TRAVEL Jews Continue to Call the Rural South ‘Home’ By Nathan Posner Across the rural South, Jewish communities are springing up, dying out and surviving. This series, a combination of portraits and interviews, explores contemporary Jewish life, with a focus on Jewish individuals and communities in towns with populations of less than 50,000. The two synagogues I visited for this first installment are long-established but are fighting to continue to serve their communities. In Selma, Alabama, a city known for its civil rights history, the town and Temple Mishkan Israel have both seen its headcount drop heavily since the 1960s. With only three active members, the community works to maintain the 120-year-old synagogue building and tries to educate those who visit the community. Across the state border in Rome, Ga., Rodeph Sholom has had a long and friendly history with the surrounding community, but continues to face antiSemitism as they try to preserve their historic congregation. They are also combating the loss of younger generations who have moved away from the northern Georgia town. A few blocks away from the bridge where John Lewis was beaten on Bloody Sunday, past pharmacies and stores that mark the names of Jewish owners long since passed, sits Temple Mishkan Israel, a beautiful building in Selma that was once a spiritual home to over 500 community members. The stained-glass windows and ornate bimah and ark, which still contains Torahs for visitors to use for services, are part of the 121-year-old building. While there are no longer weekly services at the temple, members continue to maintain the sanctuary and hope to repair the roof and turn the building into a museum. Ronnie Leet, president of the synagogue, was born and raised in Selma before heading to college — the only four years he’s left town — and has been working on this mission over the past few years along with other community members. For almost a century from the time Temple Mishkan Israel was founded in 1867, the Jewish community flourished. Between 350 and 450 Jews lived here in the early 1940s, per Leet, with “most of the businesses downtown” being Jewishowned. Hanna Berger, another member of the synagogue, was born in Selma and never expected to return permanently, 96 | AUGUST 15, 2021ATLANTA JEWISH TIMES
Temple Mishkan Israel President Ronnie Leet and congregation member Hanna Berger in the shul sanctuary in Selma, Alabama.
Ronnie Leet outside of the historic synagogue in Selma.
something she said is common: “It's a typical story, not only in Jewish communities, but immigrant communities in general, that people come in, and they start businesses and try to build a life ... and by the third generation, the children don't want to run their store.” Leet was one of the few who came back to help run his family’s business in Selma, but said that he was only one of three young people “of a thriving Jewish community … that came back.” Yet even now, he feels his connec-
tion to Judaism has strengthened over recent years: “I feel more connected than I ever have. … I stay connected through this building, through different venues, that I can learn more about.” The synagogue was central to the community, with non-Jewish members often attending services. Berger described the decades during which she grew up in the '40s and '50s: “At Friday night services, there were always some guests and some kids ... who were not
Jewish and [we] would go to church services with their friends. … It was small as cities go, but it really was active, and we felt we were part of the [Selma] community.” By the early 1970s the congregation no longer had a full-time rabbi. Like many rural Jewish communities, it began to rely on “traveling rabbis” and eventually moved on to student rabbis, before dropping the tradition of an “in-house” rabbi completely. In 1997, there was a reunion of the families and their descendants, called “Home for the Holidays,” which brought over 220 people back to the synagogue, including many descendants who had never been to Selma before, per Leet. This sort of national network for the congregation is helping the synagogue transform itself, as the community has come together to help with repairs to the roof and the overall maintenance of the building. “It proved a point, people love their roots,” Leet said. “They love Selma, and they love this temple.” Even with this support, however, the few remaining community members have had to work hard to continue worshipping. Member Steve Grossman ran services after the congregation could no longer support a student rabbi, but that came to a halt after Grossman was tragically killed in a car accident. Many southern Jewish communities now find themselves in the same boat as the one in Selma, with long-standing communities continuing to shrink. In Rome, Ga., Congregation Rodeph Sholom still holds services, now on Zoom, for its relatively small membership. Founded in 1875, the congregation had full-time rabbis until 1955, then relied on student rabbis from Hebrew Union College for the following 40 years. Nowadays community members and visiting rabbis help conduct services at the Reform congregation. The synagogue, now headed by President Nancy Brant, has a core group of around 15 to 20 members who participate in services and activities through the congregation, as well as a “huge mailing list,” per Brant. The synagogue also has an active brotherhood and sisterhood, and a religious school run by congregation members, although currently there are no students that would attend. The synagogue was built on land purchased from the neighboring St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in 1938, a small part of a long and friendly history between the two places of worship. While
