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.
Sidney Rittenberg, born in 1921, talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina. He relates memories of his parents, Muriel Sluth (Slutsky) and Sidney Rittenberg, Sr., and his older sister, Elinor, who married Art Weinberger, also of Charleston. The interviewee’s paternal grandfather, Samuel Oscar Rittenberg (1867–1932) emigrated from Lithuania and, after living in New York for a time, ended up in Charleston working in real estate with Triest & Israel. Samuel served as president of Brith Sholom Synagogue and was a South Carolina state legislator. Sidney Sr. was a reporter for the News and Courier before becoming a self-taught attorney, partnering with Louis Shimel in the law firm Shimel & Rittenberg. He was a Charleston City Councilman, active in local civic clubs, and associated with many prominent Charlestonians of his day. Although his parents often attended Shabbat services at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Charleston’s Reform synagogue, the interviewee notes that they didn’t observe the High Holidays. Growing up, Sidney had Jewish and non-Jewish friends. He says, “I didn’t really like being Jewish because it separated me from the other kids. . . . I thought, ‘I’m an American. Why should I be anything else?’” Sidney noticed tension between the Reform Jews and the Orthodox Jews. “People looked down on each other because they weren’t strict enough or they were too strict.” He describes instances of antisemtism; portrays an African-American man who made baskets and wove figures like dolls and ships; and recalls enjoying children’s programs offered by The Charleston Museum. The interviewee discusses an incident that deeply affected him as a fourteen-year-old; he witnessed the unjust treatment of a black man by the police and was powerless to stop it. See also Sidney’s second interview with Dale Rosengarten on June 19, 2013, and his two interviews with cousin Deborah Lipman Cochelin on July 27, 2013, and October 27, 2013.
Carolee Rosen Fox, born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, relates some of her Charleston family history. Her maternal great-grandparents, Caroline Goldstein and Isaac Belitzer, lived at 344 East Bay Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Carolee describes the home, known as the John Falls Walker House. It was passed down in the family to her great-aunt Gertrude Belitzer who, in turn, left it to the interviewee’s mother, Selina Leidloff, daughter of Blanche Belitzer and photographer Herman Leidloff. The house, featured in the Historic American Building Survey collection in the Library of Congress, was torn down in 1961. Carolee briefly discusses how her mother, Selina, met her father, Abe Rosen, a New York dress manufacturer.
Sidney Rittenberg, in this follow up to his interview on June 17, 2013, recalls his initial encounters with the idea of Communism. While attending Porter Military Academy, the school chaplain, Reverend William W. Lumpkin, got Sidney’s attention when he stated, “There are people working in little Communist cells around the South, secretly, for equality and justice that are Communists and they don’t consider themselves Christians, but the lives they lead are like Christian lives.” As a teen Sidney was exposed to “socialists, communists, anarchists, everything imaginable liberal,” when he spent a summer at the New Jersey resort run by his maternal grandparents, Martin and Sadie Sluth (Slutsky). “I was struck by the fact that the one who was a Communist, who was a lawyer, was very reasonable and seemed to make a lot of sense to me.” While attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rittenberg volunteered to teach local mill workers how to read and write, and he began working with unions in Durham, North Carolina. Sidney also joined the American Student Union, eventually becoming president of the left-wing campus organization. In 1940, Sidney left school. By that time he had joined the Communist Party [CP] in defiance of a federal investigation of the college’s president, Dr. Frank Porter Graham, “on charges of Communist sympathy.” Sidney traveled to New York and to his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, to collect CP dues and renew contact with members. The interviewee describes his experiences as a trade union organizer in High Point and Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and his work on behalf of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union [SCU] in the early 1940s. Rittenberg and interviewer Dale Rosengarten share stories about union organizer Clyde Johnson and labor organizer Claude Williams. Dale’s fieldwork for her undergraduate thesis on the SCU led her husband, Theodore Rosengarten, to record the story of a black tenant farmer named Ned Cobb, and produce a book called All God’s Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, which won the National Book Award in 1974. Sidney describes how his union organizing for R. J. Reynolds workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, led to him being drafted into the army shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, despite being rejected earlier because of poor eyesight. Rittenberg outlines his service in the U.S. Army, particularly while stationed in China, beginning around the time of the Japanese surrender in 1945. Serving as a claims investigator for the army and, later, after his discharge in January 1946, serving as a famine relief observer for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration [UNRRA], he witnessed the inner workings of Chinese society. “These people were not only in the grip of a terrible backward oppressive system . . . they accepted it as fate, as proper. . . . That’s the great thing that Mao and the Chinese Communists did; they broke up that concept of fate, that you can’t do anything about it, and they made people feel that they could do something.” Sidney joined the CP in China and contributed by supplying books, helping people who were in danger leave the area, and providing whatever assistance was needed. He notes the difference between the CP in the U.S. and the CP in China. After leaving UNRRA, Sidney, intending to head home to the U.S., instead met CP leader Zhou Enlai and General Nie Rongzhen, who offered Sidney a job helping the CP reach out to the American people. Sidney touches on how he coped with being imprisoned in China for more than a dozen years. Imprisonment and solitary confinement “didn’t change me . . . because I believed in the principles. I believed we were working for a better world and there was nothing better to do than that.” He comments on the positive reception he received when he returned to the U.S. in 1980, and notes that “I didn’t really turn from Marxism/Leninism until about a year after I got out of prison the second time. Then I began reexamining basic premises.” In 1993, he co-authored with Amanda Bennett the story of his life in China, The Man Who Stayed Behind. See also two more interviews with Sidney Rittenberg, conducted by his cousin Deborah Lipman Cochelin on July 27, 2013, and October 27, 2013.
