Sam Levenson, born in 1918, and his sister Ella Levenson Schlosburg, born in 1920, talk about growing up in Bishopville, South Carolina, where about two dozen Jewish families lived, many of them relatives. The siblings and their brothers, Leonard and Jacob, were the children of Nettie Cahn and Frank Levenson, immigrants from Lithuania. Sam and Ella describe their parents and extended family members, and they discuss how their father came to own his general merchandise store in Bishopville, in which the inventory included mules. The Jews of the town spoke Yiddish, and most kept kosher. They met in the Masonic hall for services, led initially by immigrant rabbis they hired out of New York. Rabbi David Karesh of Columbia, South Carolina, served as their shochet for a time. Also interviewed is Sam’s wife, Carolyn Baruch Levenson, born in 1925, in Camden, South Carolina, to Theresa Block and Herman Baruch. Herman partnered in the clothing store, Baruch & Nettles, and later, sold insurance. The three interviewees offer a number of stories that impart a sense of life in Bishopville and the region during the first half of the twentieth century. The tales range from conflicts among locals that ended in violence to wealthy antisemitic northerners wintering in Camden. For a related collection, see the Levenson-Baruch family papers, Mss. 1034-017, Special Collections, College of Charleston. See also Ella Schlosburg’s interview of May 25, 1995, and Carolyn Levenson’s interview with Debby Baruch Abrams on May 5, 1998.
