for them at home and in the store. For decades, Sam employed a black man in his business who learned to speak Yiddish with the customers. Melvin, Frances, and Naomi grew up on St. Philip Street, surrounded by cousins and other Jewish families. To escape the heat of the city, they spent summers at their beach house on Sullivan’s Island. They recall Joseph “Jew Joe” Truere, the Mazo family, and gathering minyans on demand in Sam’s King Street store. Melvin talks briefly about Brith Sholom and Beth Israel, the two Orthodox synagogues, before their merger, and the formation of Emanu-El, the Conservative congregation, in the mid-1950s. Judith, a New Jersey native who was not raised in a kosher household, describes her experiences as a new bride, trying to follow the rules of kashrut in the South. Morris and Naomi discuss the circumstances of their marriage and how their mothers’ points of view differed. Note: for related collections, see the Prystowsky-Feldman family papers, Mss. 1016, and the Solomon-Prystowsky family papers, Mss. 1013. See also interviews with Gertrude Sosnick Solomon (Mss. 1035-188 and Mss. 1035-193) and Shirley Feldman Prystowsky (Mss. 1035-508).
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.”
Edie Hirsch Rubin is the eldest of two children of Miriam Braun and Sigmund Hirsch, Romanians who fled Europe in early 1939. Edie describes her parents’ emigration by ship to Palestine, where they joined her mother’s cousin in Kibbutz Dan in the Golan. A couple of years later, they moved to Haifa and, in 1941, Edie was born; her sister, Ronite, was born in 1945. Edie talks about conditions in Haifa while growing up. Housing and food were scarce, tensions ran high, and they often sought refuge in bomb shelters during nighttime shelling of the city. She recalls feeling sad and acutely aware, as a child, of having almost no extended family. Her father had encouraged family members to leave Europe, to no avail, and most were killed in the Holocaust. Edie’s sadness was compounded by her lack of knowledge about the relatives who were lost; her parents did not share their memories with her or her sister. In 1952, the Hirsches moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Edie discusses the move and how the family adjusted to a new country. She met her husband, Joseph Rubin, in Montreal, and they married in 1961. Joseph’s profession as a cardiothoracic surgeon brought the Rubins to the United States. They raised their four children in Augusta, Georgia, and retired in Charleston, South Carolina. Edie worked in special education. She has always tried to live her life the way her father taught her—give back to the community and be grateful for what you have. This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Richard Weintraub was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the fourth of six children, to Guta Blas and Leon Weintraub, both Holocaust survivors. He relates some details of his parents’ story, in particular Guta’s daring attack on a German officer after being told she and a group of people that included her mother were about to be shot. Richard doesn’t recall his father ever talking about his wartime experiences. Guta, however, “could talk about it anytime, anywhere, to anybody.” Richard believes it was cathartic for her, but says “I’m convinced she never really got it out of her system.” He considers his response, as a child, to hearing his mother’s stories, noting he “never felt any residual effect of their experiences.” Richard describes his childhood as normal and thinks Guta was overprotective of him, more so than his siblings. He explains why he think it’s important to contribute to Holocaust awareness and to speak out against injustice. This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston.
