Oh, on the other hand from my prior post it is also probably easier to be Jewish in the North East at the same time. Non-Jewish are much more aware of differences and most people know Jewish people personally and most people are not anti-Semitic thankfully. Plenty of Temples if religious doesn’t hurt.
It is somewhat understandable why people in the South automatically think that Jewish = rich. Because the Jewish population is rather small, they tended to move there for a reason and that reason is usually job opportunities whether it is CEO, bank president, head surgeon or partner in a law firm. I have known a number of younger Southern Jewish transplants and almost all of them ended up in the South because their father got a fat job that was too good to pass up and they were, in fact, quite wealthy. Unlike the Northeast, there have never been any prominent Jewish ghettos in the South and no negative connotations such as tenement conditions in the Northeast during the early 20th century. All we saw were the mansions and 18 year old girls driving brand new BMW’s. Being good Americans, we figured that they must be really great people if not a little different. The established Southern Jewish population where it exists tends to be very affluent and socially influential as well.
In my neck of the southern woods I haven’t heard people bitching about the Jews since Archy Bunker went off the air. And to be honest, even then most of the bitching about Jews back then WAS Archy.
Unless you happen to drop into some odd tiny southern Jew hating town, start protesting about the town hall Christmas display, take over a company and fire half the people, flaunt any wealth you have, or otherwise “stir up trouble”, as a Jewish person I’d say being Jewish in the south is probably as safe or safer than being a relocated Jew than plenty of other places.
I wouldn’t worry about the half-Jewish thing at all in the Deep South. I think the comment about being a ‘Yankee carpetbagger’ is more relevant. Mississippi is among one of the most derided states in the U.S. along with West Virginia. Both of them have their problems but they are also glorious in their own ways. Mississippi is a very beautiful and underappreciated state. It is the birthplace of the Blues, the people are nice, the college girls are easy and it has some of the finest examples of antebellum architecture in existence in places like Natchez. Their public high school rankings suck but don’t let that fool you. Old Miss and several other Mississippi universities are just as good or better than most other schools in the nation. Like other Southern states, they tend to focus their funding and attention at the university level so you get terrible high schools but extravagant colleges and universities at a discount compared to comparable schools in other parts of the country. The cost of living is very low as well. If it is a good fit for him, I would tell him to go for it.
I haven’t heard anything overtly anti-semitic here in Texas either, and I’ve known quite a few Texas Jews.
It’s just not a thing for the most part; I mean, I still occasionally run across people who are somewhat bigoted against blacks and/or Hispanics, but I just haven’t heard anything about jews.
Personally, I think it’s because unless your name is Yitzhak Goldman, you wear a yarmulke and peyot, and you sound like you’re straight out of Brooklyn, you won’t stand out, unlike a hispanic or black person.
His attitude is that he’ll visit and see what he thinks. They’ll likely offer big scholarship money. Of course if he doesn’t like it even a full ride wouldn’t be a bargain. The school in question is Ole Miss, by the way. I’m sure he’s far more liberal than the average student there, but being around people with different views can be a good thing. Also, at a school that size I would think most people can find people to hang out with.
Ole Miss is a gorgeous school with lots of distinguished alumni. Oxford is a classic college town. It is an extremely Southern university in attitude and feel but they have all types there. I wish him the best of luck and, if that is the best fit for him, it is a fine choice. That is Mississippi’s flagship university and they make sure that the students there don’t lack for anything. You would be surprised how many non-traditional types attend a university that large. They certainly have the sorority girls and jocks but everyone else is res presented as well
The few examples of anti-Semitism I’ve personally witnessed in the South have been from older, highly religious (Christian) black people. One patient of mine refused to let a Jewish nurse do a blood draw because “[her] people killed Jesus.” Thankfully, she apparently just shrugged it off as his issue.
I lived in Alabama for 8 years or so and spent 11 years traveling a LOT in the South. It’s not that I ran into much Antisemitism as much as surprise that I wasn’t a Christian. And some of those so surprised thought of me as a target to be “Saved”. Though to be fair, that’s not so much as a Southern thing than an Evangelical Christian thing, isn’t it? I did notice that some, but not all, people of all ages and classes used the word “jew” as a verb though i.e. “I jewed him down on the price.” And I got the impression there were still restricted clubs and “gentlemen’s agreements” re housing developments.
