SJHS 27th Annual Conference Agenda

27th Annual Southern Jewish Historical Society Conference
Shreveport, Louisiana on October 25, 26, 27, 2002

CONFERENCE INFORMATION
Registration
Agenda & Program (HTML)
Agenda & Program (PDF)
Conference Bookstore
Speaker Bios
Committee Chair Welcome

CONFERENCE HOTEL INFORMATION
Sheraton Hotel
Travel Information
Area Map
Directions

SHREVEPORT/BOSSIER
JEWISH HISTORY MONTH
Calender of Events

AREA INFORMATION
North Louisiana Jewish Federation

Agudath Achim Synagogue
(Conservative)
B'nai Zion Temple
(Reform)

Shreveport.net

Shreveport-Bossier Convention & Tourist Bureau

Shreveport Bossier Online

Shreveport/Bossier Historic Sites:
Highland, South Highland, and Fairfield

Shreveport/Bossier Historic Sites:
Downtown Shreveport

Shreveport/Bossier Religion
NFTY Southern Region

Meeting Agenda and Program

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24

7 pm.

SJHS Board Meeting & Dinner, Sheraton Hotel

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25

9:00 -
11:30 am.

Sightseeing at Shreveport's Jewish sites and special exhibits

11:30 am.

Conference Opening:

LUNCHEON at Agudath Achim Synagogue

Welcome Greeting from:

Hollace Weiner, President, Southern Jewish Historical Society, Author of Jewish Stars In Texas
Rabbi Foster Kawaler, Agudath Achim
Charles Hart, President, Texas Jewish Historical Society

12:15 pm

Panel: "Jewish Confederates West of the Mississippi: Tales from Texas & Louisiana"

Moderator	Robert Rosen, author of Jewish Confederates and President, South Carolina Jewish Historical Society
Panelists	Eric J. Brock, Shreveport historian, archivist, raconteur & author of Eric Brock's Shreveport Gary Whitfield, Texas educator and Civil War historian equat

2 pm.

Sightseeing continues

2:30 -
4 pm.

Campus of Louisiana State University/Shreveport: "Pitfalls & Paradoxes: Exhibiting Jewish History"

Moderator

Catherine Kahn, Archivist of Touro Infirmary, President Greater New Orleans Archivists Assn. and past-president SJHS

Panelists

Dr. Dale Rosengarten, Director of the Jewish Heritage Collection at College of Charleston. Rosengarten is curator of the traveling exhibition, "A Portion of the People": Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life," organized by McKissick
Museum at University of South Carolina. Her publications include Row Upon Row: Sea Grass Baskets of the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Dr. Ellen Smith, Senior scholar in Jewish Studies at Northeastern University, Associate director of Gralla Fellows Program for Religion Journalists at Brandeis University and
Principal of Museumsmith, Boston, MA. Smith is former curator of the American Jewish Historical Society. She co-edited, with Jonathan Sarna, The Jews of Boston, and
was chief historical consultant to the WGBH-TV Emmy Award-winning documentary of the same name.
Darcie Fohrman, independent museum consultant specializing in exhibition development and design. Notable projects include "Romance and Ritual: Celebrating the Jewish Wedding" (Skirball Cultural Center) and "Daniel's Story: Remember the Children" (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum).
She is a former director of exhibitions at the Spertus Museum of Judaica and at the San Diego Museum of Art.

6 pm.

Shabbat Dinner, Temple B'nai Zion

7:30 pm.

Shabbat Evening Services
Temple B'nai Zion, Rabbi Harold Robinson, Followed By:

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Jonathan Sarna, leading authority on American Jewish history, Brandeis University professor, author, editor, and this year's Jerome Gumenick Lecturer. Sarna, recently returned from sabbatical in Israel, will discuss "union and disunion" in a talk entitled: "From Jerusalem to Deep in the Heart of the Diaspora: Writing a New History of American Judaism."

