The Other Holocaust Survivors in North Carolina
By B.J. Davis North Carolina has been home to many Holocaust survivors. Some of their stories and memories can be heard on websites such as Jewish Heritage North Carolina or…
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Jewish Heritage North Carolina is the only statewide organization dedicated to collect, preserve and present the history of the Jewish people of our State. To serve our mission we honor our history, celebrate our culture, and connect our communities.
We seek to collect artifacts that recount the story of the Jewish people in North Carolina, present programs that educate and showcase the richness of Jewish life, and serve as a resource to connect and enhance our diverse Jewish communities as well as promote a familiarity with the culture and lifestyle of Jews to the general public.
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Blog and News
Paul Green’s Jewish Inspiration
By Talia Brenner No work of literature says more about North Carolina than The Lost Colony, the musical drama by Paul Green about Sir Walter Raleigh’s fabled settlement. The play…
North Carolina Jews Lose a Friend with the Passing of Former Governor Jim Hunt
Jim Hunt, the four-term state governor who passed away on December 18, 2025, was a longtime friend of North Carolina’s Jewish community. When JHNC interviewed him for our documentary film…
Dr. Eva Salber, Community Health Pioneer and Author
See information about a February 19 event about Dr. Eva Salber: Nasher-Screening-Info By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer Dr. Eva Salber, a professor of community and family medicine at Duke University from…
The Rabbis Who Honored the “Lost Colony”
By Talia Brenner “The Lost Colony,” North Carolina’s famous outdoor drama about the 1587 Roanoke colony, opened on Roanoke Island in 1937 and quickly became a yearly tradition. Today, it…
Cheering the High Holidays
Jews live by two calendars, our Jewish one with its cycle of holidays and a secular one with its own national commemorations. The Hebrew month of Elul anticipates a…
Gertrude Elion, Nobelist and Inventor Without a PhD
By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer When Jewish research scientist Gertrude Elion arrived in the Research Triangle in 1970, North Carolina was built on industry and agriculture. The state aspired to reinvent…
Marshall Rauch: Mr. Public Service (1923-2025)
“May you live to 120” is a traditional Jewish blessing that evokes the lifespan of Moses. Marshall Rauch deservedly approached that milestone when he passed away on March 18 at…
Jerry Sternberg: Asheville’s Native Jewish Son
Jerry Sternberg, who liked calling himself the oldest native-born Jew in Asheville, died on December 25 at 93. Not just the Jewish community mourned his passing, but the city at…
Dr. Hedwig Kohn, Pioneering Physicist Who Found Haven in North Carolina
By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer Who could imagine a world without plasma TV screens? Or a blood test without measurements of key electrolytes, sodium and potassium? Both technologies rely on the…
Finding Shelter: Hurricane Helene Impacts Jewish Community of Western North Carolina
By Sharon Fahrer On September 27, 2024, hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina. Winds, felled trees, landslides, and flood waters destroyed cars, homes, and commercial buildings. Roads collapsed or were…
Josh Stein Takes the Oath on a Historic North Carolina Tanakh
As Josh Stein was sworn in as the state’s 76th governor on January 1, he placed his hand on a historic Hebrew Bible of North Carolina provenance. Herein lies a…
Southern Simchas: The Delicacies of Jewish Memory
Multigenerations share hamantaschen at Weldon’s Temple Emanu-el. Photo credit: JHNC “I connect to Judaism through food,” Kelly Alexander, a UNC-CH food anthropologist, remarked in a d’var Torah at her Chapel…
Jews and North Carolina Politics: A Long History
This year’s North Carolina gubernatorial election—with Attorney General Josh Stein as the Democratic nominee—has spotlighted Jews and politics. While Stein cites membership in Raleigh’s Temple Beth Or, his Republican opponent…
North Carolina Remembers the Holocaust
Zachor, “Remember,” reads a Holocaust memorial on a wall at Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh. Remembering the Six Million has been not just a once-a-year day of observance—Yom HaShoah, Holocaust…
New Chabad Center Serves Lake Norman Community
By Jacob Scheer On Sunday Feb. 25, Chabad of Lake Norman held a grand opening for its new community center on Bethel Church Road in Cornelius. Dozens attended the inauguration…
The Gospel According to Jerry
They call themselves the “alta cockers,” a floating group of Jewish old timers who gather monthly for lunch at an Asheville restaurant, not a trendy nouveau-cuisine eatery but a steakhouse…
Lighting the Way at the Governor’s Mansion
The ceremonial Hanukkah candle-lighting at the Governor’s Mansion on December 11 was not the only celebration of the Festival of Lights this year. The day following a crowd gathered at…
Unprecedented Times?