Louis Decimus Rubin, Jr., was born in 1923 in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children of Jeanette Weinstein and Louis D. Rubin, Sr. Jeanette grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and met Louis Sr. while visiting her sister in Charleston. In this interview, Louis talks about his father and his father's brothers. Uncle Harry worked with Marion Hornik at M. Hornik & Company in Charleston. Uncle Dan took a job at a Birmingham, Alabama, newspaper, and later became a Broadway playwright. He also wrote Hollywood screenplays for Paramount Studios in the 1930s. Uncle Manning, who wrote advertising for M. Marks & Sons Department Store in Charleston, worked for decades, beginning in 1914, for Charleston's Evening Post as a reporter and editor. Louis Sr. was a self-taught electrician and opened Louis Rubin Electrical Company at 333 King Street. Jeanette and Louis Sr. moved the family to Richmond in 1942 to be near her brothers; Louis Sr. had been sickly and Jeanette was struggling to take care of her family. In Richmond, Louis Sr. earned local fame for his weather predictions based on the clouds and became known as the Weather Wizard of Wythe Avenue. Louis Jr. oversaw the revision of his father's book, The Weather Wizard's Cloud Book, published in 1989 by Algonquin Books, which the younger Rubin had founded in 1983. The Rubins were members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Charleston's Reform congregation, which, the interviewee recalls, was very small when he was growing up. Boys at the temple were confirmed, but did not have bar mitzvahs. Louis Jr. had only one Jewish friend as a boy; the rest were not Jewish. "Growing up as I did, being a Jew wasn't very important. I didn't define myself as being a Jew." As an adult, Louis thinks of himself primarily as a southerner and considers himself Jewish culturally but not religiously. He compares himself to his brother, Manning, who has embraced his Jewish identity and religion. Louis mentions Charleston natives Sidney Rittenberg, Sr.; Octavus Roy Cohen, Jr., Earl Mazo, and the Mazo families. He describes the differences between what locals at one time referred to as Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. "We were raised to be snobs." His mother was among those with the attitude that "Orthodox Jews were somehow peasants." He considers the impact of the Holocaust on American Jews, in particular, its role in breaking down the barriers between Charleston's Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. He adds that economic and social parity played just as much a role in eliminating bias. Louis discusses the assimilation of Jews in America: where once many may have abandoned religious practices that set them apart, he now sees a return to traditional customs. Louis married Eva Redfield, an Episcopalian, in 1951, and they raised two sons, Robert and William, in a secular home. The interviewer references a few of Rubin's many published works, tracing the parallels between his fiction and real life.
Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum was born in 1935 in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of two children of Julius and Edna Goldberg Kahn, both of whom immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. She talks briefly about her parents' families and how Julius, who lived in Charleston, was introduced to Edna, a Baltimore, Maryland, resident. They married in 1934, and Edna moved to Charleston, where Julius, with his brother Robbie Kahn, was in the wholesale grocery business on East Bay Street. Sometime later, the siblings parted ways, each setting up his own shop on King street. Sandra remembers living in the Frewil Apartments on the corner of Smith and Vanderhorst streets, as a young child, followed by a move to Rutledge Avenue, near Bogard Street, a location she describes as "idyllic." When she was fifteen, the Kahns moved to a house at 45 Spring Street, where her father built a small store on the same lot. She says, the neighborhood was like a "slum," but they could no longer afford the rent for the apartment on Rutledge. "Ultimately, he (Julius) went belly up. . . . He was not a businessman." The Kahns were members of the Orthodox synagogue Beth Israel, but Sandra's mother sent her to Hebrew school at Brith Sholom, the older of the two Orthodox shuls in the city. Sandra was confirmed at Brith Sholom. She discusses with the interviewers Brith Sholom adopting the practice of confirmation for girls. Interviewer Dale Rosengarten notes that she was told by a Beaufort resident that their synagogue began offering confirmation to satisfy mothers who wanted a rite of passage for their daughters. Sandra states that, as a child, being Jewish was a significant part of her identity and the Jewish youth groups Young Judaea and Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) were central to her life (she was an AZA Sweetheart). She responds to questions about Brith Sholom's junior congregation; recalls Seymour Barkowitz, her homeroom teacher in high school; and reports that she never experienced any overt antisemitism as a child. Interviewee provided comments and corrections to the transcript during proofing. See the follow-up (Mss. 1035-583) to this interview also conducted on September 28, 2021. For related oral histories, see interviews with Sandra's cousins Ellis Kahn in 1997 (Mss. 1035-142) and Jack Kahn in 1998 (Mss. 1035-182); and Sandra's husband, Raymond Rosenblum, and his siblings in 2008 (Mss. 1035-134).
Sara Zucker Rittenberg and her eldest daughter, Harriett Rittenberg Steinert, are interviewed by three College of Charleston students working on a class project focused on the effects of Americanization on traditional female roles across the generations. Sara's first husband, Louis Mescon, died when Harriett and her sister, Libby, were young girls. Sara married Henry Rittenberg and the couple raised the girls and their son, Charles, as Orthodox Jews in Charleston, South Carolina. Harriett and her husband, Steven Steinert, brought up their daughters, Leslie and Joanna, in the Conservative tradition where women were able to participate in synagogue services equally with men, a practice Harriett found lacking in Orthodoxy. Harriett says she is less observant than her mother, and her daughters are less observant than she is. She explains that she is an atheist, but she likes Judaism's holiday traditions and the sense of togetherness they foster. She recalls the Sabbath meals the family enjoyed at her grandmother's house every Friday evening and describes the Passover Seders she and Steven host. Other topics covered include use of the mikvah (bath) for ritual purification; traditional gender roles; access to birth control and abortion; the pursuit of higher education; intermarriage; and instances of antisemitism and stereotyping. For a related collection, see the Rittenberg-Pearlstine family papers, Mss. 1008, Special Collections, Addlestone library, College of Charleston. For related oral histories see: Henry Rittenberg, Mss. 1035-104; and Henry and Sara Rittenberg, Mss. 1035-350.