Sidney Rittenberg talks a second time with cousin Deborah Lipman Cochelin in follow-up to their recording session on July 27, 2013. Some of the interview covers the same ground as Sidney’s June 17 and June 19, 2013, interviews with Dale Rosengarten, including stories about his family; the unjust treatment of an African American by Charleston, South Carolina, policemen in the mid-1930s; and Rittenberg’s experiences living and working in China. Sidney attended Sunday school at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE), the Reform synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, and relates his memories of KKBE’s Rabbi Jacob Raisin. When he was about fourteen years old, Sidney met Joseph Nelson Mease, a College of Charleston freshman from Canton, North Carolina. Mease introduced Sidney to topics in natural science and historic figures like Charles Darwin. “The main effect that Joe Mease had on me was that I immediately declared myself an atheist.” Sidney describes his after-school activities, family vacations, and how he befriended medical school students and helped them with their studies while he was still in high school. He discusses why he chose to pursue his college degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, instead of taking advantage of a full scholarship to Princeton. For graduate studies, he was sent to Stanford University by the U.S. Army to study Chinese language, politics, culture, history, and anthropology. In September 1945, Rittenberg was assigned to the army’s claims department in the judge advocate’s office in Kunming, China. While in China, he observed that the foreigners who were allowed into the country between 1946 and 1966 came from all over the world and the vast majority were Jewish. “Why? Because, like me, they grew up with, first of all, a natural affinity for oppressed people.”
Ira Rosenberg was born in New York City in 1937, eight years after his brother, Monte, to Bessie Lipschutz and Alan Rosenberg. The family moved to Richmond, Virginia, in the early 1940s, where Ira grew up in the midst of a sizable Jewish community. The Rosenbergs were Orthodox but Ira says his parents “were not very active” in the local synagogue. However, Alan insisted Ira go to shul every Saturday morning and attend Hebrew school in preparation for his bar mitzvah. Ira is joined in this interview by his wife, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, originally of Sumter, South Carolina. They married in 1963 while Ira was serving in the United States Air Force. Ultimately, they moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where they raised their children, David, Virginia, and Mindelle. Ira describes his career as a pharmacist after he was discharged from the military in 1966. In the 1980s he changed professions and opened his own business as a realtor and real estate appraiser, Rosenberg & Associates. Ira and Anita discuss changes in Reform Judaism and in their synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. They talk about Rabbi Stephanie Alexander, KKBE’s first female rabbi, and the degree of acceptance extended to lesbian and gay members by the rabbi and the congregation. Anita recalls being on the national commission of a program begun in the 1970s by Rabbi Alexander Schindler, a former president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The program, called Outreach, was designed to encourage acceptance and inclusion of intermarried couples and their families. See also a follow-up interview (Mss. 1035-461) with the Rosenbergs, conducted on November 4, 2016.
Sidney Rittenberg, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1921, is interviewed by Deborah Lipman Cochelin, whose great-grandmother Rachel Rittenberg Sanders was a sister of Sidney’s grandfather Samuel Oscar Rittenberg. Sidney tells stories about his parents, Muriel Sluth (Slutsky) and Sidney Rittenberg, Sr., and his sister Elinor Rittenberg Weinberger. He talks about growing up in Charleston, including the schools he attended and the friends he made. A good bit of the narrative is similar in content to his June 17, 2013 interview with Dale Rosengarten. The cousins recall several members of their extended family and Sidney describes time spent as a child on Sullivan’s Island. See also Sidney Rittenberg’s other interviews on June 19, 2013 and October 27, 2013.
In this follow-up to their June 23, 2016, interview (Mss. 1035-452), Ira and Anita Rosenberg talk about their children and grandchildren and how they observed Judaism as a family when the children were growing up. Ira notes that he was a co-founder of Dragon Boat Charleston, served on the boards of Charleston Jewish Community Center and Charleston Jewish Federation, and is a past president of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. He discusses the benefits of Jewish community centers, his thoughts on the recent transition of the local center to one without walls, and his feelings about the presence of Chabad in the area.
In this brief interview, Henry Berlin, a son of Charleston, South Carolina, natives Sam and Bertie Livingstain Berlin, describes growing up in the coastal city where his grandfather, Henry Berlinsky, a Polish immigrant, opened a dry goods store on lower King Street in the 1880s. The family name was changed from Berlinsky to Berlin when Sam Berlin and his brother took over the store. Their father, an observant Jew, did not want his name to be associated with a business that opened on the Sabbath. Sam was active in political and civic affairs, and was one of the first Jewish Charlestonians to become a member of the St. Andrews Society, a charitable organization. A big sports fan, he owned Charleston minor league baseball teams and supported local boxing matches. Henry notes that they were one of the few Jewish families living south of Broad Street and, as a result, most of his friends were gentiles. Nevertheless, the Berlins attended the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom, and Sam led the effort to merge Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. Henry mentions the split that occurred prior to the merger, resulting in the creation of Emanu-El, Charleston’s Conservative congregation. Note: the transcript contains additions and corrections made by Henry during proofing.
Morris Rosen is joined by his cousin Dorothy “Dutch” Idalin Gelson Cohen and her husband, Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen, in this interview. Morris’s son Robert is also present as interviewer and videographer. Morris, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1919, was one of four children of Annie Blatt and Sol Rosen. Sol and his siblings, including Dutch’s parents, Zelda Rosen and Louis Gelson, emigrated from Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century, following their older sister Ida and her husband, David Goldberg, to Poughkeepsie, New York, where Dutch was born in 1919. The cousins talk about the Rosen (Rachelkin) and Gelson (Getchen) families of Poughkeepsie and their ancestors in Russia. Morris briefly mentions his maternal grandparents, Mamie Wildman and Morris Blatt, who ran a bakery in Columbia, South Carolina, before moving to Charleston. Morris and Dutch describe how the Rosens wound up in Charleston. Their uncle Sam Rosen moved to the area from Poughkeepsie for reasons unknown and opened a store in Awendaw, a small settlement about twenty-five miles north of Charleston. In about 1919, Sol Rosen and Zelda and Louis Gelson followed and bought an established country store from a member of the Geraty family in Yonges Island, nearly twenty miles south of Charleston. Louis died within a year, and Sol sold his interest in the store to Zelda, who moved the business and her three children to Meeting Street in Charleston after a few years. Sol was in the grocery business and later opened liquor stores. Morris traces his father’s moves from Yonges Island to King and Romney streets in Charleston, to the town of Meggett, and back to Charleston at King and Race streets. Morris and Dutch discuss growing up in Charleston in an area of the city where there were no other Jewish families. They did not experience antisemitism and Morris blended easily with the Catholic teens who lived nearby. The cousins did connect with other Jewish children when they frequented the neighborhoods around the synagogues and while attending religious school. They didn’t notice any friction between Charleston’s Reform and Orthodox Jews and played with children from both groups. Dutch was confirmed and Morris became a bar mitzvah at Brith Sholom on St. Philip Street. The two consider the degree to which their parents were observant Jews and speculate as to why their parents and others of their generation did or did not adhere to certain Jewish traditions. Mordecai “Mortie” Cohen was born in 1916 in St. Matthews, South Carolina, where his father, Isaac, ran a dry goods store and two farms. All the general merchandisers in St. Matthews while Mortie and his two brothers were growing up were Jewish. They met for High Holiday services in the town’s Masonic temple and were joined by families from Orangeburg, Ehrhardt, and Elloree. Most of Mortie’s friends were Christians; he doesn’t remember experiencing any antisemitism in St. Matthews. Mortie recalls how he came to know the Rosens, and he and Morris describe the role of the drummers, or sales reps, who visited retail storeowners when their fathers were in business. Morris talks about how he met his wife, Ida Tanenbaum. Her brother Lou Tanenbaum came to Charleston and opened a clothing store with his brother-in-law Louis Lesser. Morris, an ensign in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, was assigned to a LST (Landing Ship, Tank) in the Pacific. The group discusses what they and other American Jews knew about what was happening to Jews in Europe under Hitler.