Today, North Carolina Jews, like those everywhere, may feel imperiled as never before. In America we have enjoyed for several generations an exemplary security and prosperity by historical Jewish standards.…
Statesville-rooted Business now Featured on Highway Historical Marker
On October 15, a large crowd gathered in Statesville for the dedication of a Highway Historical Marker commemorating the “Jewish immigrants” Isaac and David Wallace, who operated the world’s largest…
Affirmative Action’s North Carolina Jewish History
As the U. S. Supreme Court puts an end to racially-based, affirmative action—a case involving the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—we might recall the time when universities intended…
Temple of Israel: A Ballast Stone of North Carolina Judaism
Recent excavations at Wilmington’s Temple of Israel will dispel misconceptions that North Carolina Jewish roots run shallow. Built in 1876, the state’s oldest synagogue was forced to close in 2020…
Leon Levine, 1937-2023
Leon Levine, who passed away on April 5, is being remembered as an innovative entrepreneur and a consequential philanthropist. Raised in Rockingham in rural Richmond County, Leon Levine began as…
Passover 2023
Passover has been celebrated in North Carolina for more than 200 years, at least. Across centuries, the state’s Jews have found new ways to mark the holiday. In 1805 Samuel…
Have a Spiel on Purim!
Perhaps no holiday is enjoyed as much as Purim with its revelries and irreverent humor. Tracing to ancient Persia, according to historian Hayyim Schauss, “Purim, from the beginning, had the…
An Accidental Archaeologist: Eric Meyers Celebrates Fifty Years of Jewish Studies at Duke University
Eric Meyers, founding director of Duke University’s Jewish Studies and past president of Jewish Heritage North Carolina, has published a memoir, An Accidental Archaeologist: A Personal Memoir. Now Bernice and…
Marking History: Jewish North Carolina’s Hit and Miss
The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ Highway Historical Marker Program has authorized the erection of a plaque at the site of the Wallace Brothers Herbarium in Statesville. …
Happy Hanukkah! Governor Roy Cooper Presides on 12/14/22
Photo Credit: Office of the Governor Governor Roy Cooper presides at the lighting of a Hanukkiah on December 14. When old timers would bring to Jewish Heritage North Carolina vintage…
Jewish Renewal in Jacksonville
Once a small-town Jewish community dies, can it come back to life? The story of many historic Jewish communities in mill-and-market towns on North Carolina’s coastal plain has been one…
Hendersonville’s Agudas Israel Congregation Celebrates 100 Years
Agudas Israel Congregation of Hendersonville observed its centennial with a series of celebratory events. Founded in Hendersonville in 1922 by 27 individuals who sought to provide a permanent synagogue…
A Homecoming in Weldon
Across North Carolina in old mill and market towns stand abandoned synagogues—now churches or residences—which once housed vibrant Jewish communities, some for more than half a century. Wilson, Weldon, Goldsboro,…
High Holiday Atonement, 1941
One mitzvah inspires another is a Jewish teaching. That lesson came home on the High Holidays 81 years ago in rural North Carolina when Jewish soldiers found themselves far from…
On the Menu: Jewish Soul Food in North Carolina
In Edible North Carolina: A Journey across a State of Flavor Southern food guru Marcie Cohen Ferris—known to us as the author of the delightful and delicious Matzoh Ball Gumbo:…
Eli Evans, Poet Laureate of Southern Jews, Passes Away
Eli Evans, author of the pathbreaking book The Provincials: A Personal History of the Jews in the South, passed away in New York on July 26. Eli was born in…
Southern Jewish Folklore: How’d Your Family Wind up Here?
