You might be thinking why I would be interested in exploring small town jewish life in the south, especially as a student in Atlanta, which is very clearly not a small town. The answer lies in my journey to Poland.
This past winter break, I went to Poland with many of my Emory classmates to explore our judaic roots and to gain a deeper perspective of the horrors that occurred during the Holocaust. Yes, we visited Warsaw, Majdanek, and Auschwitz, some of the larger and more well known locations that Jews from around go to Poland to see, BUT the most enlightening part of the trip was our experience Dambia. As we pulled up to this small village, we were all confused about where we were, because Dambia, a village once filled with 1000 Jews, now has zero, and the only remnants that Jewish life ever existed there is in the attic of a run down and poorly maintained apartment building that used to be the synagogue of the village. If you look at the picture above, you will see the writing that used to reside above the arc of the sanctuary that existed before all the Jews were transported to and killed in Chelmno. I could not believe that these 22 hebrew letters were the only remains of a once thriving Jewish community... all I could think about was that Hitler did a REALLY good job. |
Now while Jews in small villages of the south were not exposed to Hitler's extermination, being back in Atlanta, in a class studying Jewish Life in the South, I began to realize that many Jewish towns in the south have had the same fate of losing their Jewish population or at least of slowly progressing in that direction.
So much culture and tradition has been lost. I wanted to explore this topic for my project as a way to spread awareness of these diminishing Jewish communities and to delve into some of these unknown Jewish stories for my own interest, as well as that of others. I urge you to come explore my project, as it will allows to follow the journey of these small town jews. Beginning with their migration to these towns and then exploring the impact they had on the community and how they practiced religion, the project will conclude with their fate, and what is happening to these many Jewish populations. Photo Source: Jordan Pincus Word Count: 402 |