The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience should be…I don’t know…10x the size it is here in New Orleans. I’ve been in love with this museum since it was on the grounds of the Henry S Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi featuring an exhibit Av was in — and funny thing, the exhibit upstairs now, Shalom Y’all, is the same from then — a timeless selection of photos by Bill Aron.
Speaking of Jacobs Camp, we used to stay in Jackson, Mississippi for a week in the summer so these guys could attend as little day campers, then they each did a summer before Shug found his “home” camp in Georgia and Shugie decided he wanted to do a thousand different things over a summer instead of having that experience. That’s okay because this summer I hope to get him busy with the World Games coming to Birmingham, and maybe some flag football at another competition in California.
peddler’s cart
these decorative pieces for the Torah, cover (1960s), crown (1850s), and breastplate (1890s) come from Gemiluth Chessed in Port Gibson, Mississippi (sidenote: it’s no longer serving as a synagogue — but it’s gorgeous)
1885 Victorian crazy quilt made by the Jewish Ladies’ Sewing Circle in Canton, Mississippi
Bertha Hirsch’s 1885 silk wedding dress; the wedding was at the St Charles Hotel, officiated by Temple Sinai’s Rabbi James Koppel Gutheim. The chuppah was “a beautiful umbrella of roses” according to the Times-Pic
Here, a panel on Ruth and her story. She and her sister attend my shul, and I know Ilse a little better (when I volunteered to run the Sisterhood giftshop, Ilse would come in and volunteer too, and I would literally sit at her feet while she told me stories). I’ve made her recipe for chremsel that’s in the Hadassah Jewish Holiday Cookbook, and there’s another recipe of hers that she gave me on a recipe card that I am currently turning my home upside down to find. It’s in the rolltop desk but wherrrrrre in the rolltop desk is something else altogether.
Bill Aron’s Shalom Y’all book is available here on Amazon