Jews were among the earliest settlers of the small-town south and played a huge role in their history.
The first known Jew in North America lived in the South! Migrating to the United States in 1585 from Prague, Joachim Gaunse settled in Roanoke Island, Virginia as a mining technologist and metallurgist.
The earliest Jewish settlers in the South were of Sephardic origin. This group of 42 Sephardic Jews settled in Georgia in 1733.
Ashkanazi Jews of German origin came to the Southern United States in the mid-1800s, originally for the cotton industry there.
Eastern European Jews came last and settled in small towns of the south years after the central European Jews of Germany.
Photo Source: My Jewish Learning Source: Sheskin, Ira M. "The Dixie Diaspora: The "Loss" of the Small Southern Jewish Community." Southeastern Geographer 40.1 (2000): 52-74. Web.