ABOUT THE CENTER
The College of Charleston’s Center for Southern Jewish Culture seeks to broaden public knowledge and inspire conversations about the southern Jewish experience.
Generously funded by the Pearlstine/Lipov family in 2014, it brings together the resources of the College’s Jewish Studies Program, Addlestone Library’s Jewish Heritage Collection, and The Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina.
The College of Charleston’s Center for Southern Jewish Culture hosts a wide array of speakers, films, and other events.
Our Charleston Research Fellowship Program supports works of scholarship, public history, and artistic production.
We partner with other organizations to help the public discover the rich history and culture of the Jewish South.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Join us over Sunday brunch for a conversation about Dr. Shari Rabin’s forthcoming The Jewish South: An American History (Princeton University Press, 2025). Dr. Rabin’s book is the first narrative survey of southern Jewish history. Exploring dynamics of race and religion, it features a wide range of Jewish southerners whose stories complicate popular understandings of their region. In this presentation, Rabin, who taught southern Jewish history at the College of Charleston from 2015-2019, will discuss the process of writing this book and share some of the most intriguing finds from her research.
This hybrid event will take place in the Jewish Studies Center, Arnold Hall (Room 100) and via Zoom. Brunch will be served beginning at 9:00 AM.
This talk will share new research on the migration of Jews from Kaluszyn to Paris, in the early twentieth century and their wartime experiences. A branch of Kimble’s own family made this migration and in-depth research allows her to contextualize stories of community solidarity during the Nazi occupation, and bittersweet memorial during the Liberation and postwar period. Join us for a reflection on being Jewish in Paris between 1920 and 1950. This hybrid event will take place in the Jewish Studies Center, Arnold Hall (Room 100) and via Zoom. Brunch will be served beginning at 9:00 AM.
In this talk Dr. Samuel Gruber presents an overview of the role of women in Jewish worship space but especially focuses on the types of physical spaces allowed to women in American synagogue architecture from the 18th century until today. Dr. Gruber will present historical material, some of which derives from the William Rosenthal Collection at the College of Charleston, and much of which comes from his own continuing investigation of synagogue buildings throughout the world.
NEWS AND NOTES
Center Talk, Spring 2019
I spent this semester working with my students in “Southern Jewish History” to curate an exhibition of southern Jewish family photographs.
Center Talk, Fall 2018
In January, we hosted journalist Sue Eisenfeld, who gave a Sunday talk on her current project, “A Yankee’s Journey Through the Jewish South.”
Center Talk, Spring 2018
The Center treated Charleston to Joselit’s eloquent meditation on the Ten Commandments in the American South.
Center Talk, Fall 2017
Kinky Friedman, Texas singer & politician, gave a free performance & participated in an on-stage conversation about his life & career as a Jewish southerner.