Leon Banov, Jr., a retired proctologist at the time of this interview, was the grandson of Alexander Banov, an emigrant from Poland who ran a dry goods store in Red Top, South Carolina, a small, rural community a few miles from Charleston. Alexander’s son, Leon Sr., who was eight years old when he arrived in America, attended Charleston’s Orthodox synagogue, Brith Sholom, but received his confirmation instruction from Ellen de Castro Williams, a woman of Sephardic ancestry and member of the Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE). Leon Jr. credits her with starting the first Orthodox Sunday school in South Carolina, and his father was a member of its first confirmation class. To show his appreciation for Mrs. WiIliams’s efforts, Leon Sr. gave her a napkin holder shaped as a deer from his family’s modest collection of silver pieces. She, in turn, gave the napkin ring to Leon Sr.’s son, the interviewee, upon the occasion of his bar mitzvah. Thus began a tradition whereby the deer is passed down alternately to a descendant of the Banov and Williams families as a gift to a new bar or bat mitzvah. Leon Sr., a pharmacist and an M.D., became the first health director of the Charleston County Health Department in 1920, a position he held for forty-one years. He recorded his experiences in As I recall: the story of the Charleston County Health Department. He married Minnie Monash, whose family was from Germany and practiced Reform Judaism. The couple raised their three children in the Reform tradition and attended KKBE. Leon Jr. discusses his siblings and reports that he did not experience any antisemitism growing up. He organized the first cub scout pack in Charleston and received several honors for his involvement in and promotion of the Boy Scouts of America, including the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award in 1989. His numerous contributions to the medical community include serving on an advisory panel for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and acting as chairman of the Charleston County Board of Health. He also recalls certain former KKBE rabbis and describes how he met his wife, Rita Landesman. Note: the transcript contains comments made by members of the Banov family during proofing.
Cousins Max Furchgott and Dale Dreyfoos review their family history. Dale's maternal grandmother Lillian Furchgott married Pincus LeRoy Pinkussohn (he changed the spelling of the family name to Pinkerson during World War II), whose grandfather settled in Charleston, South Carolina, around 1850. Lillian's father, Herman Furchgott, and his brother Max, grandfather of interviewee Max, opened a dry goods store on King Street in Charleston in the 1860s. Max describes growing up in Charleston and recalls the moves his family made during the Great Depression to Orangeburg, South Carolina; Goldsboro, North Carolina; and Florence, South Carolina, before returning to Charleston. The Furchgotts have been members of Reform Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) since the first generation in Charleston. Max discusses the conflict that arose among members of the congregation in the 1960s during Rabbi Burton Padoll's tenure, and notes how KKBE has changed over the years. Max married Marcelle Kleinzahler and they raised three children in Charleston. Both interviewees discuss Jewish identity - Max, in terms of how he believes his children view themselves, and Dale, in terms of his relationship to his ancestors. Dale tells the story of his great-great-grandparents fleeing Atlanta during the Civil War in anticipation of General Sherman's arrival with Union troops. Other family surnames mentioned in the interview include Brown, Sorentrue, Foote, Ritzwoller, and Dreyfoos. For related information, see also Marcelle Furchgott's May 14, 2014 interview, Robert Furchgott's February 28, 2001 and April 18, 2001 interviews, the Arthur C. Furchgott papers (Mss 1043), and Furchgott and Brothers department store newspaper advertisement, 1910 (Mss 1034-090), Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
Stanley Karesh grew up in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s and ’30s. His family kept kosher and attended Brith Sholom. Stanley describes the shoe store his grandfather Charles Karesh built at 545 King Street. Charles immigrated with his wife, Sarah Orlinsky Karesh, to Charleston, circa 1878, from their hometown of Trestina (Trzcianne), in Polish Russia. They operated a store in the small town of Greeleyville, South Carolina, for a few years before returning with their growing family to Charleston, eager to live in a larger Jewish community. Stanley refers to a number of Charleston families, including Rittenberg, Friedman, Bielsky, Barshay, Kaminski, Jacobs, Banov, Livingstain, and Pearlstine, many of whom are related to the Kareshes. He also mentions his maternal grandparents, Harry and Anna Smolensky Feinberg, and cousin Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia. Stanley attended dental school in Baltimore, where he met Charlot Marks. The couple married in 1945 in her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. They raised three daughters in Charleston, and they were one of the first families to move to South Windermere, a subdivision west of the Ashley River. Stanley discusses the changes over time in relations between members of the Orthodox and the Reform synagogues and between the two Orthodox congregations, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel. He and Charlot, the youngest charter members of Conservative Synagogue Emanu-El, which broke away from Brith Sholom in 1947, recount its origins and offer their view of how its members differed from the Orthodox congregants from whom they split.