Sonia Truere Rothschild, in a follow-up interview, considers the possible avenues for genealogical research, presented by Interviewer Dale Rosengarten, with regard to her maternal relatives, the Scherrs, in Baltimore, Maryland. Sonia talks about how she met her first husband, Saul Berry, whose mother and stepfather, Daisy and Max Abramson, owned Jasper's Groceries in Charleston, South Carolina, not far from the Truere family residence at 256 Coming Street. She describes the neighborhood and how she accompanied her mother, Ida Truere, on walks down King Street on Saturdays to visit friends who were shopkeepers. Ida catered the meetings of the Kalushiner Society, a mutual aid organization founded by immigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland. Sonia's father, Joseph Truere, known as Jew Joe, was a well-known, colorful character in Charleston, and a number of stories had reached the interviewer. For example, Dale had been told of an African-American men's club known as Jew Joe's Invincible Hall in the Maryville neighborhood, where Louie Armstrong was said to have entertained. Sonia notes her father was a "legend" and even though he died in 1948, "people will still talk about this man." The interviewee touches on the distinction between Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews, as they are locally known. Sonia married Saul Berry in 1951 and they raised their children Michael, Jeffrey, Marty, and Sharon in Charleston. Two years after they married, Saul took over running Jasper's Grocery. Then he bought Robert Kahn Wholesale, which sold beer, wine, candy, cigarettes, and soft drinks to bars and restaurants, and their three sons joined him in the business. Sonia recounts how she met her second husband Jerry Rothschild and the challenges of combining their two families, with her four children and Jerry's three, Amy, Dana, and Gregory. The interviewee discusses marriages in her extended family--who married out of the faith and who didn't--and is happy that her children either married Jewish partners or Christians who converted to Judaism. She worked hard to give her children a Jewish upbringing, and all of them identify strongly with Judaism. Additional topics covered very briefly include: how Sonia is related to the Birlant family of Charleston and why she wants to go to Israel. See Mss. 1035-067 for Sonia Rothschild's first interview.
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.
Peter Rosenthal, who moved with his wife and children from South Africa to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1989, discusses the events that led to the formation of the West Ashley Minyan (WAM) and Congregation Dor Tikvah in Charleston. WAM formed in 2006 after several members of Charleston's Orthodox synagogue, Brith Sholom Beth Israel (BSBI), began meeting for Sabbath services in their homes. They were reluctant to return to BSBI after a contentious meeting during which a controversial vote determined the congregation would remain downtown instead of moving to a suburban location. Rosenthal outlines changes at BSBI and WAM that occurred in the years leading up to the founding of the Modern Orthodox Dor Tikvah in 2012 by members of WAM. He believes "that the trends that gave rise to WAM and Dor Tikvah arose from within, but also from outside . . . BSBI." He identifies key figures and events in WAM's formation and growth and Dor Tikvah's establishment. Interviewer and Charleston native Sandra Rosenblum notes that "the Jewish community of Charleston, at some point, became a big extended family." Rosenthal feels the intermingling of Jews of different traditions that she refers to is behind the origins of WAM. He describes WAM's founding as organic and spontaneous, fueled by young adults who wanted to be more observant.
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.
