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2. Atheneum, 1995-1996

Atheneum, 1995-1996
Date:
1996
Description:
Hardcover. Published by Coastal Carolina College, University of South Carolina. Atheneum yearbook is not to be confused with the "Atheneum" newsletter.

5. Letter from Carolyn Moore to Millicent Brown, February 21, 1996

Letter from Carolyn Moore to Millicent Brown, February 21, 1996
Date:
1996-02-21
Description:
Handwritten correspondence from "Carolyn" at the School of Human Environmental Sciences, Department of Social Work, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, to Millicent Brown regarding personal and professional matters.

6. Georgia Women of Achievement Event Program , 1996

Georgia Women of Achievement Event Program , 1996
Date:
1996-03-21
Description:
Ceremony Program for the Fifth Annual Induction Ceremony of the Georgia Women of Achievement in Atlanta, Georgia. Year 1996. Organization recognizing Ellen Craft as a Georgian Woman of Achievement

7. Krant family, 1996

Krant family, 1996
Date:
1996
Description:
This 1996 photograph was taken at Dientje's parents' 60th wedding anniversary, in Charleston, South Carolina. Pictured, back row, from left: Karol Kalisky (Dientje's son); Phillis Kalisky (Dientje's daughter); Roscoe Adkins (Dientje's second husband); Tanya Elzas (Dientje's niece); Jacob Elzas (Dientje's brother-in-law); Norman Delson (Dientje's son-in-law); Evaline Delson (née Kalisky, Dientje's daughter). Front row, from left: Betty Cohen (Dientje's mother's first maternal cousin); Dientje Kalisky; Evaline Krant (Dientje's mother); Phillip Krant (Dientje's father); Jacob Krant (Dientje's brother).

12. Festival Hispano 1996 / Hispanic Festival 1996

Festival Hispano 1996 / Hispanic Festival 1996
Date:
1996
Description:
Documento breve que incluye información sobre la organización Tri-County Hispanic American Association y el Festival Hispano 1996. / The short document includes information about the Tri-County Hispanic American Association and the Hispanic Festival 1996.

13. Board Meeting Minutes, 1996-1997

Board Meeting Minutes, 1996-1997
Date:
1996-1997
Description:
Typed transcript of the minutes of the College of Charleston Board of Trustees for the years 1996-1997.

14. Jewish Heritage Collection Presentation: Adath Yeshurun Synagogue’s 75th Anniversary Founders Day Celebration

Jewish Heritage Collection Presentation: Adath Yeshurun Synagogue’s 75th Anniversary Founders Day Celebration
Date:
5/4/1996
Description:
Adath Yeshurun in Aiken, South Carolina, celebrated its 75th anniversary on May 4, 1996. Presentations by Sunday school students and performances by guest singer Gloria Greenbaum and the men’s chorus were followed by a series of speakers who shared their memories of the Jewish community and congregation, as well as histories of some of Aiken’s early Jewish families—Efron, Franzblau, Persky, Panitz, Polier, Rudnick, Sawilowsky, Schneider, Surasky, and Wolf. Other subjects of discussion included the Sons of Israel Cemetery, the murder of Abraham Surasky, and a short-lived Jewish farming association established in nearby Montmorenci in 1905, dubbed “Happyville” by its promoters.

15. Program for 80th Club Anniversary Celebration

Program for 80th Club Anniversary Celebration
Date:
1996-04-21
Description:
The printed program for an Afternoon with the Phillis Wheatley and Literary Social Club in Celebration of Their Eigthieth Anniversary 1916 to 1996. The event took place on April 21, 1996 at the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture. Club Vice President Owilender K. Grant provided a history of the organization and Madlyn Johnson gave remarks.

16. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abe Dumas

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abe Dumas
Date:
1996-12-14
Description:
Abe Dumas was born on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, in 1913, to Esther Read and Mendel Dumas, who emigrated from Lithuania in the first decade of the twentieth century. The couple followed Esther's brother Frank Read, who had settled in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Mendel joined Frank in his mercantile store, until he opened his own business in nearby Bonneau. In this interview, Abe describes his father's dedication to making a living in America. Besides maintaining the Bonneau enterprise, Mendel invested in land for timber and farming, and opened stores in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1912, he and Frank Read built a five and dime store on the corner of King and Spring streets. Three years later, they parted company and Mendel bought a pawn shop at 220 King Street. By 1918, he had moved Esther and their five children (Lenora, Mary, twins Abe and Joe, and Yetta) to Charleston. "He knew," Abe reports, "that he could not raise a Jewish family in Bonneau." The Dumases were members of Brith Sholom, one of two Orthodox synagogues in Charleston. Abe notes the family was not very observant, although he and his brother celebrated their bar mitzvahs. The interviewee recalls how he and Joe began peddling around age twelve and began working in Mendel's Charleston store at sixteen, while their father commuted to Bonneau. They loved the work but didn't care for the pawn shop business in particular. In 1930, they switched to clothing and were very successful, which Abe attributes to carrying uniforms and hunting apparel. "Then when we moved to King and Society, we had there one of the largest operations of men's and family clothing in the city of Charleston. And it still is." Abe discusses growing up in Charleston, and the subtle antisemitism he observed in his early years. He remembers "divisiveness" between the Reform and Orthodox congregations, but says it no longer exists since an "economic level of parity or better came into existence." He attended the College of Charleston and, in 1936, married Dorothea "Dottie" Shimel Dumas. They had two children, Lynn and Carol. Abe reflects on what Americans knew about the Holocaust during World War II and the failure of the United States and other countries to assist Jewish refugees. Dumas tells the story of meeting George Gershwin in 1933 on Folly Beach, while Gershwin was in the area collaborating with DuBose Heyward on Porgy and Bess. For a related oral history, see the 1996 interview with Joseph Read, Mss. 1035-090. For a related collection, see the Louis M. Shimel papers, Mss. 1055. Although mentioned only briefly in this interview, the Dumases were founding members of Synagogue Emanu-El; see Mss. 1141 for the congregation records.

17. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abel Banov

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Abel Banov
Date:
4/4/1996
Description:
Abel Banov draws on memories of his childhood in Charleston, South Carolina, to describe his familys customs, the synagogues, his fathers business ventures, the local merchants, and the differences between the citys uptown and downtown Jews. In 1939, he was hired by the North American Newspaper Alliance to cover stories in Spain just after the Spanish Civil War ended and, in the 1940s, he was founding editor of El Mundos English newspaper in Puerto Rico. He married Joan Heinemann, who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.

18. New Bookmobile Added at Library

New Bookmobile Added at Library
Date:
1996-12
Description:
Press and Standard newspaper article about the purchase of a new bookmobile for Colleton County.

19. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Nathan Addlestone

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Nathan Addlestone
Date:
3/13/1996
Description:
Nathan Addlestone, son of Abraham and Rachel Lader Addlestone, immigrants from Bialystok and Lithuania respectively, describes growing up in Charleston, Oakley, and Sumter, South Carolina. His father got his start by peddling and owned a number of dry goods stores before opening a small scrap metal yard. The family was Orthodox and Rachel managed to keep a kosher house all her life. In the 1930s Nathan joined his father in his scrap metal business and, by the next decade, became successful in his own right. Nathan married Ruth Axelrod and they raised two daughters, Carole and Susan, in Sumter and Charleston, South Carolina. After their divorce, he married Marlene Laro Kronsberg.

20. Fotografía de un trabajador agrícola / Photograph of Agricultural Worker

Fotografía de un trabajador agrícola / Photograph of Agricultural Worker
Date:
1996
Description:
Fotografía en color de un trabajador agrícola en Parkers Farms, Wadmalaw Island quitando el plástico negro utilizado en el campo para controlar las malezas y mantener la humedad del suelo. / Color photograph of an agricultural worker at Parkers Farm, Wadmalaw Island. He is removing the black plastic used on fields to retain moisture and control weeds.

21. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Albert Rosenblum and Bessie Vigodsky Rosenblum

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Albert Rosenblum and Bessie Vigodsky Rosenblum
Date:
1996-11-15
Description:
Bessie Vigodsky Rosenblum was born in 1915 in Kobrin, then part of the Russian Empire, to Ida Wigutove and Hyman Vigodsky. Bessie, her older brother, Nathan, and their mother, Ida, followed Hyman to the United States around 1920. Prior to their arrival, Hyman had settled in Westminster, South Carolina, and opened a dry goods store. Bessie describes growing up in the small town tucked in the northwestern corner of the state. Though they were the only Jewish inhabitants, they felt welcome. "We weren't different; we were one of them." The Vigodskys kept kosher, ordering their meat from Atlanta, and they spent the Jewish holidays in Augusta, Georgia, in the days before Greenville, South Carolina, had a synagogue. Bessie went to Camp Perry Ann, a Jewish camp for children, in Brevard, North Carolina, for two summers, and Ida sent her to church every Sunday in Westminster. She discusses her experiences studying accounting at the University of South Carolina. Bessie is joined in this interview by her husband, Albert Rosenblum, who was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in 1914. His parents, Rose Weinstock and Sam Rosenblum, immigrated from Brest-Litovsk, Russia. Sam followed a cousin to Orangeburg and joined him in his mercantile business, later buying him out. When bankruptcy hit, the Rosenblums moved to Miami, Florida, and spent four years there before returning to Orangeburg, where Sam joined a group of stock buyers, men who bought merchandise from going-out-of-business sales. Around 1930, the family moved again, this time to Laurens, located in the northern part of South Carolina, and Sam opened a dry goods store. Albert, the eldest of four, worked in his father's stores as a child and joined the Laurens business full time after graduating from high school. He notes that at one time, they had enough men for a minyan in Laurens, and a rabbi from Greenville came to teach Hebrew to the boys in town. Bessie and Albert married in 1941 and raised their children, Herbert, Stephen, Sylvia, and twins David and Alan in Laurens. They talk about their children's professions. The Rosenblums closed the Laurens store about twelve years prior to the interview. For related interviews, see Raymond, Caroline, and Irvin Rosenblum, Mss. 1035-324; and Carolina Rosenblum, Mss. 1035-050.

22. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Alex Lash and Lila Winter Lash

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Alex Lash and Lila Winter Lash
Date:
10/3/1996
Description:
Lila Winter Lash, daughter of Fay Nebb and Louis Winter, was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. She discusses her family history, including the Winter family’s early-twentieth-century connection to Charleston, South Carolina. When Lila met Alex “Al” Lash in New York, he was working as a kosher butcher in a family business that extended four or five generations back to the Old Country. Lila and Al, who married in 1947, describe Al’s training and career in butchering, kosher and non-kosher. Two years after they married, the couple moved to Charleston after agreeing to buy Joseph and Anna Zalkin’s kosher butcher shop on King Street. The Lashes recall the difficulties of running the business, including procurement, long hours, competition, and customer relations. Dealing with rumors that they weren’t kosher and storing their inventory during two hurricanes were among the challenges they faced. Lila provides anecdotes and information relating to Al’s love of bowling and his involvement in leagues.

23. Carta a todos los miembros de THCA / Letter to all THCA members

Carta a todos los miembros de THCA / Letter to all THCA members
Date:
1996-02-24
Description:
Carta dirigida a antiguos miembros y firmada por la presidente de oficio Carmen Rigonan invitándolos a participar y trabajar por la organización. / Letter to former members signed by the acting president, Carmen Rigonan, inviting them to rejoin and work for the organization.

24. Anuncio de una beca de estudios otorgada por la organizacion Tri-County Hispanic American Association. Incluye el logo de Trident Technical College / Announcement of the Tri-County Hispanic American Association Scholarship with Trident Technical College Logo.

Anuncio de una beca de estudios otorgada por la organizacion Tri-County Hispanic American Association. Incluye el logo de Trident Technical College / Announcement of the Tri-County Hispanic American Association Scholarship with Trident Technical College Logo.
Date:
1996-08
Description:
Volante a color de Trident Technical College con información de la beca otorgada por la organización Tri-County Hispanic American Association. Incluye información de contacto de la oficina de ayuda financiera del college. / Trident Technical College color flyer provides information related to the Tri-County Hispanic American Association scholarship and financial assistance office contact information.

28. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Harry Appel

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Harry Appel
Date:
12/22/1996
Description:
Harry Appel’s parents, Abraham Appel and Ida Goldberg, emigrated separately from Kaluszyn, Poland, in the early twentieth century. They met, married, and raised three children in Charleston, South Carolina. Their eldest, Harry, born in 1924, talks about his siblings, growing up in the St. Philip Street neighborhood, and Charleston’s synagogues.

29. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Louise Rich Aronson and Harold M. Aronson

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Louise Rich Aronson and Harold M. Aronson
Date:
2/16/1996
Description:
Rose Louise Aronson was raised in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the great-granddaughter of Moritz Rich who, with his brother Lipman, emigrated from Prussia before the Civil War and settled successively in Charleston, St. Matthews, and Orangeburg. About 1890, her maternal grandfather, Louis Leopold Block, a German immigrant, joined the Hirsch brothers in their dry goods business in Camden. In the 1950s, Rose Louise was instrumental in organizing Temple Sinai, Orangeburg’s Jewish congregation.

30. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Harold M. Aronson and Rose Louise Rich Aronson

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Harold M. Aronson and Rose Louise Rich Aronson
Date:
2/16/1996
Description:
Harold Marion Aronson, born in Lane, South Carolina, in 1919, grew up in New Jersey, but returned with his family to South Carolina where they opened a dry goods store in Kingstree. Harold, who flew weather reconnaissance missions for the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, married Rose Louise Rich in 1944 and, later, settled in Rose Louise’s hometown, Orangeburg, South Carolina. The Aronsons established a successful aluminum awning business and raised two daughters.

31. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Edward V. Mirmow, Rose Louise Rich Aronson, and Harold M. Aronson

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Edward V. Mirmow, Rose Louise Rich Aronson, and Harold M. Aronson
Date:
2/15/1996
Description:
Edward Mirmow and Rose Louise Aronson, who grew up in Orangeburg, recall the city’s Jewish families, descendants of German and Russian immigrants, and the types of stores they operated, dating to the 1930s. Edward’s paternal relatives, the Mirmowitzes and the Goldiners, emigrated from Russia around the turn of the 20th century. In the 1950s, Rose led an effort to organize a congregation for the benefit of Orangeburg’s Jewish children, including her two daughters, and Temple Sinai was founded.

33. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Zerline Levy Williams Richmond, Arthur V. Williams, and Betty Williams Gendelman

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Zerline Levy Williams Richmond, Arthur V. Williams, and Betty Williams Gendelman
Date:
6/17/1996
Description:
Zerline Levy Williams Richmond and her children, Arthur Williams and Betty Gendelman, recount the Levy and Williams family histories, including Zerline’s mother’s stint as Charleston’s first female rice broker, and the Williamses’ kindergarten on George Street. The Williams family were members of Charleston’s Reform temple, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim.

35. Atlanta History Center gate

Atlanta History Center gate
Date:
1996
Description:
Photocopy (6" x 8 1/2") of decorative gate "A little bit of Charleston in Atlanta," with graphite embellishments

36. Atlanta History Center gate

Atlanta History Center gate
Date:
1996
Description:
Original graphite sketch (6" x 8 1/2") of decorative gate "A little bit of Charleston in Atlanta"

38. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ira Kaye and Ruth Barnett Kaye

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ira Kaye and Ruth Barnett Kaye
Date:
6/15/1996
Description:
New Yorker Ira Kaye and his wife, Ruth Barnett Kaye, of Sumter, South Carolina, discuss Ira’s work as a defense attorney in Japan’s war crimes trials, the reluctance of Sumter’s Jews to speak out against segregation, and Ira’s experience with racism in South Carolina and representation of a tri-racial isolate group called the Turks. They also recall their experiences living in Nepal and India while Ira served in the Peace Corps.

39. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ruth Barnett Kaye

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ruth Barnett Kaye
Date:
6/14/1996
Description:
Ruth Kaye, born in 1913, grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, the granddaughter of Estonian immigrant, B. J. Barnett who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Barnetts became landowners and cotton farmers, and ran a general store. Ruth’s mother, Emma Klein, was born in Hungary and raised in Pennsylvania and New York. Ruth recounts her family history on both sides, and describes her visits with the New York Kleins.

40. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Joseph Lipsitz and Lucille Bass Lipsitz

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Joseph Lipsitz and Lucille Bass Lipsitz
Date:
1996-11-07
Description:
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.

41. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Benjamin Berendt

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Benjamin Berendt
Date:
1996-06-11
Description:
Benjamin Berendt, born in 1912 in Charleston, South Carolina, is interviewed by his great-nephew Jason Berendt using the list of questions in the Interview Guidelines provided by the Jewish Heritage Collection Oral History Archives. The Berendt family came to the United States in the 1880s, spending time in New York and Georgia before settling in Charleston in the early 1900s. Benjamin's parents, Mary Ward [Warshawsky] and Isaac Berendt, were from Konin, Poland. Isaac ran a shoe repair shop at 367 King Street. Benjamin recalls the other businesses that were on the same block. Sometime after Isaac died in 1921, Benjamin's brothers, Emanuel, Jack, and Harry, sold Isaac's shop and opened a wholesale leather and shoe supply company at 631 King Street that later moved to 205 Meeting Street. Benjamin joined his brothers in the business after graduating from the College of Charleston in 1935. Thirty years later, they moved to East Bay Street and opened a wholesale handbag business that they ran until 1971. The Berendt brothers had one sister, Blanche, who married Dave Leff of New York. The Leffs lived in Hartsville, South Carolina, where they operated a dry goods store. Benjamin discusses the benefits of belonging to the B'nai B'rith youth group Alpeh Zadik Aleph; he was a founding member of Charleston Chapter No. 143. He shares memories of his teachers at Charleston High School and the activities he enjoyed growing up in Charleston. He describes how the family observed the Sabbath and the holidays, and how Brith Sholom Beth Israel has and has not changed over the many decades he has been a member. Benjamin married Anna Gelson of Charleston and they raised two sons, Gerald and Alan, in Charleston. Comments and corrections to the transcript made by the interviewee during proofing are in brackets with his initials. For related materials in Special Collections, College of Charleston, see the Benjamin Berendt and Anna Gelson Berendt papers, Mss. 1089.

42. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Bernice Berlin Silver

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Bernice Berlin Silver
Date:
8/28/1996
Description:
Bernice Berlin Silver, one of four children of Sam and Bertha Livingstain Berlin (Berlinsky), talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, several blocks from the Jewish immigrant neighborhood north of Calhoun Street. Bernice grew up in an Orthodox home, but her father opened the family store on the Sabbath out of “necessity.” She attended Crafts School and Memminger High School, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class. While most of her friends were gentiles, she participated in AZA (Aleph Zadik Aleph) activities and was an AZA Sweetheart. Bernice married Sam Silver (Zilberman) of Augusta, Georgia. The couple moved to his hometown where she became active in Hadassah and started a chapter of the NCJW (National Council of Jewish Women). After about 25 years, the Silvers relocated first to Columbia, South Carolina, and then California, before settling in Charleston, where they operated a restaurant supply business for over two decades. Bernice discusses her immediate and extended family members. Interviewer Ruth Jacobs reads from material obtained from Charleston city directories regarding business and home addresses of the Livingstains (Bernice’s mother’s family) and the Goodmans (Bernice’s maternal grandmother’s family) in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

43. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Bernard Warshaw

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Bernard Warshaw
Date:
4/10/1996
Description:
Bernard Warshaw discusses growing up in Walterboro, South Carolina, and the periods he spent in Charleston, first, from age nine to thirteen, when he was studying for his bar mitzvah and, later, while attending The Citadel. His parents, Murray and Dotty Bebergal Warshaw, emigrated as children from Poland in the early 1900s. They met in Charleston, where each had family, and moved to Walterboro after they married. Bernard talks about his family’s business, Warshaw’s, and Walterboro’s other Jewish merchants. He served in the army during World War II, and saved the photographs he took of the concentration camp in Dachau, which he visited the day after it was liberated. He married Ann Wagner of Boston and they raised three daughters in Walterboro. Among the topics discussed: intermarriage; the importance of religion and involvement in civic and political matters; the reason his children and grandchildren are more observant than he was as a child; and relations between Jews and African Americans. Note: See also Bernard Warshaw Holocaust atrocity photographs, Mss. 1065-027, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.

45. New Bookmobile Dedication

New Bookmobile Dedication
Date:
1996-12
Description:
Ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Colleton County memorial Library bookmobile.

