BY DAWN BAUMGARTNER VAUGHAN
dvaughan@heraldsun.com; 419-6563
RALEIGH -- If "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina" were a book, museum exhibit and movie chronicling Jewish history in New York, the way the stories are told would be very different. New York was the first stop for many Jewish immigrants, while North Carolina was a second stop or no stop at all.
"Down South, we call it 'Explaining Judaism.' We knew, this being North Carolina, our audience would be overwhelmingly not Jewish," said Leonard Rogoff, author of the book and curator of the exhibit that opened Monday at the N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.
The project has two missions: "To tell who we are. To tell how we are," Rogoff said.
Visitors to the exhibit at the history museum can relive the experience of a Jew in North Carolina. They can look at ritual objects. They can sit at a seder table. They can look at a replica of an early immigrant's peddler cart. But first, they are given questions to ponder before they enter, like "Why do Jews need to study? Isn't belief enough?" and "If I'm a Jewish American, am I different than other Americans?" and "Why is it said where there are two Jews, there will be three questions?"
The exhibit's first installation, "Keeping the Faith," answers a question non-Jews might have:
"Is Judaism an ethnicity, a culture or a religion?"
"Yes, yes and yes."
The exhibit explains Judaism -- like the differences between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform strands -- as well as sharing our state's Jewish history in a hands on way. One area displaying merchants' information and photographs from over the years includes a familiar name in Durham: E.J. "Mutt" Evans, a 1928 graduate of UNC and the mayor of Durham from 1951 to 1963. His store, Evans United Department Store, was the only store on Main Street with an integrated lunch counter before integration. When a local judge told him that the state prohibited blacks and whites from sitting together in public, Evans took out the stools and raised the countertop to elbow height.
In the kitchen exhibit, North Carolina Jews share their food memories and recipes. Helen Stahl of Durham still uses her great-grandmother's chicken soup with matzoh balls recipe. Eliza Filene of Carrboro thinks there should be a challah-flavored jelly bean. Visitors can write down and submit their own food memories and recipes.
The book "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina" is a sizable narrative history.
Jews are still and were a minority since the first, Joachim Gans of Prague, arrived at Roanoke Island in 1585 with Sir Walter Raleigh's second expedition. Gans returned to England the next year, but like many Jewish immigrants to come after him, came from Europe for a job.
In North Carolina, they settled in port areas like Wilmington, which was the first and largest Jewish community and home to the first synagogue in the state. Jews served in the Confederate army, like Louis Leon, who wrote "Diary of a Tar Heel Confederate."
Late 1870s Durham included Polish, Bavarian, Prussian and Dutch Jews, as well as those born here. The 1870 census recorded 300 Jews across the state.
In 1881, tobacco magnate Buck Duke sought immigrant labor through a Jewish man and strike leader he met in New York, Moses Gladstein. Gladstein brought more than 100 workers to Duke's tobacco factory, where they were supervised by Joseph Siegel. The tobacco competition, W.T. Blackwell, hired Siegel's brother David to bring workers to the Bull Durham factory. Duke clashed with his workers, who organized a local chapter of the Cigarmaker's Progressive Union, and after Duke reduced quotas and wages, they left and were replaced. But Gladstein stayed after settling with Duke. His brother, Louis operated Gladstein's men's clothing store, which was passed on to his son Melvin.
Melvin Gladstein was Lynne Gladstein Grossman's dad. She worked in the store from age 11 on. Gladstein's, which was last located at 209 W. Mangum St., sold everything to outfit the man, Grossman said. The store also sold military uniforms for Camp Butner in the 1940s. When Levi's blue jeans became popular, Gladstein's was the place to get them. The store closed during urban renewal in the 1970s.
Grossman knew her family's merchant history, but not the tobacco link until Rogoff told her. Her mother, Grace Gladstein, will turn 99 on Friday. Grossman, like her mother, has been president of the Beth El Sisterhood and the local chapter of Hadassah. The family has always been an integral part of the Jewish community, Grossman said.
"Faith is important to us and been a guiding force," she said.
Rogoff said that the "Down Home" project, which took about six years to complete, included researching oral and written histories as well as sorting through extensive records of Jewish peddlers from the 1840s to 1880s, which he considered an invaluable resource. While the exhibit is geared toward educating those who don't know about Judaism and Jewish history in North Carolina, the movie, out on DVD, is a way to let Jews share their stories in their own words.
Rogoff and Will Grossman, of the North Carolina Jewish Heritage Foundation, said that they are still hearing new personal recollections of Jews from Murphy to Manteo. Rogoff sees a second edition of the book possibly to come, with updates.
"There are always stories you can't get to," said Will Grossman, whose wife is Lynne Gladstein Grossman. "Down Home" is a project of the heritage foundation, based in Durham.
In the book, Rogoff writes: "The challenge for native and immigrant Jews alike was to become southerners while remaining Jews."
WHAT: "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina" exhibit
WHERE: N.C. Museum of History
5 Edenton St., Raleigh
WHEN: Now through March 7. It will close between July 11 and Aug. 1 to move elsewhere in the museum. Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
BOOK: "Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina" by Leonard Rogoff, $35, UNC Press
The book and documentary DVD are available in the museum gift shop. Educational DVDs and teacher resource guides will be available for use with North Carolina fourth grade and eighth grade curriculum.