Samuel Steinberg was born in 1936 in Charleston, South Carolina, the second of two children of Anita Hannah de Sola Williams and Leon Steinberg. Samuel's paternal grandfather, also named Samuel Steinberg, emigrated from Kobryn, Russia, in the late 1800s, following family to Augusta, Georgia. He moved to Charleston after marrying Anna Belle Kaminski and joined her family's scrap metal business. Samuel describes the business, Charleston Steel & Metal, still in existence at the time of this interview, in some detail, in particular how it changed after he joined his father and uncle in running it in 1961. Samuel shares with interviewer Dale Rosengarten the de Sola family tree, which dates back to the ninth century, and the two consider his Sephardic and Ashkenazic backgrounds. Samuel notes that "when my mother, who was a very observant Reform Jew, married my father, who was a . . . practicing Orthodox Jew, it was like oil and water." The family attended synagogue services in Charleston at both the Orthodox Brith Sholom and the Reform K.K. Beth Elohim. Steinberg and Rosengarten discuss Charleston's Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews, a distinction covered in Arthur Williams's book Tales of Charleston 1930s, and Samuel reflects on his father's views about being an American Jew. The interviewee added comments and corrections to the transcript during proofing. See Mss. 1035-594 for a second interview with Samuel Steinberg.
Henry Windmuller, born in 1924, in Andernach, Germany, describes the town’s small Jewish congregation and his family’s religious practices, as well as the schooling he received as a boy. He was boarding at a teacher’s college in Wurzburch when the anti-Jewish violence of Kristallnacht broke out in November 1938. He recalls how he and a friend escaped the perpetrators and arrived safely home. His father, Max, was arrested and held at a camp in Dachau for about a month and then released. Stepmother Rosa arranged for Henry and his sister, Ilse, who was a year younger, to leave Cologne for England a week later on the Kindertransport. They were placed with separate families in Edinburgh, Scotland. With the help of his brother, who sent money from South Africa, Max escaped Germany a week before the start of World War II. The family was unable to secure the money needed to get Rosa to safety and they never saw her again. In the spring of 1940, with the Nazis moving into Western Europe, Henry and his father were among the foreign nationals living in Great Britain who were detained by the British. Max was sent to the Isle of Man and Henry was placed in an internment camp in Lingfield, England. Henry recounts his experiences at Lingfield, then on board the Duchess of York en route to Canada, and, finally, in a camp in Red Rock, Ontario. In all three locations German prisoners of war—airmen, submariners, naval officers, merchant marines—made up the vast majority of prisoners detained alongside Henry and his fellow Jews. “It was like being back in Germany,” he notes. A Jewish doctor, who was tending to the Red Rock prisoners, discovered that Jewish inmates were being forced to live with Nazis. He and his Montreal congregation successfully lobbied for the relocation of the Jews, who were then transferred to Sherbrooke in southeastern Quebec. Henry was allowed to return to Scotland in 1942, where Ilse still lived with her foster family. By that time Max had immigrated to Hartford, Connecticut. In 1943 Henry joined his father in the United States. He traveled alone, however; Ilse had died of diphtheria in Scotland. The transcript includes comments inserted by the interviewee during proofreading.
Robert Zalkin, born in 1925 in Charleston, South Carolina, describes growing up in the St. Philip Street neighborhood and talks about his family’s King Street business, where he helped out as a child. Zalkin’s Market, a kosher butcher shop, was opened by Robert’s grandfather, who had emigrated from Lithuania around 1898. Robert’s father, Joseph, who married Anna Cohen of New York, kept the market open until the late 1940s, when he sold the business to New Yorkers Alex and Lila Lash. Robert provides details about the layout and operation of the shop and the tasks his father assigned him. He notes that non-Jews, as well as Jews, were a regular part of their retail customer base. Zalkin’s also sold non-kosher meat wholesale to the local Swift and Armour packaging plants. Robert married Harriett Rivkin of Columbia, South Carolina, in 1949. Harriett states that her parents, Katie and Caba Rivkin, operated “one of the first Jewish delis in the South." She describes Columbia’s Jewish community as close-knit and remembers that her parents welcomed into their home many of the Jewish soldiers stationed at Fort Jackson during World War II. The Rivkins belonged to House of Peace, where Harriett’s grandfathers, Ruben Roth and Jacob Rivkin, were among the charter members of the Orthodox shul. Because the synagogue did not offer formal religious instruction, the Rivkins sent Harriett to Sunday school at Tree of Life, the Reform congregation in Columbia. Robert and Harriett describe the dishes their mothers served when they were growing up and their food habits in the years since. Five years after marrying, the Zalkins moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and raised their three children there.
