Educational Media Reviews Online

This is an attractive, well-made amalgamation of new and old photographs, archival film footage, interviews, and modern scenes of South Carolina's Jews going about their lives. Viewers will enjoy scenes of Charleston, Columbia, and numerous small towns as well as a variety of rural landscapes. High quality technical attributes-sound, color, editing, music-are woven seamlessly into a delightful whole. Narrator Blythe Danner's mellifluous voiceovers add to the enjoyment of the piece and the local historians who comment on different aspects of Jewish life in the state from colonial times to the present are thoughtful, interesting, and informative.

Jewish life in South Carolina is shown in a mostly chronological development, with some jumping around in time as different activities are explained-how Jews earned their livelihoods, worshipped, participated in public life, their personal lifestyles, etc. Several major points are made and reiterated. The first and most important is that Jews were welcomed by colonial South Carolinians and allowed to practice their religion, which a statement claims was not the case in New England. The first Reform Jewish synagogue was founded in Charleston, which also is the site of the oldest building in continuous use by a Jewish congregation.

The second point is that Jews participated fully in public life throughout South Carolina's history, serving in its legislature and other state and local offices, and fighting in the American Revolution and on the Confederate side during the Civil War. Judah Benjamin, a South Carolina Jew, was Secretary of State of the Confederacy. A third point is that Jews began as merchants-itinerant peddlers and small shopkeepers-who quickly built up larger, prosperous operations in both cities and small towns because of the state's welcoming environment. A few generations later, their descendants shifted to professional careers in medicine, law, etc. Today, Jews are more likely to be professionals than merchants. The fourth point is that the ambivalence of South Carolina's Jews toward slavery, civil rights, and black activism was a reflection of their acceptance by and identification with the state's white society.

With all the glowing characteristics just described, one may be prompted to ask, "So, tell me, is anything wrong here?" This reviewer has three criticisms. First, many of the photographs and archival clips used to show "old time" Jewish life are far too general. Much material lacks a distinctly South Carolina identity and some even lacks any visible Jewish identity. Second, platitudes about Jewish life, issues, and events detract from the South Carolina theme and blur its local focus. Third, the story tiptoes around anti-Semitism as if it was barely an issue, which belies belief. It shows Ku Klux Klan members dancing around a bonfire, but fails to suggest that some of their wrath aimed at Jews as well as African Americans. If life for Jews in South Carolina was always so trouble-free, the rest of the country's Jews would surely have noticed.

Recommended for collections supporting studies of Jews in America.