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.
Mary Ann Pearlstine Aberman, the elder of two daughters of Milton Alfred Pearlstine and Cecile Mayer Pearlstine, provides some background on her mother’s family the Mayers, whose ancestors arrived in the United States from Bavaria in the early 1800s, and her father’s family, the Pearlstines, who emigrated from Germany to South Carolina in the mid-1800s. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, she describes growing up in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood of Charleston, next door to her first cousins. The family did not keep kosher but they did observe Shabbat by lighting candles before dinner and attending Friday night services at the Reform synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE). She remembers that Jewish Citadel cadets were invited to join members of Charleston’s Jewish community for worship and holiday observances; they even taught Sunday school. She met her husband, Edward Aberman of Rock Hill, when he was attending The Citadel. Mary Ann reviews some of her father’s civic contributions to the Charleston area, particularly his involvement in the South Carolina State Ports Authority, and she recalls Pearlstine family involvement in Brith Sholom and KKBE. She also briefly discusses the founding of Emanu-El, the Conservative congregation, in 1947, noting that KKBE lost some of its members to Emanu-El at that time. Mary Ann is joined in this interview by Edward Aberman. See also Edward’s interview on the same date (Mss. 1035-221), the Abermans’ interview with fellow Rock Hill, South Carolina, residents Jack Leader, Harriet Marshall Goode, and Martin Goode on September 21 , 1999 (Mss. 1035-218), and an interview with Rock Hill native Sophia Marie Friedheim Beers (Mss. 1035-220).
Alex Garfinkel discusses his father, Harry Louis Garfinkel, who emigrated from Divin, Russia, around the turn of the twentieth century to avoid conscription. He was followed to the United States by two sisters, four brothers, and his father. Harry heard there were landsmen (countrymen) from Divin in Charleston, South Carolina, so he moved there and worked as a shoemaker until he bought a mattress factory. He married Celia Hannah Lapidus of Charleston. At some point, Harry turned over the mattress business to his brother Sam and opened a junk yard, which grew into a successful scrap metal business. Alex grew up on Line Street, one of eight children. He attended Hebrew school at Beth Israel and briefly mentions the split between Beth Israel and Brith Sholom, the Orthodox synagogues. Alex talks about King Street merchants, his father’s businesses, and taking over the scrap yard as a young man, which exempted him from military service during World War II. He invited his cousin Max Garfinkel of Baltimore to join him in the growing business, and they remained partners for over forty years. See also interviews with other members of the Garfinkel family: Helen Rosenshein, Olga Weinstein, Sandra Shapiro, Nathan and Frances Garfinkle (Nathan spells the family name differently), Max and Jennie Garfinkel, and Philip Garfinkel.
Dora Altman grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where her father worked as a tailor. Her parents’ emigration from Poland was sponsored by a relative, a member of the Mendelsohn family. The Altmans attended the Orthodox synagogue Brith Sholom and, at some point, Dora switched to Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, the Reform temple where services were conducted in English. Dora remembers playing with both Jews and gentiles as a child; the Henckel twins, members of the Coburg Dairy family, were among her closest friends. Dora was engaged to Samuel Turtletaub when he was killed in France during World War I. She never married. During the interview, Dora identifies certain photographs (see the Dora Altman collection, Mss. 1006 in Special Collections, College of Charleston), and is joined by interviewer Haskell Ellison, also a Charleston native, in recalling Charleston’s Jewish families and merchants of the early 20th century.
