Jewish Community of Atlanta | New Georgia Encyclopedia
Posted By admin on August 22, 2015
Jews have lived in Atlanta since its founding. Their businesses met important economic needs, and they contributed substantially to the cultural, educational, and political well-being of the society. Their history also reflects a rich cultural diversity not typically recorded in southern history. Most of Atlanta's Jews were immigrants, having lived in other areas of America before migrating to the city. Yet theirs was not necessarily a random movement. They tended to travel in chains of migration following earlier relatives or landsmenpeople from the same areas of Europeto locations that offered the greatest likelihood of mercantile success and, ultimately, in which they could establish Jewish community institutions. Atlanta's Jews epitomized the New South creed four decades before Henry Grady proclaimed it. Starting as peddlers or in partnerships with relatives and friends, they obtained dry goods on credit from northern wholesalers (especially those in Baltimore, Maryland, and New York City). Often selling cheaply and on credit, the Jewish community opened a consumer window and thus filled a critical economic niche as merchants. Economic and Religious Beginnings From the mid-1800s Atlanta proved to be one of the best locations in the South for Jews. In 1850 twenty-six Jews lived in Atlanta. Though they constituted just 1 percent of the city's total population of 2,572, they owned more than 10 percent of its retail businesses. Almost all of the people were immigrants from central Europe, mostly the Germanic states. Although by the eve of the Civil War (1861-65) the Jewish population in Atlanta had doubled, their small numbers still precluded the establishment of formal religious institutions. Religious services were held intermittently, and women offered religious classes for children. The Hebrew Benevolent Society, which was started in 1860 and provided insurance, aid, and burial benefits, served as the first formal Jewish religious organization and the forerunner of things to come. The Jews of Atlanta had been welcomed with little prejudice and had fit into society. A few owned slaves as servants, some employed slaves in their business pursuits, and most supported the Confederacy. David Mayer, the most noteworthy of the Confederacy supporters, served as Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown's commissary officer. Yet Reconstruction affected Jews differently than most southerners. As merchants, the Jewish community reestablished ties with northern businesses and quickly recovered. Their numbers also dramatically increased with the arrival of numerous immigrants who had previously resided elsewhere in the South or North. From Cleveland, Ohio, for example, came Morris Rich, who, with his brothers, built the retail business that became Rich's Department Store. By 1880 Atlanta was home to 600 Jews.
The rapid influx of Jews contributed to the creation of religious institutions. On January 1, 1867, the Reverend Isaac Leeser of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, presided over the first Jewish wedding in Atlanta, that of Emilie Baer to Abraham Rosenfeld, and used the occasion to encourage the creation of a congregation to replace the short-lived one begun in 1862. The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation received a charter four months later and began constructing a synagogue in 1875.
Beginning in 1881 Atlanta lured Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe and, after 1906, a small enclave from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The newcomers obtained assistance from their predecessors and created their own institutions. Congregation Ahavath Achim was founded in 1887 followed by Shearith Israel (1902), Anshi S'fard (1913), and Or VeShalom (1914), a Sephardic synagogue.
Intragroup relations were often divisive. The old-timers were frequently condescending toward the greenhorns who spoke Yiddish or Ladino, followed traditional religion, supported Zionism, and began in the lower class. Besides the differences, the newcomers were also concerned with the possibility of an anti-Semitic backlash that could undercut their acceptance.
During the nineteenth century Atlanta's Jews created social clubs as well as self-help organizations, including men's and women's Hebrew Benevolent Societies. The Concordia Society, forerunner of the present Standard Club, was a Jewish social organization founded in 1866. A local chapter of the Jewish fraternity B'nai B'rith opened its doors in 1870.
The arrival of the new immigrants, coupled with the declining needs of the earlier immigrants, contributed to the transformation of Jewish social services and club life. David Marx had encouraged his women congregants to form a local section of the National Council of Jewish Women (1895). This organization aided Jewish immigrants and nurtured their Americanization through classes, particularly under the auspices of the Free Kindergarten and Social Settlement (1903). The Federation of Jewish Charities, later a charter member of the Community Chest (United Way), started as an umbrella organization in 1905 to rationalize fund-raising and the delivery of assistance and then reorganized in 1912. It included the women's organizations as well as the Jewish Educational Alliance (1909), a settlement-type entity, and the Free Loan Association. The federation board included women and representatives of the eastern European and Sephardic communities.
Gradually this interaction, along with the rise and acculturation of the newer immigrants, especially after the closing of America's doors to immigrants during the 1920s, contributed to the decline of animosity. Nonetheless, the eastern Europeans, refused acceptance into the Standard Club, organized the Progressive Club (1913). In 1917 a local chapter of Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization geared toward medical and educational assistance, began. Although each of a series of rabbisfrom Marx to Harry Epstein, Tobias Geffen, and Joseph I. Cohenserved Atlanta's major congregations for decades, and Marx and Victor Kriegshaber, the most influential Jewish layman after David Mayer, led in the formation of these organizations, the federation ushered in a power shift to the executive directors, starting with Edward M. Kahn in 1928.
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Jewish Community of Atlanta | New Georgia Encyclopedia
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