“How’d your family wind up here in small-town North Carolina?” I’d ask an old timer. “Pa was peddling, and this is where the horse died,” was one common answer. “Pa…
B’rukhim Haba’im: Stories of Welcome
Burning Coal Theatre will present B’rukhim Haba’im: Stories of Welcome, an exhibit of filmed autobiographical stories by 21 Jewish seniors from across the Triangle, this summer at City of Raleigh…
A Rabbi Who Touched Hearts
Rabbi Steven G. Sager, Rabbi Emeritus of Beth El Synagogue in Durham and founding director of Sicha (Hebrew, Conversation), died on May 15. A much beloved rabbi for 32 years…
Heading to the Beach or Mountains? Vacationing with Judaism
“From Manteo to Murphy” is a phrase that North Carolinians employ when they speak of the breadth of our state from coast to mountains. For Jews, “from Kitty Hawk to…
Holocaust Education will never be the same in North Carolina
For a state that historically has had a small Jewish community, at least as a percentage of its overall population, North Carolina has been in the vanguard in memorializing the…
Passover Haggadot at Duke University Libraries
By Rachel Ariel, Guest Contributor and Librarian for Jewish Studies, Duke University Duke University Libraries hold a vast collection of more than 600 illustrated Passover Haggadot (plural of Haggadah). These…
A Jewish Photographer’s Journey – Repurposed
By Larry Pearlman, Guest Contributor In my first blog, I described how synagogues in small town North Carolina are disappearing. That’s not always true. Sometimes, they are repurposed. In the…
How Jewish Heritage North Carolina Changed Through the Years
Remarks delivered at the Down Home Banner Exhibition North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, April 4, 2022 By Eric M. Meyers, Duke University How is it that in the thirty…
A Photographic Journey Through Small-Town North Carolina
By Larry Pearlman, Guest Contributor In many small-towns, synagogues are disappearing. Their communities are shrinking as Jews continue to move to the larger cities and head towards warmer climates. This…
Having a Ball at Purim
Purim has become a family celebration, often a children’s party, a fun time at temple with comical reading of the megillah, costume parade, and noisemaking. Purim has always been festive, but…
Unscrolling the Past: A History in Velvet and Satin
When Jewish Heritage North Carolina (JHNC) created our multimedia project Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina—a film, a book, a museum exhibit, an archive, a cantata, a school curriculum—our…
Did North Carolina Jews Own Slaves?
After the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter, this year’s Black History Month is especially auspicious as the nation wrestles with the contradictions of its founding as both a republic…
The Lost Jewish Colonist
The 115 English settlers who disappeared from Roanoke Island circa 1587 gave rise to the myth of The Lost Colony, an enduring mystery which invites speculation to this day. Perhaps…
The Times They Are A Changin’
Today print journalism is an endangered species, at best a dated indulgence. Perhaps you’ve perused a magazine or newspaper while a media-savvy millennial, tuned into a tablet or smart phone,…
From Goodman to Weinstein: The Story of Beth El’s Historic Renovation
By Guest Contributor, Prof. Eric M. Meyers When the prominent architect Percival Goodman signed on to plan the construction of a new synagogue in the mid-1950’s in Durham, NC, he…
Anti-Semitic Flyers Strike Greensboro
News that anti-Semitic flyers were distributed in Greensboro neighborhoods on Sunday, December 19 has riled the North Carolina Jewish community. The story was picked up by the national media and…
Cheers to You: NC Jewish Makers & Distributors of Fine Wines and Liquors
This New Year’s Eve Jews, like other North Carolinians, may perhaps avail themselves of a glass or two of intoxicating beverage to welcome the advent of 2022. They can do…
Jewish Women Organize!
This year marks the centennial since the founding of the North Carolina Association of Jewish Women, the only statewide organization of its kind in the nation. In 1921 Sarah Einstein…
Jewish Brothers Spur NC Economy, Garner International Attention
The Wallace Brothers Herbarium, a fascinating and important Jewish enterprise in North Carolina’s economic history, is the subject of an online exhibit and a forthcoming museum lecture: The Iredell Museums…
Happy Hanukkah from JHNC
Hanukkah sameach! Happy Hanukkah! During this season as we rededicate ourselves to our Jewish community and “spreading the light,” we invite you to join us in celebrating Jewish Heritage North…
The Renewed Meaning of Chanukah
In December, 1944, in the midst of World War II, The American Jewish Times, a magazine published in Greensboro to serve the Carolinas, put on its cover a drawing of…
NC’s oldest synagogue needs our help
The beautiful Temple of Israel has been a landmark in Wilmington for almost 146 years. Built in 1876, the Moorish Revival style Temple is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in…
Jews Are One People, Except When Playing Basketball
If North Carolinians share a religion, it’s college basketball. Jews have been part of the game in North Carolina since Leo Stein of Wilmington donned a uniform on UNC’s first…
Jews leave their mark(ers) on North Carolina
Driving North Carolina highways and byways, you have likely noticed silver and black metal signposts standing on the roadside commemorating a noted personage or event. Under the ornamental state seal,…
Down Home in Goldsboro: Jewish Life Across the Centuries
Did you know that Goldsboro’s Temple Oheb Shalom is the second oldest synagogue building in the state of North Carolina? You’re invited to join us either virtually or in-person for…
Heroics on the sports field… Bravery on the battlefield
A North Carolina Hero The advent of football season and the approach of Armistice Day may seem to have nothing in common, but perhaps it is an appropriate time to…
How Many Jews Live in North Carolina (Revisited)?