Melvin Jacobs and Rose Wexler Jacobs, audio interview by Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum and Ruth Bass Jacobs, 14 January 1998, Mss 1035-172, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Melvin Jacobs reminisces about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father, Louis Jacobs, ran a shoe store on King Street. The Jacobs family attended the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom and observed Shabbos, although around 1913 Louis began opening his shop on Saturdays. Melvin was drafted into the marines at age thirty-four; he served in the supply corps, stateside, from 1943–45. In 1947 he married Rose Wexler of Savannah, the daughter of Romanian immigrants. They raised four children in Charleston. Melvin, who joined Louis in the family business, describes how his father made the switch from selling shoes to selling hosiery. The couple discusses the schism at Brith Sholom that produced the Conservative congregation, Emanu-El; the merger of the two Orthodox synagogues, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel; and their involvement in the establishment of the Jewish day school, Charleston Hebrew Institute. Note: this is the second of two interviews; the first was in 1997 (Mss. 1035-139). For several related collections, search for “Pearlstine” in Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
William Ackerman, an attorney and the developer of South Windermere subdivision in the West Ashley section of Charleston, South Carolina, recounts how he obtained the land, and who was involved in the design, construction, and sale of homes. After building began in the early 1950s, he decided a one-stop shopping center would be a useful addition, so he convinced Woolworth, A&P grocery, and Belk department store to serve as anchors. A number of local shop owners, despite widespread skepticism, moved their operations from downtown Charleston to the new suburban South Windermere Shopping Center, the first of its kind in the area. The residential-commercial venture was a tremendous success. Ackerman describes negotiations he held with major tenants, and recalls many of the businesses that have occupied space in the center. He also discusses the development, by Edward Kronsberg, and the demise of Pinehaven Shopping Center, in North Charleston. See also Mss. 1035-101, Special Collections, Addlestone Library, for William Ackerman’s December 5, 1996 interview.
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.
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.
Flossie Ginsberg Arnold and her son, Norman Arnold, discuss their family history. Flossie and her parents, Isaac and Pauline Ginsberg, immigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Russia around 1908, when Flossie was about one year old. Flossie recalls living on Hanover Street in the neighborhood they referred to as “Little Mexico,” where her family owned a small grocery store. Ultimately, the Ginsbergs moved to a home on Ashley Avenue and Isaac opened I. Ginsberg, Inc., on Meeting Street, selling cigars, candy, and notions. Flossie was working behind the cash register when her future husband, Ben Arnold, walked in. Charleston was a port of call for the Clyde Line steamer Ben was taking to New York from Florida, where he operated drugstores in Lake Worth and West Palm Beach. Flossie and Ben married in 1928 and shortly after, moved from Florida to Charleston, lured by the presence of family and a Jewish community, and Isaac’s offer to include Ben in the family business. Isaac and Ben developed a wholesale tobacco and drugstore enterprise with locations in several South Carolina cities, including Columbia, the state capital. Ben ran the Columbia store, which they expanded to include liquor. Around 1940 Flossie, Ben, and their son, Arnold, moved to the capital city, and in the mid-’40s, Isaac and Ben split up the business, Isaac keeping the tobacco distributorship, and Ben assuming full control of the liquor operation.
Robert Francis Furchgott, born in 1916 in Charleston, South Carolina, the second of three sons of Philapena Sorentrue and Arthur Furchgott, talks about growing up in downtown Charleston. The Furchgotts lived below Broad Street and were members of Reform temple Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. It wasn't until Robert joined Boy Scout Troop 21, the Jewish troop, that he met and made friends with Orthodox Jewish boys from uptown. In regard to the organization of the Scouts, he observes that "in Charleston it seemed to be by churches." Summer classes and field trips sponsored by the Charleston Museum that sparked Robert's interest in nature stand out in his memory as among his most gratifying early experiences. He estimates that when his family moved inland about seventy-five miles to Philapena's hometown of Orangeburg in the summer of 1929, there were about five Jewish families living there. Services and the Sunday school were run by lay leaders, with the guidance of a rabbi who visited once a month. Furchgott recalls that Orangeburg's Christians and Jews mixed socially and there was just one Boy Scout troop for the small city. After struggling financially in Orangeburg for a year, the Furchgotts moved to Goldsboro, North Carolina. A year later they moved again, this time to Florence, South Carolina. Robert discusses his family history, in particular, his paternal grandfather, Max Furchgott, who came to Charleston circa 1865, and his maternal great-grandfather, Simon Brown, who settled in Blackville, South Carolina, around 1849. See Mss. 1035-256 for a follow-up to this interview. For related information, see also Marcelle Furchgott's May 14, 2014 interview, Max Furchgott's July 14, 1995 interview, the Arthur C. Furchgott papers (Mss 1043), and Furchgott and Brothers department store newspaper advertisement, 1910 (Mss 1034-090), Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
In a follow-up to his first interview on February 28, 2001 (Mss. 1035-252), Robert Furchgott resumes discussion of his family's moves from the time they left North Carolina for Florence, South Carolina, where Robert's father, Arthur, ran a women's clothing store, until the late 1930s, when the Furchgotts moved back to Charleston. Robert recalls his experiences at Orangeburg High School, University of South Carolina, and University of North Carolina (UNC). Pursuing a passion he had had since he was a child, he earned a degree in chemistry from UNC in 1937 and, three years later, a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Northwestern University in Chicago. He attended the Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology as a graduate student and notes a number of important connections he made there in the field of biochemistry. In 1940 Robert launched his career as a research scientist in the laboratory at Cornell University Medical College in New York, moving on to the pharmacology department at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis nine years later. He provides a summary of the research for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1998. It began at Cornell while studying circulatory shock, and progressed, ultimately, to identifying nitric oxide as the endothelium-derived relaxing factor in blood vessels. He describes how accidental findings played a role in his discoveries. While efforts to develop a drug for angina based on Robert's research failed, the medication sildenafil citrate was found to be useful in treating erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Robert describes his visit, accompanied by family and friends, to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize. Robert married Lenore Mandelbaum of New York in 1941, and they raised three daughters. After Lenore's death in 1983, Robert married family friend Maggie Roth. For related information, see also Marcelle Furchgott's May 14, 2014 interview, Max Furchgott's July 14, 1995 interview, the Arthur C. Furchgott papers (Mss 1043), and Furchgott and Brothers department store newspaper advertisement, 1910 (Mss 1034-090), Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.
