This Is Personal

David Calechman

Inland Empire for Israel, Co-Founder

“It happened again,” my mother texted in early January. The “it” was the Jan. 10 arson attack on a Synagogue in Jackson, Miss. For my mother, and for me, this wasn’t just another report about an attack against Jews. It was personal in a way all the others over the last two years weren’t.

My mother, Susan, grew up attending Congregation Beth Israel in Jackson during the 1940s and 1950s. “Nobody there called it a Synagogue” she said. Instead, everybody called it a temple. As the only shul in the city, it was, and still is, the center of Jewish life in Jackson.

Her Great Grandfather helped found the congregation in 1860, which became a Reform congregation in 1875.  Her father helped build the congregation’s prior building. Her family had regular seats for Friday night Shabbat services for decades.

Then, in 1967 the Ku Klux Klan bombed that building and a few months later the home of the congregation’s rabbi. Fortunately, nobody was hurt in those bombings just as nobody was hurt in the latest arson.

But after this January’s attack, the building is unusable. Parts of the building suffered extensive damage; the library was destroyed; two Torah scrolls were burned. A Torah from the Holocaust did survive.

Federal arson charges have been filed against 19-year-old Stephen Spencer Pittman. According to NPR, his father tried to discourage him and later turned him in. Other reports claim he said he attacked the “Synagogue of Satan.”

After the 1967 bombing destroyed the temple, local Christians supported the city’s Jewish community. “In 1967 Jackson Jews used a local church for services while the building was being repaired,” my mom said.

Today, several local churches have reached out to Congregation President Zach Shemper to offer space so the 140 displaced families can attend services while the building again is under repair. 

My mom has lived near Boston since the late 1950s and said she didn’t face much antisemitism growing up in Jackson. “I had only a minor incident in second grade. I was often the only Jewish student in class or sometimes in the school. I had many interfaith relationships including attending Christian services and getting music lessons from a local nun.”

This is the South, she said. “We were assimilated into life in Jackson.  ‘Biscuits and Brisket’.  ‘Shalom y’all.’  So these attacks really come as a shock. My Great Grandfather, John Hart, immigrated to Mississippi from Germany in 1848 because of political unrest there (The March Revolution).

“He came to Mississippi because he had family in the South. We had family in nearby Hattiesburg and there were small Jewish communities throughout the South.” Now almost all of it is gone. “I think Beth Israel is the only functioning Temple in Mississippi now.”, she said.

The Times of Israel reports on the first Shabbat in Jackson since the arson attack

Times of Israel

To learn more about the Congregation's rebuilding efforts or to make a donation:

Beth Israel Updates

To learn more about Jewish life in Jackson check out the Institute of Southern Jewish Life’s website.

Institute of Southern Jewish Life