Sarna will speak at conclusion of services, in the sanctuary, followed by Q&A and Oneg Shabbat
Dr. Sarna to be introduced by Janice Rothschild Blumberg, former SJHS President and author of 1 Voice: Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild and the Troubled South and AS BUT A DAY TO A HUNDRED AND TWENTY 1867-1987

THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND
Photo Display: "Howdy Y'all: The Texas Jewish Experience"
Bibliography of Children's Books on Southern Jewish History
Available at registration table and book sale table

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26 All sessions at Sheraton Hotel

8 am

Shabbat Morning Services, Rabbi Harold Robinson

9 -
10:30 am

Panel: "Jews in 100% America: Fitting into the KKK's Texas."

Moderator	Dr. Leonard Dinnerstein, Professor of History and Director of Jewish Studies, Univ.of Arizona Author of The Leo Frank Case, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust and Uneasy at Home
Coordinator	Dr. Mark K. Bauman, Editor, Quiet Voices: Southern Rabbis and Black Civil Rights
Panelists	Jane Manaster, Austin demographer analyzes Texas' Jewish population patterns Dr. Stuart Rockoff, Historian at Institute of Southern Jewish Life discusses the rise of the KKK in the early 20th century and his research into relationship between Jews and KKK in Houston. Dr. Rosalind Benjet, President, Dallas Jewish Historical Society analyzing allegations that Dallas Jews and the Ku Klux Klan had a cozy relationship

10:45 –
12:15 pm.

Panel: "Race & Jewish Self-Definition"

Commentator	Dr. Eric Goldstein Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Emory University Emory University Faculty Bio
Panelists	Dr. Mark I. Greenberg, University of South Florida; "Between Black and White: The Racial Place of Southern Jewry from the Civil War to Civil Rights" Marni Davis, Emory University, "Jewish Boys to Southern Men . . . Competing Ideologies of Masculinity, 1900-1935"

12:30 pm

LUNCH

Guest Speaker

Louis D. Rubin Jr. Founder of Algonquin Books.
A literary reading from his memoir: My Father's People: A Family of Southern Jews followed by Q & A
Other Links on Louis D Rubin:
Yahoo search on Louis D. Rubin
Louis D Rubin : Seaports of the South : A Journey

2:30 -
4 pm

Oral History: "Small Town Memories: Provincials No More."

Children of longtime Shreveport Rabbis Leo Brener and David Lefkowitz Jr. reminisce and reflect about growing up along the bayou in a small, cohesive Jewish community.

Moderator	Dr. Patricia Bates, Shreveport Hadassah President and former English Professor, LSU/Shreveport
Panelists	Dr. Etta Rae Brener Frankel, a New York hematologist/oncologist Dr. Nathan Brener, physicist, LSU/Baton Rouge
Tentative Participants	Henry Lefkowitz, Cataloguer of Hebrew Documents, Library of Congress

7:30 pm

BANQUET

Guest speaker

Dr. Paul Gaston -- "Suddenly NOT Jewish." Gaston, University of Virginia professor emeritus, authored the groundbreaking 1970 book, The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking Dr. Gaston turns his attention to Jewish identity and its connection to a 1950s scandal at the Memphis Branch of the Tennessee Orphans Home

THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND
Photo Display: "Howdy Y'all: The Texas Jewish Experience"
Bibliography of Children's Books on Southern Jewish History
Available at registration table and book sale table

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27 All sessions at Sheraton Hotel

9 –
10:30 am

Breakfast & General Business meeting of SJHS

Breakfast & Quarterly Board Meeting of TJHS

10:45 -
11:45 am

Book and Author Panel

Bernard Rapoport Being Rapoport: Capitalist with a Conscience (Univ. of Texas Press)
Rose Biderman They Came To Stay, The Story of Jews of Dallas 1870-1997 (Eakin Press)
Norman Finkelstein Heeding the Call: Jewish Voices in America's Civil Rights Struggle (Jewish Publication Society of America)

12 Noon

CLOSING LUNCHEON

Bill Aron "Shalom Y'all: Images of Southern Jewish Life in America – The stories behind the images." Lecture and slide show from acclaimed photographer and sociologist who has documented Jewish life in the Deep South and around the globe. Book sales and signing.

THROUGHOUT THE WEEKEND
Photo Display: "Howdy Y'all: The Texas Jewish Experience"
Bibliography of Children's Books on Southern Jewish History
Available at registration table and book sale table