Melvin Jacobs and Rose Wexler Jacobs, audio interview by Michael Samuel Grossman, 7 March 1997, Mss 1035-139, Special Collections, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.;Melvin Jacobs, born in 1909 in Charleston, South Carolina, discusses his family history. His maternal grandparents, Rebecca Tobish and Louis Charles Pearlstine, settled in Branchville, South Carolina, where they ran a dry goods store. Louis emigrated with Melvin’s paternal grandfather, Isaac Jacobs (Karesh) from Trzcianne, Russia, circa 1852. Melvin’s father, Louis Jacobs, an observant Orthodox Jew, ran a shoe store in Charleston on King Street. Under mounting financial pressure, Louis began opening his store on the Sabbath, a decision that created tension between him and his father, Isaac. Melvin talks about his siblings and his aunts and uncles, specifically his uncle Dr. Kivy Pearlstine, who practiced in Charleston. Melvin married Rose Wexler of Savannah, who joined him in this interview. They recall their courtship and wedding, and Rose touches on the issue of how women dressed for synagogue services in the past and at the time of the interview. Note: for several related collections, search for “Pearlstine” in Special Collections, Addlestone Library, College of Charleston. The Jacobses recorded a second interview in 1998 (Mss. 1035-172).
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.
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.
Samuel "Sam" Appel, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1929, talks about growing up on St. Philip Street in a neighborhood he remembers as predominantly Jewish. Sam and his sister, Faye "Fannie" Rones, who sits in on this interview, describe their parents, Ida Goldberg and Abe Appel (Ubfal), both immigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, and their brothers, Harry and Sidney. Sam recalls his mother performing the Jewish ritual shlug kapores during the High Holidays, and he shares memories of his bar mitzvah and his activities as a member of Boy Scout Troop 21 and Aleph Zadik Aleph. Although the Appels were members of Beth Israel, one of two Orthodox synagogues in town, Sam says "We were not Orthodox," reasoning that while his parents, especially his mother, followed many of the Sabbath rules of observance, they made compromises. For example, Abe and Ida opened their King Street furniture store on Saturdays. The siblings consider the interviewer's question about perceived differences between what some locals call Charleston's Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. Sam, who earned an accounting degree at the University of South Carolina, ultimately settled in Atlanta, Georgia, because there were not enough single Jewish women to date in Charleston. He married Judy Eagle of Montgomery, Alabama, in 1960, and the couple raised three children in Atlanta. Sam became a lawyer after taking night classes at Emory University. He discusses his involvement in the Jewish Georgian, an independent community publication based in the Atlanta area.
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.
Charlotte Saltz Brotman was born in 1901 in Kolbuszowa, Galicia, Austria-Hungary, the youngest of seven children of Miriam Wolfe and Sholom Saltz. Sholom was an egg wholesaler, selling to customers in large cities such as Vienna and Berlin. In this interview conducted by her grandson Stephen, Charlotte talks about growing up in Kolbuszowa, a small city with a significant Jewish population. She has many fond memories of her childhood, recalling wedding and bar mitzvah celebrations. She received a solid secular education, belonged to a Zionist club as a young girl, and attended Hebrew school. Her family was "very religious" and they kept kosher. Both of her brothers and one of her sisters immigrated to the United States prior to World War I. The rest of the family had to evacuate to Czechoslovakia during World War I to avoid encroaching battles. Charlotte recounts the difficulties she faced after the war ended and they returned home. Their house had burned down and her parents died within months of each other, prompting her to join her siblings in New York City in 1921. She describes living and working in Manhattan, and notes that there were plenty of activities to enjoy in her spare time. The interviewee met her husband, Ralph Brotman in New York; they married in 1929 and, two years later, moved to Charleston, South Carolina. Ralph had lived in Charleston previously, running a men's store with his father, Jacob. Charlotte and Ralph opened an army store on King Street, which did a brisk business during World War II, with shipyard workers coming in regularly. After Ralph died in 1946, Charlotte wanted to sell the store, but couldn't get the price she sought. The right offer finally came in 1962. She sold the business and moved to Summerton, South Carolina, where her daughter, Miriam, and her husband, David Gordin, were raising their four children. Charlotte opened The Towne Shoppe, a ladies' dress shop there. The interviewee discusses her support for the State of Israel and its people, and reflects on the accomplishments of her grandchildren, Rachel, Debbie, Danny, and Stephen.
David Moise Rosenberg is joined by his mother, Anita Moise Rosefield Rosenberg, in this interview, recorded in his place of business, West Side Deli, in Charleston, South Carolina. Keeping kosher is the focus of the conversation, a practice that was not observed in the family home when David was growing up in the 1960s and '70s. The Rosenbergs were members of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) in Charleston, which David describes as a "very liberal Reform temple." During his college years, he "had no interest in religion of any sort." His wife, Marcie, who grew up in a Conservative synagogue and wanted to keep kosher, sparked his interest in Judaism. David, a restaurateur, and Marcie, a chef, bought Alex and Lila Lash's kosher meat business and, in January 1992, opened West Side Deli, a market, restaurant, and delicatessen. David talks about their clientele?who they are, and who, among Charleston's Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Jews, are keeping kosher. David explains why he and Marcie think it's important to keep a kosher home, a process that was gradual for them, and he responds to the question, "how [do] you fit being observant in with being religious?" Anita, who grew up in Sumter, South Carolina, in the 1940s and '50s, and received a Classical Reform education at Temple Sinai, notes that she knew "absolutely nothing" about keeping kosher as a child. Her mother's ancestors can be traced in America to the 1700s; the family had been in Sumter for generations and were fully adapted to local foodways. When she was growing up, Anita's family "ate everything." Yet she describes a "very strong Jewish upbringing" and her deep involvement with KKBE, the Jewish Community Center, and other Jewish organizations. She does not keep kosher, but says, "I don't eat anything that walked on four legs." Anita discusses the family history of her husband, Ira Rosenberg, and his preferences in regard to kashrut. She sees that Reform Jews, nationwide, are becoming more traditional. "I think, probably, if Reform had been at the particular stage that it is now, in terms of the traditional trappings, the Conservative Movement would have had a hard time getting a foothold." She and Ira would have loved to settle in Sumter but decided to raise their children in Charleston, where their children "would have a much better chance of being Jewish and having a Jewish social life and marrying Jewish and continuing what was very important to us." For 2019 interviews with Anita, see Mss. 1035-554 and Mss. 1035-555. For Anita's 2016 interviews with her husband, Ira Rosenberg, see Mss. 1035-452 and Mss. 1035-461. For a 1995 interview with Anita's mother, Virginia Moise Rosefield, see Mss. 1035-007.
