|
CONFERENCE SUMMARY The 26th annual SJHS meeting, cosponsored by Ohef Sholom Temple Archives and The Peninsula Jewish Historical Society, traced the geography of more than two-hundred years of Jewish settlement. From the headquarters at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside, conventioneers toured the historic Moses Myers House (1792), lunched at the modern Temple Sinai with its stunning stained-glass windows, and dined at the Ohef Sholom Temple. Shabbat services were held in Ohef Sholom’s neoclassical sanctuary which was recently restored to its original 1918 splendor. The program, hosted by convention chairs Sue Anne Bangel and Minette Cooper, highlighted the dynamism of the local Jewish community and its centrality in the larger history of Virginia. A panel of Virginians confirmed that Jews are out of the political closet. Mayor Meyera Oberdorfer of Virginia Beach was raised as a Sabbath observer in an Orthodox home. “I didn’t run to be councilman of the Jews but of all the people,” she explained. A reformer who overthrew the city’s political machine, Oberdorfer has been very upfront about being Jewish. Alan Diamonstein, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for 34 years, traced his political motivation to a newspaper editor who once said, “Jews have no place in politics.” The “mishigas” of his Mother, who was an organizational activist, inspired his public career. For a time the only Jew in the Virginia House, Diamonstein felt constantly tested. He noted that many held to the stereotype that he must be smart and wealthy because he was a Jew. Joe Frank, mayor of Newport News, could not recall any personal experience of anti-Semitism. His campaign literature advertised that he was president of both Rodef Shalom and the Jewish federation. “I make it clear that I’m Jewish,” Frank observed. “Being Jewish was an asset, not a stigma.” He has been twice elected with three-fourths of the vote. Terry Sisisky, a radio announcer from Petersburg, spoke
movingly of the example of public and Jewish service set for him by his late
father, U.S. Congressman Norman Sisisky, who served the 4th Congressional
District for 18 years. Dr. Joyce Antler, the second Jerome Gumenick lecturer, spoke on Gertrude Weil (1879-1971), a civic activist from Goldsboro, North Carolina. Weil’s influence extended beyond her community. Her religiosity and Zionism reveal much about Jewish religion in the South and American-Jewish women generally. She was a symbol of both Southern progressivism and the national struggle for women’s rights. Prof. Antler, Samuel Lane Professor of American Jewish
History at Brandeis University, traced her interest in Weil to a 1984 conference
in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where a commentator noted that she saw nothing
particularly Jewish in Weil’s career, citing the precedent of Protestant women
who were Southern progressives. Antler reacted sharply and argued that
Weil was “distinctly Jewish.” Antler cited six influences. First, Gertrude was raised in a family that was a “school for citizenship.” Her mother Mina’s charity was “intense,” and the family was active in founding Temple Oheb Sholom and the North Carolina Association of Jewish Women. A 1901 graduate of Horace Mann School in New York, where she visited Lillian Wald’s Settlement House, and the first North Carolinian to attend Smith College, Weil became an early suffragette. She was drawn back to Goldsboro when her mother reminded her that there was a “needy class” back home. Weil became a leader in the state women’s club movement, which was a backbone of Southern progressivism. She founded the state’s League of Women Voters and Legislative Council. Through her mother, she also met Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the noted feminist writer and rights advocate. Weil’s involvement in labor, women’s, and other progressive causes was driven by “moral belief.” And this belief was firmly rooted, Antler emphasized, in Jewish texts and traditions. Weil read deeply and cited texts learnedly. “Mystery and reason were part of a whole person,” she wrote, and she held a concept of God as a “creative essence.” Weil found inspiration in the prophetess Deborah and talmudist Beruiah. She was unusual among secular progressives in her Jewish commitment. Firmly rooted in Jewish faith—she attended services regularly and taught Sunday School—Weil once hesitated to attend a civic affair held in her honor on a Friday night. Her mother was a friend of Henrietta Szold, and Gertrude held local and regional Hadassah posts. A year before her death in 1971 at the age of 93, Weil
reflected, “I grow more radical every year.” In a talk across generations Robert Lipshutz recounted to
SJHS members and students from the Ohef Sholom religious school his role as The
President’s Lawyer under Jimmy Carter. Introduced by Janice Blumberg,
Lipshutz traced his friendship with Carter to the future president’s failed
race for the state senate in 1966. He and Stuart Eizenstat had to convince
the American Jewish community that a Southern Baptist would be responsive and
respectful of their concerns. Serving in the White House, Lipshutz
negotiated crises from the endangered Tennessee snail darter to the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. He noted that Carter appointed more Jewish
federal judges than any president before him. In what was undoubtedly a unique experience Prof. Melvin Urofsky of Virginia Commonwealth University lectured on a Jewish naval admiral and his historic house, while sailing through Norfolk harbor on a dinner cruise. Prof. Urofsky, author of the recently published The Levy Family and Monticello, 1834-1923, described the efforts of Uriah Levy and his nephew Jefferson Levy to honor Thomas Jefferson by saving his great house, Monticello. Despite their stewardship of Jefferson’s property, which had bankrupted the Founding Father, the Levy contribution was historically ignored. When the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation acted to buy the house in the 1920s, the common myth, tinged with blueblood anti-Semitism, was that “crafty” Jews had neglected and degraded the property, even stolen the house from its proper heritage. Few of the accusers, however, could claim an American pedigree as old as the Sephardic Levy family. Only recently has the Levy role been acknowledged. Now, in the gardens behind the house that lead to Thomas Jefferson’s grave, the burial site of the commodore’s mother, Rachel, has been restored with a plaque commemorating the Levy family. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Home | 2002 Conference | Conference
Archives | Student Essay Contest |
Archives | |
|||||||||||||||||||