Asian Art

History of the Jews in the Southern United States

Jews have inhabited the Southern United States since the late 1600s when several waves of Western Sephardim and a minority of Ashkenazim settled in the European colonies of Britain, France, and Spain. The community has since contributed to the vibrant cultural and historical legacy of the South in many ways. Although the United States' Jewish population is more often thought to be concentrated in Northern cities, such as New York, thousands of Jewish immigrants chose to settle in the more rural Southern United States forming tight-knit religious communities and creating a unique cultural identity. Jewish immigrants came to the South from various countries, backgrounds and religious traditions within Judaism. Major Jewish communities include Memphis, Tennessee; Houston, Texas; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; Charlottesville, Virginia; and Wilmington, North Carolina. Jews participated in many important events in Southern history, such as the Civil War, the World Wars, and the civil rights movement. According to a 2020 national study of Jewish Americans, around 27% or 2,025,000 Jewish-Americans live in the Southern United States.

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See also

• ▸Bảo Đại Thông Bảo
• ▸Control engineering
• ▸Buddhism in Japan

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.