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 (“Jerryâ€), 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).
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.
Blanche Weintraub Wine and her daughter Dana Wine Johnson discuss how the experiences of Blanche's parents as Holocaust survivors have shaped their lives. Blanche, the oldest of six children, explains how Guta Blas and Leon Weintraub met in Wierzbnik, Poland, where they were incarcerated during World War II, and how they reconnected after liberation and ended up in Charleston, South Carolina. Central to Guta and Leon's story is sixteen-year-old Guta's brazen attack on a German officer just as she and other Jews, including her mother, were about to be shot. The force of Guta's personality is a recurring theme throughout the interview. Blanche recalls her mother telling her she was a replacement for her grandmothers, which she says didn't feel like that much of a burden, "but certainly, I knew there were certain things expected of me." She adds, "I was obligated to be the best I could be because . . . I was the product of two special people." Blanche describes how her parents introduced their memories to her as a young girl in an "age-appropriate" manner, providing greater detail as she got older. She became more emotional about her parents' experiences as an adult, when she was old enough to understand the "depth of suffering." Blanche acknowledges she had difficulty fitting in with Charleston's Jewish community and was lonely at times. She was aware that the other Jewish children were surrounded by extended family, something the Weintraubs were lacking. Dana says her experience is similar to her mother's in that she heard about the Holocaust from a young age and her sensitivity to it increased as she got older. She tells her grandmother's story whenever she is given the opportunity. She believes it's important to keep sharing stories so that the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten as the number of survivors diminishes. Blanche considers her negative feelings toward Poland and the Polish people, while Dana eagerly outlines her plan to visit Poland and retrace her grandparents' steps. 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.
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.
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.
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.
Sydney Solomon Yaschik Richman, born in 1934, the youngest of Mary Rosen and Benjamin Louis Solomon's three daughters, briefly describes why she didn't like growing up in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Her parents, both immigrants from Russia, ran a general store in the small town more than thirty miles north of Charleston from sometime before World War II until 1951. While living in Moncks Corner, Mary, Benjamin, and Sydney paid visits twice a week to Charleston, where Mary had family and where they each socialized with friends. By that time, Sydney's older sisters Dorothy and Frances were out of the house. Sydney married Eugene Yaschik in 1954 after he graduated from The Citadel. She talks about joining him in Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1955, where he was stationed in the army, and provides some background on the Yaschik family. Sydney and Eugene settled in Charleston and had three children, Benjamin, Martin, and Barbara. Eugene died in 1966 in a boating accident. The interviewee married Harold "Billy" Morton Richman of Newport News, Virginia, in 1968. Sydney recalls a project she headed for Charleston Jewish Federation that entailed furnishing apartments for Soviet refugees and her work for the Brith Sholom Beth Israel Sisterhood. She discusses the difficulties the established Orthodox congregation, Brith Sholom Beth Israel, has recently faced, losing young families to Charleston's new Orthodox synagogue, Dor Tikvah, while older members are dying off.
Florence Mazo Nirenblatt was born in 1911, one of ten children of Essie Tandet and Elihu Mazo, Russian immigrants who ran a kosher deli and grocery store at 478 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina. Florence, whose nickname is “Boomalee,†talks about her parents and siblings and describes the family business. Elihu’s brother Dave Mazo opened a grocery store at 171 King Street and turned it over to another brother, George. Dave then opened another business in Folly Beach, South Carolina, a little over ten miles from Charleston. Florence speaks briefly of her cousins (George’s children) Norma, Earl, and Frances Mazo. She remembers the Truere family, in particular, Harry and “Jew Joe†Truere. The interviewee moved to New York City when she was about eighteen and eloped with Brooklynite Bernard Nirenblatt. In later years, Florence moved back to Charleston, bringing her husband and children, Norman and Marilyn, and their spouses with her.
Lara DeVille LeRoy talks about her grandparents Rosa and Felix Dziewienski, who “survived the Holocaust by sheer luck.†From the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, where a soldier killed their infant son, they were sent to Plaszow concentration camp. Near the end of the war, they escaped to the forest where they were separated. Felix joined the resistance and Rosa was forced to work for a Russian colonel keeping house and caring for children. After the war Rosa and Felix were reunited in a German DP camp. With two of Felix’s brothers and their wives, they settled in Wurmannsquick, Germany. One brother and his wife, Herman and Maria, immigrated to Atlanta, Georgia, as soon as possible. Felix and Rosa and Felix’s remaining brother and his wife, Carl and Sasha, stayed and made a life. Lara’s father, Roman, was born in 1946. The antisemitism in the German schools was hard on Roman and his cousin, so they were sent to boarding schools in England and Australia, respectively. When Roman was about fifteen years old, he and his parents visited Herman and Maria in Atlanta. Roman announced he would not leave, so they enrolled him in Georgia Military Academy. His parents immigrated to Atlanta about a year later, followed by Carl and Sasha. Lara describes Rosa’s attitudes about food—it was a “cure-allâ€â€”plus “there was a lot of focus on the ability to use the bathroom.†In her habits Rosa was very neat and clean, but also a hoarder. “She, for sure, communicated that you had to be strong and put your best face and foot forward. And so, if an emotion could be satiated by a macaroon or salami stick, a larger emotion was not to be displayed in public.†Rosa also demonstrated a strong work ethic, believing you should always do your best. While this concept was conveyed to Lara, it was not imparted to Lara’s father. Lara notes that her grandparents weren’t “equipped to be parents†due to the trauma they endured and the lack of family support. Rosa, in particular, overindulged Roman, setting no boundaries. “I think that I would directly attribute my dad’s drug addiction and his insecurities and his need to self-medicate and his lack of discipline and his, sort of, largess to the Holocaust. I think the way he relates to people is, to some extent, largely influenced by the Holocaust.†Lara found herself driven to learn about the Holocaust; “it drove me professionally because I founded an organization that did Holocaust and diversity education.†She discusses her group visits to Poland, one with her father, one with local Holocaust survivors Pincus Kolender and Joe Engel, and one that she organized while working for Charleston Jewish Federation. “Mankind has not, as a whole, changed because these atrocities still continue. So that’s why I went.†[Note: Roman changed the family name from Dziewienski to DeVille when Lara was three years old.] 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.
