That Pride of Race and Character

“Ithas ever been the boast of the Jewish people, that they support their own poor,”declared Kentucky attorney Benjamin Franklin Jonas in 1856. “Their reasons arepartly founded in religious necessity, and partly in that pride of race andcharacter which has supported them through so many ages of trial andvicissitude.” In That Pride of Race andCharacter, Caroline E. Light examines the American Jewish tradition ofbenevolence and charity and explores its southern roots.Light provides a critical analysis ofbenevolence as it was inflected by regional ideals of race and gender, showinghow a southern Jewish benevolent empire emerged in response to the combinedpressures of post-Civil War devastation and the simultaneous influx of easternEuropean immigration. In an effort to combat the voices of anti-Semitism andnativism, established Jewish leaders developed a sophisticated and cutting-edgenetwork of charities in the South to ensure that Jews took care of thoseconsidered “their own” while also proving themselves to be exemplary whitecitizens. Drawing from confidential case files and institutional records fromvarious southern Jewish charities, the book relates how southern Jewish leadersand their immigrant clients negotiated the complexities of “fitting in” in aplace and time of significant socio-political turbulence. Ultimately, thesouthern Jewish call to benevolence bore the particular imprint of the region’sracial mores and left behind a rich legacy.

This book sings. It is that rare beautiful volume that cuts to the heart of the mattera groundbreaking, eloquent and meticulously researched book about Southern Jewish culture. Light takes us inside the heart of this regional Jewish community. Through careful and creative archival inquiry she illuminates the subtle labors of benevolencethe care of 'our own' widows and orphansas the site where Southern Jews performed Southern gentility and whiteness as a means to achieve their own cultural citizenship. This book transforms our understanding of how American Jews do race. It changes the ways we think about Jewish life in the South. It is an astonishing accomplishment., A deeply researched and beautifully written account of a neglected chapter of American Jewish historyand of national belonging. By telling the story of Jews in the Jim Crow South, Caroline E. Light vitally illuminates the ongoing production and negotiation of racial and religious difference not just in the South, but in the U.S. more broadly., Lights study strikes out in new and interesting directions, including the use of previously untapped sources for the study of southern Jews, such as case files from orphan homes and immigrant relief associations. Coupled with oral history interviews, these sources give rare insight into family and gender relations, the economic struggles of Jewish immigrants, and the social anxieties driving Jewish elites to impose a strict cultural discipline on aid recipients., Through its well-organized chapters and thorough research,That Pride of Race and Characteryields an important and thought-provoking examination of the exceptional ways in which two southern Jewish communities & took care of their own., Light has identified a significant topic that touches upon important matters such as the intersection of race and gender in the Jim Crow South, the changing nature of child welfare work in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America, and the influence of regionalism in American Jewish history.That Pride of Race and Characterconstitutes a very interesting and useful investigation of this topic

Caroline E. Light is Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard’s Program in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.