Evaline Kalisky Delson relays her mother’s experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Dientje Krant, born in Bussum, Holland, in 1938, spent part of her early childhood in hiding during World War II. After the war, she rejoined her parents, who themselves were hidden by Dutch families. Dientje, anxious to escape her parents’ strict rules, left home right after graduating from high school and was hired to work on an ocean liner docked in Germany. There she met Evaline’s father, Leonard Kalisky, a Kingstree, South Carolina, native, who was stationed at a U.S. military base. They raised their three children in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, and then Holland, before returning to South Carolina. Evaline describes her childhood and the difficulties that arose from Dientje’s struggles with mental illness and memories of wartime traumas. She talks about how she copes with the residual effects of the challenges she faced growing up and expresses concern for the lack of progress made by mankind. “I don’t think we really learned from these tragedies. . . . I did not think in my lifetime that I would have to stand up like we do for gay rights, for women’s rights, for Jews, for Muslims, to have to have a march because a mosque is being bombed. . . . I thought we would grow. So to hear these stories and to see what’s going on right now in the world, it’s hard because a lot of my family died in vain.” Evaline feels that “it is our obligation, as this direct link to this atrocity, to stand up for these atrocities that are occurring now.” This is one of a number of interviews conducted by Ph.D. candidate Lucas Wilson for his dissertation, “The Structures of Postmemory: Portraits of Survivor-Family Homes in Second-Generation Holocaust Literature.” Wilson was awarded two Charleston Research Fellowships (May 2017, February 2019) by the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston. Note: Dientje Krant Kalisky Adkins’ oral history, Mss. 1035-145, is online at the Lowcountry Digital Library.
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.
Heide Engelhardt Golden, born in 1941 in Gablingen, Germany, a small farming village near Augsburg, recalls living conditions in the years immediately following World War II. She was the middle child of three daughters. Her father, Karl Engelhardt, who served in the German army, died just before the end of the war. Struggling to care for her three children, Heide’s mother, Anna Heilman Engelhardt, sent Heide, age five, to live with her paternal grandmother. Heide rejoined the family around the time her mother married James Hull, an American soldier, in 1948. The following year, while the family was living on an American base in Augsburg, Heide’s half-brother was born. When James’s unit was assigned to Korea in 1952, the U.S. Army sent Anna and the children to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. Heide describes adjusting to life in Columbia, her schooling, and working for Eddie and Sarah Picow in their store, Allan’s, where she met her husband, Harvey Golden, a Jewish lawyer originally from Brooklyn, New York. Around 1943 Harvey had moved with his parents, Gertrude and Jack Golden, to Columbia, where they operated an army-navy store. Before marrying Harvey in 1962, Heide studied with Rabbi Abraham Herson of Columbia’s Conservative synagogue, Beth Shalom, and converted to Judaism. The interviewee discusses their three children, Holly, Karl, and Jared; Harvey’s involvement in local theater; race relations in Columbia in the 1960s; and the family’s religious practices. Holly was the first girl in Beth Shalom to have her bat mitzvah ceremony on a Saturday. Heide talks about racial integration in Columbia; working for the department store Berry’s on Main; and flying home from Germany on September 11, 2001, when her plane was grounded in Newfoundland, Canada, after terrorists had flown hijacked jets into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Heide recalls being shocked when she learned about the Holocaust and was surprised when her mother told her neither she nor Heide’s father knew about the concentration camps. During and after the war, ordinary Germans like her mother lived in fear of being reported to the police by their neighbors for saying or doing the wrong thing. Despite that, the one Jewish family that lived in their village, remained there throughout the war.
Henry Miller, accompanied by his wife, Minda Miller, describes growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1950s and 1960s. His parents, Cela Tyczgarten and David Miller were survivors of the Holocaust; their move to Columbia in 1949 was sponsored by the city and Beth Shalom Synagogue. The Millers summarize David and Cela’s experiences during World War II, in particular, David’s participation in the ghetto uprising in his native city of Warsaw, Poland. David and Cela met and married in Landsberg, Germany, where they were living in a displaced persons camp. Henry observes how his parents’ status as Holocaust survivors and refugees affected their outlook on life, as well as how it affected him and his sister as children. He discusses his parents’ liquor store business, the neighborhoods where they lived, and his memories of downtown Columbia on Saturdays. He also reflects on school desegregation, antisemitism, and the effects of prejudice on blacks and Jews. Henry met Minda in Memphis, Tennessee, where he attended optometry school; they married in 1978. They have a daughter, Dawn, and a son, Bret. Henry practiced optometry for thirty-seven years in Columbia.
