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March 22, 2002/Nisan 9, 5762, Vol. 54, No. 27
Minority Jews mark seder time down South
RACHEL POMERANCE
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
The buzz of Passover may be a little harder to hear in sleepy southern towns. But it's not because Jews there aren't working furiously to prepare for the holiday.
Observing Passover in a region where Jews are few and far between means struggling to secure enough resources - both people and products - for the occasion.
Contrary to the perception of persecution in the South, the area has been relatively hospitable to Jews, Southern Jews say. In the Bible Belt, it often matters less which religion one is, as long as one's religious.
For Macy Hart, who grew up in the only Jewish family in Winona, Miss., the second seder was always reserved for ministers and leaders of the community.
"People looked forward, from one year to the next, to get the invitation," says Hart, president of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss., who can't recall one incident of anti-Semitism happening to himself, his parents or his three siblings.
Now a resident of Jackson, Miss., Hart has continued the tradition of using the seder for interfaith education.
In the southwest corner of Mississippi, in Natchez, the once-thriving Jewish community holds a seder attended by about as many non-Jews as Jews.
While a Jewish resident there used to hold model seders for area non-Jews, Natchez native Jerry Krouse described a "reawakening" of interest among non-Jews who have realized "that the Last Supper of Jesus was the seder."
Whether or not the seder is the last supper of Jesus is disputed, according to Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff, national director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee. But the belief is entrenched among Christians worldwide - and the phenomenon is strong in the American South.
At its Jewish population peak around the turn of the 20th century, Natchez was home to several hundred Jews. But when the boll weevil plague tore through the cotton plants, the Jewish population - most of whom were involved in the cotton business - took a hard hit, according to Krouse.
Now, like so many other small towns that welcomed Jewish immigrants who came through Southern ports, Natchez's community is withering, with only 13 remaining members of its synagogue. Parents describe the bittersweet move of their children to cities with more economic and cultural lures - and more in the way of Jewish life.
Jews came to the South as early as the late 17th century in Charleston, S.C., and settling in Savannah, Ga., soon after.
But the "great migration" of Eastern European Jews, which lasted from 1880 until World War I, heavily shifted the balance of U.S. Jewry to the North.
Now a new immigration pattern has taken hold.
Mirroring the rest of the country, Southern Jews have fled the country for the city.
In 1960, there were 167 Jewish communities in the South, 98 of which had Jewish populations of between 100 and 500 people.
By 1997, that number had dropped to 141, with only 62 communities averaging between 100 and 500 Jews.
One of the disappearing communities is Natchez, where Passover has changed its tone over the years, but "it still feels like the seder," says Krouse, who called their service "ultra-Reform."
Sometimes he questions whether the best introduction to Judaism for non-Jews is the Passover seder, with its songs and drinking and games to keep children engaged.
Ruth Adele Lovitt, a non-Jew who's attended the Natchez community seder for at least the last 15 years, loves the festive occasion.
"I enjoy going to services that Jesus went to when he was young," she says.
"When non-Jewish groups come to our community seders, we look at it as a time for sharing what we have in common. We tend not to see it as a threat," says the president of the Southern Jewish Historical Society, Hollace Ava Weiner.
The seder in Natchez carries on its own traditions like matzo balls with gravy, which Krouse says takes on an "unspoken competition" by the attendants who offer their version of the delicacy for the feast.
And like any good Southern seder, the haroset - a sweet melange of nuts, wine and apples - is made with pecans, not walnuts.
"Pecans just work better," Krouse says. And, of course, in these parts they're called "pecahnz."
"That would be a dead giveaway if you called it a 'peecan' that you weren't from around here," says Leanne Silverblatt, a fourth-generation resident of Indianola, Miss. - located in the Delta.
There, they've begun holding the second seder at the local "How Joy" Chinese restaurant.
Meanwhile, in Vidalia, Ga., home of the famous "sweet onion," the community takes great pains to preserve a purely Orthodox seder at its synagogue. In the shape of a perfect Jewish star with its turquoise sanctuary divided by a mechitzah, to separate men from women, Vidalia's Orthodox synagogue boasts the title of one of the smallest in the country.
The community began with 14 members when the synagogue was founded in 1969, through a donation from a visiting New York merchant.
Now, only seven members remain to carry the heavy load of producing a kosher Passover, which draws about 30 people - many of whom travel in from the neighboring towns.
One of the synagogue's founders and its president Ben Smith and his wife, Sarah, are one of a handful of Jewish families left in Vidalia.
For now, the Smiths are preparing for the yearly Passover push. That means driving more than two hours to the kosher butcher in Savannah, Ga., and bringing the meat back for the community seder.
And they've grown accustomed to waiting up until 2 or 3 a.m. on a night before Passover to receive their own supply of kosher meat from the butcher from Atlanta. The delivery truck makes its rounds to other Georgia towns like Augusta and Savannah before reaching their home.
"The fact is that people go all out to try to stay true to that holiday," Hart says. "That's a survival piece,'' - something Jews don't have to do in places where they're more plentiful.
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