The thing is, there can be Jews in the area which feel differently based on their experiences and you wouldn’t know it because they don’t talk about it. You’d have to talk to them directly about their experiences. Asking those who aren’t Jewish if it was an unfriendly environment isn’t good research.
I work in IT, and I worked with an African American fellow in IT who told me about situations which seemed too subtle for me to notice that was giving him a shabby treatment. It pains me that I wasn’t even aware of them until I got to know him well and he pointed them out to me.
The fact that your wife mentioned what I bolded above, is all the information you need to know. People have to feel comfortable where they are. Education is extremely important and anything that’s going to be a distraction from that in my opinion is a very bad thing. Also feeling like you need to hide for no good reason because of others is a stressful environment to live, work and attend school in.
Seriously, unless the program in college for your son’s major is the best in the country and he couldn’t get a job in that field unless he went there, it would be better to look for schools elsewhere. Besides, the best thing about going to college is going away from where you grew up and experience new positive things. It helps get a better prospective. I went out of state to college and I look back on that experience of real growth because it got me out of the very familiar environment and I become much more independent because of it. I also got to attend school with people from other cultures and that was extremely helpful to my career because at work I had to work with people from all over the world and I felt very comfortable doing that. I didn’t even speak home language, but I got along with them better and was able to communicate with them at work much better than others who were born there locally, went to college locally and never even saw people from other countries.
Someone on this board once stated, “A lot of Southerners think they are anti-Semitic, but it’s not true. It’s actually New York accents that they hate.”
Not in my experience – I don’t buy that most black churches have this attitude without evidence.
The Jews I’ve met down here in suburban Atlanta don’t mention anti-Semitism, but they do mention their difficulties with the impenetrable cliquishness when dealing with city hall, run by people who feel that their families starved this was all hardscrabble farms and so now they and they alone deserve the goodies as it’s being turned into housing developments and malls.
Also, because any conversation with me naturally gets around to nasty things, I can testify that they all know who Leo Frank was.
Funny.
And I think there is some truth to that. But its not just accents. Its the whole “I’m not from here and where I’m from we do things differently” vibe some opinionated “outsiders” give off ( or in the more egregious cases outright state).
IMO generally speaking southerners are pretty much go along get along types. At least until you start judging or complaining about things southern. That will quickly earn you a one way first class ticket on the “well bless your heart” train.
Problem is, when you complain about cronyism, corruption and inefficiency, and you’re paying taxes just like everyone else, you should get a say in the matter. Of course, you don’t say “you Southerners are corrupt and inefficient because you’re Southerners” because you know it’s the same in California and Vermont, and it’s obvious that Southerners are as smart, hard-working as sophisticated as the rest of America. But the response isn’t wrapped up in Dixie indignation in those places.
Pop quiz:
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What were the first two US states to have Jewish Senators?
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Which country had a Jewish Cabinet member first- the USA or the Confederacy?
The answers re: -
Florida and Louisiana , in the 19th century
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The Confederacy (Judah Benjamin was Attorney General and Secretary of State in the Confederacy).
Meaning… relax. The South has actually been a lot warmer to Jews than to Catholics!
There is a significant Jewish community in Memphis and a sizable Memphis presence at Ole Miss, so Jews will not be an unknown. Also, many southern schools, including Ole Miss in particular, were actually quite welcoming of Jewish students back in the day when the Ivies and other WASP institutions had a lot more restrictions.
Well, that’s because they leave our ham and hambones alone.
Yes. This is similar to the reason that you don’t have very many anti-Eskimo incidents in the Bronx or anti-South Sea islander incidents in Appalachian hollows. It doesn’t mean that the people are completely and unquestionably accepting of outsiders. It does mean that certain potential “thems” don’t show up on the average person’s “us versus them” radar.
On the other hand, there is a lot of Evangelical Christianity in the South, and a lot of that seems to be politically pro-Israeli and at least acknowledges that Jews are God’s chosen people too. A little wayward perhaps, but still worthy of honor. I would be more concerned about a Jewish person needing to fend off conversion attempts than I would at being concerned over a racially violent incident. Also note that the population of the South that are actual members of the KKK and/or a Neo-Nazi group is a small percentage of the total population.
Note that California is not part of “The South” as it is traditionally defined. “The South” is a sociocultural area that is mostly confined to the southeast. California counts as part of “The West”. Y’know, like, totally?