Once-thriving Jewish congregations dwindling in rural South D

CLARKSDALE, Miss.

Congregation Beth Israel was once a vibrant presence in this Delta town, but now the synagogue is for sale.

Congregation member Gloria Himmelstein has watched the Jewish community dwindle over the years as younger generations, including her son and daughter, moved to urban areas offering more opportunities.

"We used to have 100 families," in the 1950s, Himmelstein said. "At this point, there's nothing here for the children. Not just being Jewish, I'm talking Clarksdale as a whole."

Clarksdale offers few jobs outside farming and its casinos. As labor-intensive farm jobs have given way to mechanization, many working-age residents have had to search elsewhere for employment.

The last time Himmelstein worshipped at Beth Israel, the town's only synagogue, the crowd was small. Though 200 can sit comfortably on the rows of green velvet-covered pews, only about 10 were in attendance.

The situation is not unique to Mississippi, said Dale Rosengarten, curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston Library in South Carolina.

Across the rural South, she said, "It is very common, unfortunately. ... Small towns are becoming Jewish ghost towns."

In recent years, rural synagogues or temples have closed in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Arkansas.

This does not mean the South as a whole is losing its Jewish population, Rosengarten said. Major cities, such as Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and three cities in South Carolina, have rising Jewish populations.

Mississippi is a slightly different story, Rosengarten said, because it's a mostly rural state with few metropolitan areas.

Three other small Mississippi Delta cities -- Cleveland, Greenwood and Greenville -- each have synagogues, all with declining congregations and no full-time rabbi. Jackson's Beth Israel Congregation has the largest membership in the state with about 200 families.

Mississippi's Jewish population reached an estimated peak of 6,400 in the 1920s and has dropped to about 3,000 today, said Stuart Rockoff, the historian for the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson.

The institute works closely with smaller cities to preserve the history of the Jewish experience in the South and the traditions of Judaism -- helping train parents to be Sunday school teachers, for instance. The institute also organizes literary and film festivals with Jewish themes, and tries to preserve historic synagogues, such as the one in Natchez, which may one day become a satellite museum.

"We're working through government grants to get the funding," Rockoff said. "We don't have the money to save every single place."

The institute is working with the Clarksdale congregation to find the best way to dispose of the synagogue's artifacts.

The original congregation in Clarksdale was established in the late 19th century and the current two-story brick building was constructed in the 1920s, said furniture store owner Jon Levingston, a past president of Beth Israel.

Black-and-white photos of former Sunday school students line the walls of the education annex. A picture of the late Benjamin Schultz, Beth Israel's longest-serving full-time rabbi, hangs in the social hall.

The Torah, the first five books of the Bible handwritten in Hebrew on sheepskin, is tucked away in the ark behind the pulpit.

Arnold Himmelstein, current president of Beth Israel, said it's uncertain what will happen to the temple's religious artifacts, including colorful stained-glass windows on which family names were painted.

"We're trying to contact families to see what they'd like to do with the windows," he said. "We've got a lot of decisions to make."