46. Fotografía de tres personas cantando en una fiesta navideña / Photograph of Christmas Party Singing

Fotografía de tres personas cantando en una fiesta navideña / Photograph of Christmas Party Singing
Date:
1996
Description:
Fotografía en color de una pareja de immigrantes mexicanos junto a un compañero de trabajo estadounidense cantando durante una fiesta de Navidad organizada por Sunny Side, la compañía que los empleaba. Los dos hombres están tocando la guitarra y la joven carga un niño en sus brazos. / Color photograph of a recently arrived Mexican couple and an American co-worker singing during a Christmas party organized by Sunny Side, the company that employed them. The two men are playing guitars and the young woman holds a child on her arms.

47. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Surasky Seldin and Evelyn Goodman Surasky Caplan

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Surasky Seldin and Evelyn Goodman Surasky Caplan
Date:
5/4/1996
Description:
Rose Surasky Seldin, born in 1917, and her sister-in-law Evelyn Goodman Surasky Caplan, born in 1918, describe growing up in Aiken, South Carolina. Rose’s parents, Annie Sarah Rudnick and Solomon Surasky, emigrated from Knyszyn, Poland, joining his brothers and brother-in-law H. L Polier in Aiken. The interviewees recall the family businesses, including Augusta Polier’s lingerie shop and millinery. Augusta was married to Morris Polier, Evelyn’s grandfather. When Augusta died, Evelyn’s mother, Rebecca Polier Goodman, took over the store. Rose and Evelyn discuss several family members, in particular, Rose’s first cousin, Mina Surasky Tropp. Among the topics covered: prejudice; keeping kosher; the Jewish farming community called “Happyville,” established in 1905 by its promoters in nearby Montmorenci; and how locals responded to and were affected by the building of the Savannah River Plant in the early 1950s.

48. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Caroline Rosenblum

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Caroline Rosenblum
Date:
1996-01-31
Description:
In this interview conducted by her sister-in-law Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum, Caroline Rosenblum talks about growing up in Anderson, South Carolina, one of five children of Freida Bain and Nahum Rosenblum. Polish immigrants who arrived in New York in 1919, the Rosenblums moved first to Orangeburg, South Carolina, where they joined Nahum's brother Sam. Later they spent time in Miami, Florida, then the small South Carolina towns of Blackville and Greenwood. By 1932, the family had settled in Anderson where they ran a dry goods store. Caroline discusses her first experience with antisemitism as a schoolgirl; the difficulty of keeping kosher in a small town; and her father's reaction to the Holocaust. She recalls that the news of what happened to the Jews of Europe during World War II stirred an interest in Judaism among some of Anderson's gentiles. There were about ten Jewish families living in Anderson while Caroline was growing up. She describes their High Holiday traditions and notes that her father was cantor for the congregation, Temple B'nai Israel. For a related interview, see Mss. 1035-324, featuring Caroline and her brothers Raymond and Irvin.

49. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hyman Lipsitz, Helene Jacobson Lipsitz, Edward Marion Lipson, and Celia Pinosky Lipson

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hyman Lipsitz, Helene Jacobson Lipsitz, Edward Marion Lipson, and Celia Pinosky Lipson
Date:
1996-06-20
Description:
Hyman Lipsitz is joined in this interview by his wife, Helene Jacobson Lipsitz, and his cousin Edward "Mickey" Lipson and his wife, Celia Pinosky Lipson. Born in 1913, Hyman was raised with his sister, Ethel, and brother, Joseph, in Beaufort, South Carolina. They lived over their downtown store with their parents, Bertha Rubin and Max Saul Lipsitz, who were immigrants from Latvia and Lithuania, respectively. Max had relatives all over the South, but followed a brother to Beaufort when he was in his teens. Hyman remembers a Reverend Rubinstein acting at some point as the cantor for Beth Israel, Beaufort's Jewish congregation. He also recalls Rabbi Jacob Raisin, of Charleston's Reform congregation K. K. Beth Elohim, traveling to neighboring Parris Island to lead services for the marine recruits on some Sunday mornings, and then to Beaufort's Beth Israel for afternoon services. Mickey Lipson, one of eight children born to Helen Lipsitz and Moses Lipsitz (they were first cousins), was born in Beaufort in 1921. Moses died when Mickey was five years old, and the family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1929. Mickey joined his sister Freda and her husband, Sam Novit, in Walterboro, South Carolina, in 1936, and there he met Celia, a Charleston, South Carolina, native, at a wedding. They married in 1947 and lived in Walterboro a year before moving to Beaufort where they opened a shoe store. The Lipsons talk briefly about their shoe business, which was initially located downtown and later moved to Beaufort Plaza. The cousins discuss the Jewish merchants who were killed while working in their stores in rural areas around Beaufort, including Mickey's grandfather Aaron Lipsitz of Burton, South Carolina. The interviewees describe another tragedy: the death of Mickey's sister Rosalie Lipsitz Zalin of Belton, South Carolina, who was killed in 1937 when she was hit by a car. Note: Some members of the Lipsitz family went by the surnames Lipson or Lipton. For related oral histories, see interviews with Lucille and Joseph Lipsitz, Mss. 1035-093; 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.

50. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with George Visanska Rosenberg and Edith Cochran Rosenberg

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with George Visanska Rosenberg and Edith Cochran Rosenberg
Date:
1996-09-02
Description:
George Visanska Rosenberg is joined by his wife, Edith Cochran Rosenberg, in this interview that begins with George explaining how the Visanska, Winstock, and Rosenberg families on his father's side are related and how they came to settle in Abbeville, South Carolina, around the middle of the nineteenth century. George was born in Abbeville in 1916, the second of five children of Solomon Rosenberg and Octavia Harby Schwerin, a Sumter, South Carolina, native. George describes the family business in Abbeville. Rosenberg Mercantile Company, incorporated in 1872, occupied several connected buildings on Trinity Street and carried goods ranging from groceries to heavy farm equipment. The family also owned farm land in Abbeville and McCormick counties where sharecroppers grew cotton. George discusses his upbringing and the family's Jewish identity. Abbeville never had a congregation or visiting rabbis, but George's great-grandfather G. A. Visanska and his family "did maintain their Jewishness." They kept kosher and G. A. provided the kosher meat for his family, slaughtering the meat himself. George notes, however, "I was up in high school . . . at least, before I knew the difference in being Jewish and gentile." He became aware as an adult of having missed a close connection to his Jewish heritage and traditions by not having a synagogue in town. His parents observed the High Holidays, but not the Sabbath, and they celebrated Christmas, but not Hanukkah. He reports he never experienced any "anti-Jewish sentiment in Abbeville." George covers a number of topics, including forebears who fought for the Confederacy; the Eureka Hotel in Abbeville; his father's involvement with Abbeville County Memorial Hospital; the African Americans who worked for the Rosenbergs; the effects of the Great Depression on his family and their business; Rosenberg's Men's Store in Greenwood, South Carolina, run by his cousin Ernest Rosenberg; Uncle Julius Visanska, who ran Bentschner & Visanska in Charleston, South Carolina; and the Poliakoff and Savitz families of Abbeville. The Rosenbergs and interviewer, Dale Rosengarten, consider how certain expressions based on stereotypes can be offensive. The interviewees talk about white-black relations when they were growing up and at the time of the interview. George recalls how he ran his medical practice in the days before integration and contemplates the disadvantages that local African Americans face. Edith was born in 1922 in Due West, South Carolina, and grew up in Laurens, South Carolina. She and George married after he graduated from medical school in 1941. They recount his nearly four years in the service during World War II, followed by his residency in Wilmington, North Carolina. George describes how he established, in 1948, his OB/GYN and surgery practice in Abbeville and briefly discusses some of the changes in obstetrics over the decades. The couple adopted three children, Herbert, Patsy, and Grace. Edith, who was raised Presbyterian, relates how her parents and George's parents felt about their mixed marriage. She tells the story of their divorce after 27 years together and their remarriage ten years later. She converted to Judaism prior to reuniting with George, studying under Rabbi Magidovitch of Sumter's Temple Sinai.

51. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Frances Solomon Garfinkle and Nathan Garfinkle

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Frances Solomon Garfinkle and Nathan Garfinkle
Date:
6/4/1996
Description:
Frances Solomon Garfinkle, daughter of Morris and Rina Chachevski Solomon, relates her mother’s stories of life in Zabludow, Poland, before she immigrated to the United States. Frances, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, recalls visiting relatives in Charleston, South Carolina, as a child. She married Nathan Garfinkle, son of Sam and Annie Garfinkel, emigrants from, respectively, Divin and Grozny, Russia. Nathan, who remembers living in Charleston’s East Side before moving to the St. Philip Street neighborhood, attended Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues, with his father. Frances and Nathan discuss Charleston’s Jewish merchants, particularly wholesaler Sam Solomon, whose Sullivan’s Island summer home was a gathering place for Jewish families on Sundays. They describe Charleston and Jewish food traditions, including African-American street vendors and Jewish-owned markets, and the prevalence of Yiddish speakers among members of the Jewish community in the first half of the twentieth century. Even some African Americans who worked for Jewish store owners spoke Yiddish. Louisa Simmons kept house for Sam and Annie Garfinkel, and later for Nathan and Frances, for a total of than more than fifty years. “She was one of the family . . . we loved her.” Note: Other family members spell the name Garfinkel. The interviewee has spelled his name Garfinkle since his military service during World War II, when a typographic error was made and never corrected.

52. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Larry Freudenberg

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Larry Freudenberg
Date:
3/15/1996
Description:
Larry Freudenberg relates the history of both sides of his family. His mothers forebears, the Triests, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Bavaria in the 1850s, opened a clothing store on King Street, and joined the Reform congregation, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. Larry's father, Henry Freudenberg, was a young boy when he escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 with his parents and grandparents. They eventually settled in Charleston. Larry discusses his experiences growing up in the 1960s and 70s, and feeling trapped between two cultures. Gentile children teased him for being Jewish, while Orthodox Jewish children accused him of being not Jewish enough. Larry runs the family's insurance business established in 1903 by his great-grandfather, Montague Triest.

53. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Philip Garfinkel

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Philip Garfinkel
Date:
12/15/1996
Description:
Philip Garfinkel, one of six children of Sam and Hannah Garfinkel, natives of Divin, Russia, grew up in the 1930s and ’40s in Charleston, South Carolina. Philip discusses his siblings, friends from the St. Philip Street neighborhood, and the family’s religious practices. He fondly recalls summers on Sullivan’s Island and afternoons at the Jewish Community Center on St. Philip Street.

54. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Karl Karesh

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Karl Karesh
Date:
4/22/1996
Description:
Karl Karesh, born in 1912, discusses growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, focusing on his neighborhood, the local merchants, his Hebrew school training, and his family and their adherence to Orthodox religious observances. He addresses the differences between the uptown and downtown Jews before World War II, and describes his clothing business, and other Jewish- and gentile-owned dry goods stores, in Charleston during the post-war years.

55. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hanna Pearlstine

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hanna Pearlstine
Date:
1996-08-28 and 1996-08-29
Description:
Hanna Pearlstine, audio interview by Dale Rosengarten and Marilyn Cohn Fine, 28 August 1996 and 29 August 1996, Mss 1035-088, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Hanna Pearlstine, daughter of first cousins Shep and Sara Pearlstine, was born in 1903 in St. Matthews, South Carolina. She describes growing up in the small Midlands town where her father owned a grocery business and Puritan Farm, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. After attending Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Columbia College in New York City, Hanna taught history from 1928 to 1968 at Columbia High School in Columbia, South Carolina. She and her niece Marilyn Cohn Fine outline their family history, beginning with the emigration of Janetta (Jeanette) Karesh and Tanchum (Thomas) Pearlstine (Farber in the Old Country), Hanna’s great-grandparents, from Trzcianne, Russia, in the mid-1800s. Pearlstine relatives mentioned include the Hyams, Vineburg, Wolff, Jacobs, and Cohen families. Hanna also discusses her visit to Washington, D.C., as a guest of Senator Strom Thurmond, her membership in Tree of Life Congregation in Columbia, and relations between her family and the African Americans who worked for her parents in their home and their warehouse. Note: for several related collections, search for “Pearlstine” in Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.

56. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral History Interview with Joan Weisblum Steinberg Loeb

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral History Interview with Joan Weisblum Steinberg Loeb
Date:
4/24/1996
Description:
Joan Weisblum Steinberg Loeb, born in 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, married Matthew Steinberg and moved to his native city of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1936. Joan, a daughter of Elsie Aleskowitz and Philip Weisblum, recounts some of her family history, and describes how she met Matthew, who earned his M.D. from the Medical College of South Carolina, and their wedding in the Weisblum’s Brooklyn home. Her mother-in-law, Anna Bell Kaminski Steinberg, taught her how to keep a kosher home. The interviewee, who had no formal religious upbringing, recalls attending High Holy Day services at her husband’s Orthodox congregation, Brith Sholom. She notes that Matthew served as mohel for the congregation following Reverend Feinberg, who was also the cantor and the shochet. Interviewer Sandra Rosenblum reports that her husband, Raymond Rosenblum, a urologist, later assumed the role. In 1947, Joan and Matthew left Brith Sholom and joined roughly seventy families in becoming founding members of the Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El. Joan points to the leadership of Charleston native, Macey Kronsberg, the congregation’s first president, as pivotal in organizing the faction that was dissatisfied with Orthodox practices. Joan notes the source of discontent: “It was the fact that the women were not part of the service at all, and the families did not sit together. This didn’t satisfy this generation. They wanted the children to be part of it and to learn and to have an interest, and not to have to just be banged over the head in Hebrew school to learn enough for a bar mitzvah, and goodbye Charlie.” Joan and Matthew donated the first sanctuary, an army chapel, for Emanu-El’s Gordon Street property. Joan lists many of the names and professions of the charter members. She discusses the differences among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism, and some of the changes that have taken place in her lifetime. Participants recall the mid-twentieth century practices and attitudes of Charleston’s Reform congregants (Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim) and the two Orthodox congregations, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel, and they examine their own, and others’, experiences of keeping kosher—or not. Joan briefly mentions the three women’s organizations she joined in Charleston: the National Council of Jewish Women, the Daughters of Israel, and the Happy Workers. She goes into some detail about why her father thought U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the “biggest hypocrite and enemy of the Jews.” Matthew Steinberg died in 1968. Three years later, Joan married B. Frank Loeb of Montgomery, Alabama, where she was living at the time of the interview. She provides a brief history of Montgomery’s Reform congregation, Temple Beth Or.

57. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Rudnick Rubin

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Rudnick Rubin
Date:
5/5/1996
Description:
Rose Rubin, daughter of Polish immigrants Sophie Halpern and Morris Rudnick, recounts stories about her family’s life in the Old Country and her parents’ immigration to New York. Sophie moved with her first husband, Ralph Panitz, to Aiken, South Carolina, for his health. The town had a reputation as a salubrious retreat for people with pulmonary problems. Morris followed his sister, Anne, who had married Solomon Surasky, to Aiken, where he married Sophie after she became widowed. Rose describes her mother’s awareness of the dangers of the Nazi regime and her efforts to convince family members to come to America, and discusses the history of “Happyville,” a Jewish farming community, established just outside of Aiken in 1905. Rose married former state senator Hyman Rubin of Columbia, South Carolina.

58. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Helen Garfinkel Rosenshein

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Helen Garfinkel Rosenshein
Date:
12/29/1996
Description:
Helen "Elkie" Rosenshein recalls childhood friends and neighbors from the 1920s and ’30s in Charleston, South Carolina. Her parents, Sam and Hannah Garfinkel, immigrants from Divin, Russia, followed Sam’s brother to the coastal city and opened a mattress factory. She describes the traditional Jewish foods served by her mother, who kept a kosher home with the help of an African American woman named Louisa. After working at the Charleston Navy Yard, Helen and her good friend, Freda Goldberg, spent a year in San Francisco, where they took advantage of local cultural events and volunteered at the Jewish Community Center.

59. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Olga Garfinkel Weinstein

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Olga Garfinkel Weinstein
Date:
12/30/1996
Description:
Olga Garfinkel Weinstein, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1917, describes her childhood, including her siblings, the Jewish Community Center, and the traditional Jewish foods her mother served. Olga experienced no anti-Semitism as a schoolgirl, but discusses her awareness, as a young woman during World War II, of what was happening to the Jews in Europe.

60. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mordenai Lazarus Raisin Hirsch and Rachel Raisin

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mordenai Lazarus Raisin Hirsch and Rachel Raisin
Date:
7/16/1996
Description:
Rachel Raisin and Mordenai Hirsch, daughters of Jane Lazarus (1887–1965) and Rabbi Jacob Salmon Raisin (1878–1946), describe their experiences growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, in the years between the First and Second World Wars. Jacob Raisin emigrated with his family from Russia to New York City when he was twelve years old. The son of Orthodox Jews, he attended Hebrew Union College and served a number of congregations in the United States before he was hired in 1915 by Charleston’s Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE). Jane Lazarus, who could trace her Sephardic ancestry in America to the 1700s, was a member and Sunday school teacher at KKBE. The couple married in 1917 and raised Mordenai, Rachel, and their brother, Aaron, in a home that was one of seven rental properties on Wragg Square known as Aiken’s Row. The sisters describe the house and property where they grew up, and where members of Jane’s family had lived for generations. Jane’s father, Marks Hubert Lazarus, ran a hardware and cutlery store, the M. H. Lazarus Company, on King Street. Topics addressed in the interview include merchants, private kindergartens, and Jane Lazarus’s involvement in organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and Hadassah (she founded the local chapter). The sisters also discuss issues of assimilation and identity, particularly as they relate to the early members of KKBE. Rachel attended Radcliffe College where she majored in government, and earned her degree in library science from Emory University. She worked in several cities in the East and Midwest. Mordenai studied early childhood education at the College of Charleston and Smith College. She received her master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University. She married sculptor Willard Hirsch, who co-founded Charleston Art School with fellow artists and teachers Corrie McCallum and William Halsey. Mordenai provides some background on her husband and his family and gives examples of his commissioned works. See Lazarus and Hirsch family papers (Mss 1018), Rabbi Jacob S. Raisin papers (Mss 1075), and Willard N. Hirsch papers (Mss 1074), for related materials in Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.

61. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sam Siegel

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sam Siegel
Date:
4/9/1996
Description:
Sam Siegel, born in Anderson, South Carolina, in 1915, describes the hometown of his boyhood as “a very hard town . . . mean, nasty, completely controlled by the Klan.” Sam’s parents, Bess Silverman and Max Siegel (Shul) emigrated from Latvia in the early 1900s and settled in Anderson where Max worked as a peddler before going into livestock sales and slaughtering. The family did not keep kosher, and the Siegel children had little Jewish education. Sam’s playmates were Christian. “I had my friends, but it wasn’t comfortable.” Sam talks about his seven siblings, in particular, his brother Reuben, known as “Jew Boy Siegel,” a star boxer and football player for Clemson. As the number of Jewish residents in Anderson increased in the early 1900s, they began to meet in a large hall over a store for High Holy Day services. Sam remembers teaching Sunday school there as well. He mentions some of the Jewish residents of the 1930s and ’40s, who pooled their resources to build a temple for the growing community. Sam describes helping to place nearly a dozen Jewish refugees in Anderson, including one young man, Kurt Sax, whom he helped get his start in his own small business. Sam married Leona Novit of Walterboro, South Carolina. When he visited Walterboro, he “fell in love” with the town, which was a popular stopping point for travelers driving between New York and Florida. Walterboro, Sam says, “has always been a very liberal town. It’s made up of people from up north and out west.” Sam and Leona moved from Anderson to Walterboro, where they raised their four children and Sam ran a dry goods store. He discusses a number of other topics including intermarriage, Camp Blue Star, the journal in which he has made daily entries since 1932, and the Walterboro congregation and how it acquired a Jewish section in the local cemetery. He also describes his service in the army during World War II and his role in the Battle of the Bulge, in which he lost a leg in an attempt to rescue two American soldiers. Note: the transcript contains corrections made by Sam’s daughter Gale Messerman.

62. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Leona Novit Siegel and Paul Siegel

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Leona Novit Siegel and Paul Siegel
Date:
4/9/1996
Description:
Leona Novit Siegel, joined by her son, Paul, discusses her relatives, the Zalins, the Novits, and the Bogoslows, and identifies the subjects of family photos during the interview. She was born and raised in Walterboro, South Carolina, where her father, Albert Novit, ran a general merchandise store before opening the Lady Lafayette Hotel, popular with honeymooners and tourists driving between New York and Florida. Albert, who was president of the Walterboro Chamber of Commerce, was known for his enthusiastic promotion of his adopted hometown as a great place to visit and to live. He persuaded traveler Arthur Bauer to put down roots and open the Lady Lafayette Grill, a restaurant to complement his hotel. He also convinced Leona’s husband, Sam Siegel, to move to Walterboro from Anderson, South Carolina. Leona’s maternal grandparents, Hyman and Anna Barth Zalin, emigrated from Russia and settled in Walterboro where they established a dry goods business. Anna’s sister, who had married a Bogoslow, followed. The Novits also emigrated from Eastern Europe, but made Charleston, South Carolina, their home. Leona describes how she met and married Sam, and recounts how she received news of the injuries Sam sustained in the Battle of the Bulge. Note: the transcript contains corrections made by Leona’s daughter Gale Messerman.

63. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Gordan Stine

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Gordan Stine
Date:
2/19/1996
Description:
In this interview Gordan Stine recalls that his maternal grandmother, Annie Gorse Pinosky, a widow of Polish descent with three children, moved to Charleston, South Carolina, circa 1911, from Fall River, Massachusetts. Sam Banov, a Charleston cousin, had arranged for her to marry King Street merchant Joseph Baron, an emigrant from Poland and widower with two children. In 1922 Annie’s daughter Helen Pinosky married Abraham Stein (Steinhauser), who was born in New York, a son of Austrian immigrants. Stein made his living designing advertisements and setting up displays for stores, and moved the family from Charleston to New Jersey when Gordan was twelve and his sister, Lenora, was eleven. Helen saw the move, which broke up her home, as bad luck, and, relying on numerology, changed the spelling of the family name to Stine. After a move to New York, and back to New Jersey, the Stines returned to Charleston in 1939. Gordan graduated from the College of Charleston in 1944, the same year he enlisted in the marines. He joined the reserves after he was released from active duty in 1945, and earned his dental degree from Emory University in 1950. Called again to active duty the following year, he and his new wife, Barbara Berlinsky, also from Charleston, were stationed for two years in their home town, where they stayed after discharge and raised their two sons, Steven and Robert. Gordan experienced no antisemitism directed at him personally while growing up in Charleston, but he discusses discrimination against Jews in general, touching on John Buhler’s tenure as dean of the dental school at the Medical University of South Carolina. Note: the transcript includes comments made by the interviewee during proofing.

64. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hersh M. Galinsky

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Hersh M. Galinsky
Date:
11/24/1996
Description:
Rabbi Hersh M. Galinsky, discusses the controversy that surrounded the establishment of a suburban minyan house during his tenure (1963 to 1970) at the Orthodox Brith Sholom Beth Israel, in Charleston, South Carolina. He also addresses the current—at the time of the interview—debate regarding moving the synagogue from its downtown location to West Ashley, where a majority of its members live.

65. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ida Ginsberg

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ida Ginsberg
Date:
3/23/1996
Description:
Ida Berry Ginsberg, in an interview with her nephew’s wife, Cydney G. Berry, discusses the Berry (Berzin or Berzinsky) family history, with a focus on her father, Barnett Berry, who emigrated from Russia around 1892. After spending two years in New York, he moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he opened B. Berry’s, a shoe repair and sales shop on Assembly Street. He married Annie Levine and they raised seven children. Ida recalls that the family observed the Sabbath at home, with only the men attending weekly services at House of Peace Synagogue. She remembers the Depression, but notes that it did not negatively affect her family’s welfare.

66. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Louis Decimus Rubin, Jr.

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Louis Decimus Rubin, Jr.
Date:
1996-11-11
Description:
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.

67. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sonia Truere Rothschild

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sonia Truere Rothschild
Date:
1996-04-24
Description:
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.

68. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sonia Truere Rothschild

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Sonia Truere Rothschild
Date:
1996-04-17
Description:
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.

69. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Melvin Solomon, Judith Mendell Solomon, Naomi Solomon Friedman, Morris Friedman, and Frances Solomon Jacobson

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Melvin Solomon, Judith Mendell Solomon, Naomi Solomon Friedman, Morris Friedman, and Frances Solomon Jacobson
Date:
1996-05-28
Description:
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).

70. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mathilde Ezratty Lehem

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mathilde Ezratty Lehem
Date:
1996-02-12
Description:
Mathilde Ezratty Lehem, was born in 1916 to Rachel Ezratty and Saady Ezratty, members of two separate Ezratty families who were part of the large community of Sephardic Jews living in Salonika, Greece. Mathilde talks briefly about life in the northern port city, where she and her younger brother, Alfred, lived comfortably with their parents and attended a Jewish school staffed by teachers who had been trained in France. Saady worked in insurance and Rachel's brothers sold crystal and fine fabrics. Jewish-owned shops closed on Saturdays, a practice that ended forcibly sometime after Hitler came to power in Germany. Saady took this change as a sign it was time for the family to leave Salonika. Around the mid-1930s (Mathilde admits she is not good with dates), Rachel and Saady acquired traveler's visas and, with Mathilde and Alfred, boarded a ship bound for Mandatory Palestine, where Saady's brother lived. Rachel's brothers, believing they would not come to harm, stayed in Greece. Mathilde never saw them again and assumes they, like many of Salonika's Jews, were sent to the gas chambers. Mathilde notes that living conditions in British-controlled Palestine were harsh, a stark contrast to their life in Greece. When she was about twenty, she married a man (Lehem) she had known for a month. The marriage was troubled from the start and never during the interview does Mathilde utter his first name. She moved with him to Aden, then a British colony, where he had a business. A year or two after they wed, daughter Florette was born. As fighting in nearby East Africa intensified, the Lehems decided, in 1940 or '41, to move to Shanghai, based partly on the advice of a ship captain. Another draw: Mr. Lehem's sister lived there. Mathilde recalls that in, possibly, early 1942, they were among the British and American civilians living in Shanghai who were interned in camps by the city's Japanese occupiers. She describes the living conditions where they were held for three and a half years and mentions how they and other Jewish prisoners celebrated their first Passover. The interviewee spends considerable time on health problems she experienced while in Shanghai, most while being held in the camp. She discusses her symptoms and the treatment she received, which included hospitalizations. Once freed, Mathilde sought a way to return to her parents in Palestine. She held a British passport, but passage to Palestine was denied. An American doctor who was a fellow detainee, helped her obtain a United States visa so she and Florette could seek out her paternal aunt in New York. To Mathilde's relief, her husband stayed in Shanghai. Mathilde recounts how she and Florette made their way from Shanghai to San Francisco to family in Queens. She required lengthy hospitalization once in New York. Seeing that Mathilde's illness was going to be protracted and Florette needed a parent, a member of the family tracked down Mr. Lehem and arranged for his entry to the United States, unaware that Mathilde wanted nothing to do with him. The reunited Lehem family settled in Manhattan and, after Florette was grown, Mathilde managed to escape the bad marriage. Florette married Isaac "Ike" Ryba and they later moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Mathilde followed in 1970. See Mss. 1035-056 for Mathilde's second of two interviews. For a related collection, see copies of her family photos in the Inventory of the Holocaust Archives Field Researchers Collection, Mss. 1065-049.

71. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Yospe Mark

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Rose Yospe Mark
Date:
1996-11-07
Description:
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.

72. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mathilde Ezratty Lehem

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Mathilde Ezratty Lehem
Date:
1996-02-27
Description:
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.

73. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Joseph Read

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Joseph Read
Date:
1996-09-22
Description:
Joseph Read was born in 1904 in Pinopolis, South Carolina, to Fredericka "Fanny" Lief and Frank Read (Redt), who emigrated from the Baltic States to America in the late 1800s. They followed a cousin by the name of Behrman to South Carolina, living in Oakley first, then neighboring Moncks Corner, where they opened a store that sold everything from dry goods to groceries to coffins. Joseph remembers his father's financial status fluctuated a good bit over the years. Frank was also a cotton factor and invested in real estate. In 1912, he opened another store roughly thirty miles to the south, in Charleston, South Carolina, partnering in the five and dime business with Mendel Dumas, who had married Frank's sister Esther. Joseph recalls the family relocating to Charleston when he was about ten years old. They lived on Smith Street at first, but around 1918 or so, they moved into a new home built by his father at 60 Murray Boulevard. By then, Frank was sole owner of the business at 593 King Street, which later became known as Read Brothers. Joseph talks about growing up in Moncks Corner and Charleston. The family belonged to Brith Sholom, one of two Orthodox synagogues in the city. When he was about 18 years old, Joseph joined Reform congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, noting he preferred services that were conducted in English and included music. While attending College of Charleston, Joseph helped to organize an Upsilon Chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi. He talks about his siblings, Dan, Riva, Ludwig, and Paul, two of whom married Christians, and his wife, Florence Panitz of Aiken, South Carolina. The interviewee and his brother Dan took over the business "after my father had another one of his bad years." Joseph discusses how the store changed over the years?his son Tommy followed in his footsteps?and reminisces about other nearby businesses. Rosemary "Binky" Read Cohen joins her father in this interview. For a related oral history, see the 1996 interview with Abe Dumas, Mss. 1035-102.

74. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with James Strom Thurmond

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with James Strom Thurmond
Date:
1996-10-11
Description:
Senator James Strom Thurmond, born in 1903 in Edgefield, South Carolina, was a circuit judge when he volunteered for the U.S. Army during World War II. He landed in France on D-Day and was injured, but rejoined combat. His unit ended up in Leipzig, Germany, and the Senator describes what he saw when they entered Buchenwald concentration camp. "Men were stacked up like cordwood. They were ten or twelve feet high. You couldn't tell whether they were living or dead. . . . Everything I saw was distressing to me." The Senator briefly discusses the topic of religious freedom.

75. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ethel Oberman Katzen

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Ethel Oberman Katzen
Date:
1996-07-31
Description:
Ethel Oberman Katzen, the youngest of seven children, was born in 1920 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Sarah Kapner and Isaac Oberman. Isaac, a Polish immigrant, arrived in the United States in 1906, and Sarah, who hailed from Galicia, followed him six months later. They settled in Charleston on the recommendation of Sarah's father, who often traveled to the United States, collecting money for yeshivas and orphanages back in the Old Country. Ethel reports that her father brought his two brothers, Harry and Max, and his brother-in-law Aaron Meyer Firetag to Charleston in 1913. Isaac peddled first and later went into business with his brother Harry. After the partnership was dissolved, Isaac and Sarah moved, children in tow, to Detroit, Michigan. Ethel was not quite four years old. Isaac drove a truck and then ran a furniture store. Ethel recalls other Oberman family members following them to Detroit and opening stores in the Polish neighborhood there. The family returned to Charleston when Ethel was nearly ten. Isaac opened a furniture store on King Street and became a notary public, serving a largely black clientele. The Obermans were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in Charleston that Isaac had helped organize in 1911. Ethel describes her father's service to the synagogue, including his role as secretary, recording the minutes in "Jewish" [i.e. Yiddish]. She shares her memories of the first Beth Israel building at 145 St. Philip Street and the Daughters of Israel Hall at 64 St. Philip Street, a couple of doors down from Brith Sholom, Charleston's other Orthodox congregation. Ethel discusses the differences between Beth Israel and Brith Sholom and remembers the Torah procession in 1955 when Brith Sholom moved into Beth Israel's Rutledge Avenue synagogue, following an agreement to merge. Other topics covered by the interviewee include: the Kalushiner Society; the Mazo family; how her family celebrated the Jewish holidays; how she and her friends spent their time as teens, including occasions when they mingled with their peers from K.K. Beth Elohim, the Reform congregation; her father's role in Charleston's civil defense during World War II; and the founding of Emanu-El, Charleston's first Conservative synagogue. See Mss. 1035-149 for a second interview with Katzen, dated May 28, 1997. For the Ethel Oberman Katzen papers, see Mss. 1034-027, in Special Collections.

76. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Lucille Schoenberg Greenly

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Lucille Schoenberg Greenly
Date:
1996-11-09
Description:
Lucille Schoenberg Greenly was born in 1919 in Savannah, Georgia, and raised, from the time she was a young girl, in Beaufort, South Carolina. In this interview, she offers information on the emigration of the Schoenbergs (Schoenberger) from Latvia to Atlanta, Georgia, and the Goldbergs (Zakon) from Russia to Boston, Massachusetts. The eldest child of Gertrude Goldberg and Leopold Schoenberg, she relates how her parents met in Atlanta at the wedding of a mutual cousin, a member of the Lichtenstein family. While newlyweds Gertrude and Leopold were living in Savannah, Leopold started a scrap metal business, often traveling to Beaufort to take advantage of post-World War I military equipment sales on Parris Island, home to a marine recruit depot. Among the salvaged items he bought were large ovens, which led to his next business venture, Beaufort Home Bakery, established in 1924 in the Schoenbergs' new hometown of Beaufort. Lucille describes operations at the bakery, where she worked after school, and the variety of products they sold. She discusses her younger siblings, Melvin, Julian, Arthur, and Gwendolyn; Passover Seders at their home; attending Hebrew school; memories of her grandparents; and her mother's cooking. Gertrude kept a kosher home; Lucille recalls that when she was a child, there was a kosher butcher shop on Craven Street, next door to the rabbi's house. The interviewee talks about the African Americans who worked in the Schoenberg home, and considers the nature of the family's relationship with them.

77. Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Frederica Weinberg Kronsberg

Jewish Heritage Collection: Oral history interview with Frederica Weinberg Kronsberg
Date:
1996-11-13
Description:
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.

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