Saul Krawcheck was born in 1926 in Charleston, South Carolina, to Esther Freda Bielsky and Jack Krawcheck, immigrants from the Bialystok region of present-day Poland. Jack ran Jack’s Clothiers, a cash-only business, located first on the corner of King and Vanderhorst streets, later moving to 313 King Street. Saul talks about his extended family, including his Krawcheck and Bielsky grandparents, aunts, and uncles. His grandfather Zorach Bielsky served as the cantor for Beth Israel for a time. Saul and his family were members of Brith Sholom, and Saul attended junior congregation every Saturday morning as a boy. The interviewee recalls Agnes Jenkins, an African-American woman who cooked for the family for sixty years. She came from Wadmalaw Island and prepared traditional southern meals for the Krawchecks, while adhering to kosher standards. Saul discusses social divisions in the local Jewish community he observed growing up and laments the self-segregation of Jews in Charleston at the time of the interview. They “have ghettoized themselves. . . It didn’t used to be that way. It has only become that way.†He notes that the Greek community has isolated itself more than any other group in Charleston. Saul describes his father’s civic activities, in particular his work in the historic preservation movement. Jack was president of the Preservation Society of Charleston for two terms, and his store at 313 King, which he bought in 1938, was the first property to undergo adaptive-use restoration, for which he received the first Carolopolis Award. Saul talks briefly about his daughters Maxine, Marcy, and Beth, and their families. For a related collection, see Jack Krawcheck business records, Mss. 1026, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
Harlan Greene, one of four children of Regina and Sam Greene, talks about growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, with a focus on the effects his parents’ experiences as Holocaust survivors had on him and his siblings. Regina and Sam married in their native Poland in June 1939 and, sometime after the Nazis invaded Poland, were picked up by Russian invaders and taken to Siberian work camps. In 1943 the Greenes joined thousands of Jewish refugees in Uzbekistan to wait out the war. They immigrated in 1948 to Charleston, where Regina had relatives. Harlan recalls that his parents’ wartime accounts were “very contradictory,†and he speculates as to the reasons. At his prompting, his mother began telling him stories in bits and pieces when he was a young teen. Regina was not for memorializing just one holocaust or telling her story publicly, whereas, later in life, Sam became involved in Holocaust organizations and recorded his life story. Harlan describes his parents’ marriage, their home life while he was growing up, and his childhood, which he calls “claustrophobic.†He believes that his parents’ stories are part of his and his siblings’ stories—"their trajectory is my trajectoryâ€â€”and that certain familial traits have filtered down to his nieces in the next generation. Harlan notes that he has a “run-away work ethic. I can see it in many of my siblings. If we’re enjoying ourselves, we kind of feel guilty.†He comments briefly on Charleston society’s social strictures and how he has embraced living outside its confines, being gay and Jewish. “Growing up in Charleston, you weren’t supposed to be Jewish. You weren’t supposed to be gay. Those were social strikes against you. . . I like whatever makes me different.†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.
Joseph Sokol was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1932, the middle child of three born to Ida Lerner and Morris Sokol. In 1921, at the age of seventeen, Morris emigrated from Poland to Charleston, where A. M. Solomon, a relative, lived and ran a furniture store on King Street. Sam Solomon helped him get started peddling. With his earnings, he brought his parents, his siblings, and his betrothed, Ida, to America. By the time Joseph was born, Morris had opened a store on King Street, selling furniture and a variety of dry goods. He employed his father, Noah Sokol, as a warehouseman, assisting with deliveries. The Sokols lived on St. Philip Street, two doors down from their synagogue, Beth Israel. Joseph discusses the family's typical week when he was growing up in Charleston: who his friends were and where they played, what he did to help his father in the store, how they observed the Sabbath, and a number of other details depicting daily life. All their friends were Jewish, and their social activities were based at the synagogue and the Jewish Community Center on St. Philip Street. The Sokols attended Saturday services routinely. During the High Holidays, Joseph recalls, he moved back and forth with his friends between the two Orthodox synagogues, Beth Israel and Brith Sholom, hoping to spot certain young ladies. He describes the open selling of honors for the High Holidays at Beth Israel. When Joseph was seventeen, his family moved to Moultrie Street in the northwest section of the city, the same year he began classes at The Citadel. He married Charlestonian Freida Levine in 1953, right after graduating from the military college. Sokol describes their wedding at Brith Sholom and the reception at the Francis Marion Hotel. Joseph and interviewer Michael Grossman consider the differences between two groups identified by some locals as the Downtown Jews, typically Reform Jews from south of Calhoun Street, and the Uptown Jews, who were Orthodox Jews from north of Calhoun, such as the Sokols and their neighbors. They did not mix socially, which Joseph attributes to class distinction. He observes that, unlike his parents' generation, he and his Jewish peers have gentile friends and are involved in non-Jewish organizations and civic groups. Regarding antisemitism, he explains why he believes he experienced it differently than his parents: "I didn't feel it the way they felt it." Sokol remembers the founding of Israel in 1948 was cause for great celebration among members of Beth Israel. Grossman relays a story he heard about the Reform temple's rabbi refusing to mention the newly established State of Israel during services at Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, prompting some members to leave the congregation and join the Conservative synagogue Emanu-El. Joseph feels younger generations take the existence of Israel for granted and notes that they are not as supportive of the Jewish Community Center as earlier generations were.