Ethel Lapin Draisin, born in 1908 in Charleston, South Carolina, is joined by her husband, Louis Draisin in recounting her family history. Ethel’s maternal grandparents, Nathan and Ethel Goldstein, emigrated from Poland and arrived in Charleston in the 1870s. Nathan ran a wholesale dry goods business on Meeting Street. Their daughter Dora (Ethel Draisin’s mother) married Israel Lapin, a Lithuanian immigrant who ran a clothing store on King Street from 1909 until 1953. Ethel Lapin met Louis Draisin, who emigrated from Bobruisk, Russia, as a young child, while she was visiting relatives in New York. In 1940, shortly after marrying, the couple settled in Charleston, where they raised two children, Neil and Judy. Ethel, the oldest of six, recalls Jewish merchants, neighbors and friends of the Lapin family, and the food her mother prepared. Louis describes his World War II tour of duty as a quartermaster in Patton’s Third Army. Both Draisins discuss Charleston’s “uptown” and “downtown” Jews, and the Orthodox synagogues, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel.
Claire Endictor Goldberg, born in 1934 in Cohoes, New York, to Sally Epstein and Irving Endictor, is joined in this interview by her husband, Benjamin Goldberg, a native of Charleston, South Carolina. When Claire was less than a year old, the Endictors moved to Detroit, Michigan, and ran a store there before moving back to New York in 1944, settling in Troy. Claire has one brother, William, who is four years younger. The family moved again in 1948, ending up in Charleston, South Carolina. Claire remembers visiting, as a young girl, her maternal grandparents, Pauline and Jacob Epstein, in Summerville, South Carolina, where her mother grew up. She recalls her reaction to segregation after moving to Charleston. "I was infuriated and I was a rebel. . . . That particularly made me want to leave Charleston." Although she left to pursue her nursing degree at Duke University in North Carolina, she returned to Charleston and began working at the Medical College of South Carolina in 1955. Claire shares a story about a specific discriminatory practice aimed at black nurses at the Medical College, and she describes working in a diagnostic clinic with Drs. Vince Moseley, Kelly McKee, and Bill Lee, where, among other procedures, they performed "the first heart catheterizations in South Carolina." Claire discusses how she met Benjamin; the adoption of their two children, Rachel and Joel; and the design of their South Windermere home. The Goldbergs talk about their children, and numerous friends and acquaintances, Jewish and non-Jewish. Benjamin identifies the leaders of the Jewish community in post-WW II Charleston, and offers his thoughts on the Kalushiner Society; his former boss, Louis Shimel; William Ackerman's run for mayor of Charleston against Palmer Gaillard in 1971; and the 1969 hospital strike by black employees of the Medical College of South Carolina, noting that the city's Jews were "not really involved very much in the Civil Rights Movement." Interviewer and Charleston native Sandra Lee Kahn Rosenblum adds this viewpoint regarding growing up in a segregated society: "This was the way things were. Black people were different . . . I never questioned it as a child." Other topics discussed include: freelance writer and Charleston native Robert Marks; 19th-century Jewish Charlestonians who were victims of violent crimes; and Jews in South Carolina politics and government, with speculation as to why there haven't been any Jewish mayors of Charleston. See Mss. 1035-387 for a previous interview with the Goldbergs on January 22, 2014.
Benjamin "Bennie" Goldberg, a Charleston native born in 1929 to Gussie Cohen and Harry Goldberg, talks about members of his extended family, as well as his siblings, Hannah Schwartz, Leon Goldberg, and Freida Meyerowitz, and his siblings' children. He recalls his father's grocery stores, particularly the one on Coming Street near Bogard Street, where the family also lived. It was a "mixed" neighborhood and he recalls no instances of antisemitism or problems between white and black residents. Joined in the interview by his wife, Claire Endictor Goldberg, Bennie shares his early memories of Charleston's Jewish community and tells a number of amusing anecdotes, mentioning members of these families: Altman, Baker, Breibart, Brickman, Doobrow, Fechter, Fox, Garfinkel, Geldbart, Karesh, Kurtz, Schwartz, Singer, Sonenshine, and Truere. Also discussed are Seymour Barkowitz, Bennie's Hebrew school teacher; Morris Finkelstein, the coach of the High School of Charleston basketball team; G. Theodore Wichmann, orchestra director of the High School of Charleston; and Judge J. Waties Waring. Bennie describes the George Street building where he attended Hebrew School; Harold's Cabin, the restaurant and gourmet grocery run by Harold Jacobs; and several movie theaters on the Charleston peninsula. A member of Aleph Zadik Aleph, Bennie says that the Jewish youth organization changed his life. "We learned a hell of a lot. We learned parliamentary procedure. We did civic things. We traveled to other cities to compete. There were oratorical contests." Regarding the synagogues in town: "I always say that you could sum up the history of the shuls in Charleston with one word: frum [pious]. You were either too frum or not frum enough." See Mss. 1035-388 for a second interview with the Goldbergs on February 5, 2014.
