Shalom, Y’all
Jewish Life in Savannah is Something Spectacular
By Janet Lubman Rathner

Savannah, Georgia’s Jewish presence dates to 1733—July 11, precisely. That was the day the schooner “William and Sarah” arrived from London to drop anchor in the Savannah River and dispatch 42 Jews.

These colonists were refugees: 34 Sephardim, originally from Portugal, where they had practiced their Judaism in secret after forced conversion to Roman Catholicism, and eight Ashkenazim originally from Germany. All had spent years living in England and were searching for the acceptance and opportunity that had continued to elude them, even in their new country.

Their journey to Georgia, a British colony established just five months earlier, came courtesy of London’s Bevis Marks Synagogue. The congregation not only chartered the ship that took the group to Savannah—but also paid its passage.

“[These Jews] from Germany and the Iberian Peninsula had different ways of doing things, and I think there was nervousness among the old-timers in London. They thought they [the newcomers] were uncouth. I think they wanted to get them out of town,” says attorney B.H. Levy Jr., a lifelong resident of Savannah and a descendant of one of the colonists.

Once the town’s first Jews landed in Savannah, an initial act was to establish the Orthodox Sephardic synagogue Mickve Israel. The third-oldest continuously operating synagogue in the United States—it marked its 275th anniversary this past July—Mickve Israel is the only one that still operates out of the type of neo-Gothic structure that was once the predominant architecture style for New World houses of worship.

Now Reform in practice, Mickve Israel has a membership of 340 families. The synagogue boasts an extensive archive collection that includes a letter from George Washington that reads in part: “May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors…continue to water them from the dews of Heaven.”

Also of note are two 400-plus-year-old deerskin Torah scrolls believed to be from Iberia, one of which came with the colonists and which Mickve Israel continues to use on special occasions.

Jews an Integral Part
Jews prospered in Savannah’s early years, contributing to the community’s business, government, and culture, as well as to those of the nation as a whole.

Today, of Savannah’s metropolitan population of 400,000, approximately 3,500 is Jewish. A Jewish Community Center, Jewish Federation, Jewish day school, and three synagogues—in addition to Mickve Israel, there is a Conservative and an Orthodox congregation— tend to Jewish needs.

“Savannah is the best place. It’s a small town unlike a small town,” says Rabbi Arnold Mark Belzer, spiritual leader of Mickve Israel and a Yankee slicker hailing from New York’s Westchester County. “It’s on the beaten track culturally and politically. People want to come here.”

Native son Edward Wexler, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel whose father, William, served as B’nai B’rith International president from 1965–1971, says Savannah exemplifies the saying, ‘good things come in small packages’.

“ Savannah has all the charm of a small town, but all of the advantages of a bigger town,” Wexler says, adding this applies to the city’s diminutive Jewish community as well. “The Jewish population has always been very strong. It’s not huge, but it’s close-knit.”

Wexler’s wife, Mary, agrees: “The Jewish community is very hospitable, very friendly. Say ‘hello’ to somebody and they’ll invite you for dinner.”

Savannah Jews have left their footprints. One of the first, Mordecai Sheftall, B.H. Levy’s ancestor, was the highest-ranking Jewish officer of the American Revolutionary forces, serving as deputy commissary general to the Continental Troops in South Carolina and Georgia. Sheftall and his son were imprisoned by the British and sent to the island of Antigua where they were eventually exchanged for two British officers who had been captured by the colonists.

In more recent times, Savannah Jews have served variously as mayor and on the city council, reflecting the welcoming embrace that Levy says is extended to all who call the “Hostess City” home.

“Savannah is such an amalgam of different nationalities: Irish, Greek, Asian. It’s a melting pot, this area, and Jews have been accepted here as other minorities have been,” say Levy.

Charm and hospitality define Savannah. The architecture, town squares, and access to beach and coastal islands attract millions of visitors, and not just tourists. This is a place where Hollywood calls with regularity. Recent movies filmed in Savannah include “Glory,” “Forrest Gump,” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”.

“ It has a sense of style that is different from other places in the South,” explains Levy.

Of course, no place is perfect. Savannah, according to Levy, has one glaring shortcoming: “We do not have a good deli anymore,” he laments.

But within this deficiency lies a silver lining. Savannahians’ hankering for Jewish vittles makes Mickve Israel’s annual “Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival” a virtual gold mine. The fundraiser, always held the last Sunday in October, racks in close to $75,000, thanks to a diverse and salivating crowd of 10,000-plus happily shelling out for nosh opportunities of matzo balls, kugel, chopped liver, and apple strudel.

“That’s a lot of sales in a short time,” says Levy. “There’s pent-up demand.”