Avram Kronsberg, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1936, was interviewed on April 4, 2001, with his son Edward, and again, by himself, in a follow-up session on April 11, 2001. Avram and his younger brother, Jonathan, are the sons of Hattie Barshay and Edward Kronsberg. Avram recounts the Barshay and Kronsberg family histories. He describes how his father came to Charleston and began working for his uncle Joseph Bluestein; then, during the Great Depression, opened his own store in the Bluestein building on King Street. Edward's mother, Lena Jacobson Kronsberg, widow of Abraham Kronsberg, and his three brothers, Meyer, Milton, and Macey, followed him to Charleston, and the brothers joined him in the business, Edward's Five and Ten Cent Store. Avram describes his parents' personalities and their reputation in the eyes of both Jews and gentiles in Charleston. Hattie and Edward, both civically active, were assimilated to such a degree that the Kronsbergs were told by fellow Jews that they had too many gentile friends. Avram attended Charleston Day School, a private academy in downtown Charleston, where he befriended a number of Christian schoolmates, in addition to the small circle of Jewish friends approved of by Hattie. Avram sought to follow in and exceed his father's footsteps but was firmly directed in his life choices by Hattie. "I tried to do what my father did, but I tried to live my life the way my mother wanted me to." Avram's son Edward notes how Hattie's strength of character influenced the whole family, including his mother, Avram's first wife, Marlene Alfred, and Edward himself, who never met his grandmother. Avram considers how Charleston has changed since he was a boy; what was once a small town where you recognized everyone you passed on the street is now a big impersonal city. Edward, born in 1966 and also raised in Charleston, agrees it's not the same city he grew up in. The interviewees share their perceptions of the differences between two groups referred to by locals as Uptown Jews and Downtown Jews. They tell stories of elite local clubs either blackballing Jews or allowing only one Jew in. Avram remarks on what he sees as an increase in traditional practices in Conservative and Reform Judaism. He regrets not raising his youngest son, Tilghman, in a religion: "Everybody has to have an identity." Avram's father and uncles were founders of Emanu-El, Charleston's Conservative synagogue. Hattie had wanted to attend K.K. Beth Elohim, the Reform congregation, but Edward would not agree, so they compromised by choosing Conservative. Hattie and Edward kept kosher, to an extent, and differed in their adherence to the rules. Avram discusses the evolution of his father's business, particularly, the new (1949) large building at 517 King Street in Charleston; the opening of their first integrated Edward's in Orangeburg in 1969; the chain store's growth after World War II; Max Lehrer, Edward Kronsberg's right-hand man; the development of Pinehaven Shopping Center in North Charleston; why the company faltered and how they sold it. Avram shares the personal struggles he has weathered and how, in recent years, he has changed the way he lives and his outlook on life. He deliberates over the issue of race relations when he was growing up, revealing the attitudes of his friends and acquaintances toward black people, as well as his own. He recalls his father's peers in business were segregationists and remarks, "I work in an environment full of rednecks." Avram describes his father's response to the hospital workers' strike in Charleston in 1969, when protesters blocked the entrance to his store. African Americans worked in the Edward's stores and in the Kronsberg home. Avram remembers that the family's relationship with its black employees was contingent on the circumstances: "Always inside together; rarely outside together." The interview covers a variety of additional topics, including: the Folly Beach summer house that the Kronsbergs shared with other families in the 1930s; Avram's memories of 1940s wartime activities, locally; Charleston's kosher restaurants and markets; attending a John Birch Society meeting in the late 1960s; the multi-generational history of the Mo?se family of Sumter, South Carolina; and Avram's recollections of Elihu Mazo, Abe Dumas, Jack Krawcheck, Morris Sokol, Robert Rosen, Jimmy Brynes, and Mendel Rivers. For related interviews, see Frederica Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-097; Jonathan, Edward, and Jason Kronsberg, Mss. 1035-531 and Mss. 1035-532; Barbara Barshay, Max Brener, William Brener, and Jane Barshay Burns, Mss. 1035-524 and Mss. 1035-525.
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.
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.
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.
Leah Feinberg Chase was born in 1938 in West Point, Georgia, the eldest of three girls of Norma Beryl Goldstein and Morris Feinberg. In this interview, she talks about growing up in the small Georgia town bordering Alabama, roughly eighty miles southwest of Atlanta, then home to West Point Manufacturing Company. Her father opened a shoe repair business in West Point, later switching to ladies' and children's ready-to-wear clothing. Leah was the only Jewish student when she was attending the public schools in town. She says she "never experienced outright antisemitism in West Point," and she had many friends. "We were very cliquish." Yet, she notes "I always felt I was different," pointing out that she spent her weekends doing very different activities than her Christian friends. She and her sisters, Helen and Ina, attended Sunday school in Columbus, Georgia, where her paternal grandparents, Jake and Ida Feinberg, lived. Other weekends she traveled to youth group functions, such as Young Judaea conventions. Leah married Philip Chase of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1957. For a year before their marriage, she studied journalism at the University of Georgia, while Philip finished his last year in college at The Citadel. They raised four children?Stephen, David, Benjamin, and Freda?in Charleston. Leah describes her career in journalism at Channel 5, WCSC-TV; Custom Video; and Charleston Jewish Federation, where she edited the Federation's newspaper, Charleston Jewish Journal, which won national awards at the General Assembly of Council of Jewish Federations. The Journal also attracted unwanted attention during her tenure at the paper. She received death threats, including a bomb threat to Chase Furniture, the family business, prompting police protection. Leah gives an overview of the local civic organizations, Jewish and non-Jewish, that she has belonged to and served over the past decades, in particular the Foreign Affairs Forum. She makes note of her advocacy for and regular visits to Israel. Thirty years prior to the interview, Leah made a career change and became a travel agent. Other topics discussed include how observant Leah is of Jewish traditions compared with her parents, and an antisemitic incident that occurred when she applied for a job at the Evening Post/News and Courier in the late 1950s/early '60s. The transcript contains corrections made by the interviewee during proofing.
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).