Isadore Cohen (b. 1918) and Samuel Rosen (b. 1929), Charleston natives and sons of immigrants from Russia and Poland, share their early memories of the Orthodox synagogues, Beth Israel and Brith Sholom, and discuss the relationship between the two congregations before and after their merger in the mid-1950s. They describe their Hebrew education, including their teachers—a number of rabbis plus a Mrs. Allen, daughter of Rabbi Gillman. Topics relating to the first half of the twentieth century covered in the interview include Jewish merchants, the Kalushiner Society, founded by immigrants from Kaluszyn, Poland, popular venues for Jewish functions, and the Cohen and Rosen family businesses, both small grocery stores. Interviewer Professor Jeffrey Gurock from Yeshiva University also provides information he discovered while conducting research for his book Orthodoxy in Charleston: Brith Sholom Beth Israel and American Jewish History.
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).
Anita Rosen Levine, the daughter of Rose Rosenfeld of Romania and Jacob Rosen of Vitebsk, Russia, grew up in Port Chester, New York, a small town with a vibrant Jewish community. She received her Jewish education from students of New York City’s Jewish Theological Seminary, who traveled by train to the suburb to teach Sunday school. Anita was visiting a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, when she met Sol Levine, a native of Savannah, Georgia. His parents, Harry Levine, a cantor from Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine, and Freda Wasserman, a native of Warsaw, Poland, emigrated from Russia in 1906 with their two daughters and Harry’s mother. After Freda died in 1932, Harry and his two youngest sons, Sol and David, moved from Savannah to Charleston, where his daughter Rose lived with her family. Nearly two years later, Harry and Sol moved to Columbia, joining Sol’s older brother Max. David, still a young boy, stayed behind with Rose. Sol belonged to the Herzl Club in Savannah and was the first president of Columbia’s Jewish youth group, AZA, Aleph Zadik Aleph. He clerked in stores in the South Carolina towns of Allendale and Bamberg before returning to Charleston where he worked for his brother-in-law at LeRoy’s Jewelers on King Street. Sol and Anita, who married and settled in Charleston in 1942, talk about their social life, downtown shop owners, and their three children. In the early 1950s, when construction of the Savannah River Site, a nuclear production facility, was underway, Sol was hired to run a store in Barnwell, one of the South Carolina towns experiencing rapid growth associated with the new plant. The Levines lived in Barnwell for two years before returning to Charleston in 1955, the year after the two Orthodox synagogues, Brith Sholom and Beth Israel, merged. Prior to moving to Barnwell, they had been members of Brith Sholom; upon their return to Charleston, they joined Brith Sholom Beth Israel (BSBI). They discuss the merger and comment on the breakaway of Brith Sholom members to establish the Conservative congregation Emanu-El in 1947. Other topics covered include Sol’s contributions to BSBI through the Men’s Club, Anita’s involvement with the Daughters of Israel Sisterhood, the St. Philip Street and Rutledge Avenue mikvahs, and the rabbis, cantors, and sextons who served the Orthodox community. Anita began working for the BSBI rabbis in the mid-1950s, running the office for the synagogue and the Charleston Hebrew Institute (CHI), BSBI’s Hebrew day school. She describes the growth of CHI from just a kindergarten in 1955 to graduating the first class of seventh graders in 1964. “It was like my fourth child,” she says, referring to CHI.
