That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South

That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South

A conversation with Caroline Light (Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University), author of That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South, about the American Jewish tradition of charity and its southern roots. Drawing from confidential case files and institutional records from various southern Jewish charities, Light relates how southern Jewish leaders and their immigrant clients negotiated the complexities of “fitting in” in a place and time of significant socio-political turbulence, post-Civil War. Ultimately, the southern Jewish call to benevolence bore the particular imprint of the region’s racial mores and left behind a rich legacy.