This past fall, the Berman Jewish DataBank, sponsored by The Jewish Federations of North America, reported the results of its 2019 population survey, estimating 45,935 Jews lived in North Carolina. …
Upcoming Southern Jewish Historical Society Conference
The Southern Jewish Historical Society will hold its 45th annual conference virtually on October 21-24. The conference is hosted by the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina and free…
138-year-old Congregation Emanuel Restored to Original Beauty
By Guest Contributor, Wendy Gordon Pake On Monday, September 6, North Carolina’s second oldest synagogue,1 Congregation Emanuel in Statesville, began the observance of its 138th Jewish High Holidays. This year…
A History of High Holidays in North Carolina
How could Jews in North Carolina observe the High Holidays before there were congregations here? North Carolina did not have a synagogue until 1876, but we know that Jews have…
Jewish Olympians From North Carolina
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics has come to a close, but for Jewish North Carolinians this year’s games cannot compare to the 1924 Paris Olympics. There, Louis “Pinky” Clarke of Statesville…
School Days: A New Normal (Then & Now)
The opening of school, after a year of lockdown and virtual classes, might seem like a fraught experience, but for Jewish children this will not be the first time that…
Boone, NC Loses a Great Academic Scholar and Jewish Community Leader
Professor Rosemary Horowitz, co-director of Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies, passed away in Boone on August 7, 2021. She was 68.
Alon Tal: North Carolina Comes to the Knesset
In the 2020 election North Carolina Jews took pride in noting that for the first time in the state’s history, one of our own became a representative in the national…
North Carolina and the Man Who Coined the Word Genocide
As we observe Yom HaShoah, we may not be aware that North Carolina was a haven for emigres from Nazi Europe. State campuses gave shelter to eminent scholars. Professors and…
Jewish Summer Camping in North Carolina
‘Tis the season when our thoughts turn to summer with the added promise of a return to the pre-pandemic normal—and nothing signifies normal for a Jewish household than sending the…
North Carolina’s Century of Zionist Activism
As Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) arrives on April 15, North Carolinians can celebrate its own legacy of Zionist achievement.
Passover in North Carolina
Observing Passover in North Carolina has not always been as convenient as today’s easy trip to our local Publix or Harris-Teeter to stock up.
Jewish Firsts in North Carolina Politics
By JHNC Historian Leonard Rogoff On election day Nov. 3, Jewish candidates won two of three races in North Carolina. In a tight race, Democrat Josh Stein won reelection as…
North Carolina’s Jewish Population is Booming!
The Berman Jewish Data Bank recently released their 2019 US Jewish population report that confirms what we can see with our own eyes. North Carolina’s Jewish population is growing, and…
Confederate memorials, not a Jewish problem?
As Confederate statues fall in battle, North Carolina Jews may feel that we are watching someone else’s war. After all, most Jews arrived in America decades after the Civil War,…
NC Holocaust Education
JHNC has contracted with the NC Council on the Holocaust to add a component to their teachers’ workshops that focuses on the state’s response to the Shoah. The intent is…
Jewish Congregational Histories Online!
The JHFNC is contributing its resources to an on-line Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection. This project is a collaboration of Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,…
Down Home: Digital Exhibit
JHFNC is happy to announce the birth of Down Home: A Virtual Museum on its web site: http://sites.duke.edu/downhome/ . While hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians saw the exhibit in…
A Slave Poet, a Jewish Professor at UNC-CH
And now, from the archives, comes a previously unknown essay by Horton, which sheds oblique but suggestive light on his possible role in campus controversies over race, power and free…
Harry Golden Takes On The Seersuckered South
In this article from Charlotte NPR by Tom Bullock, the digital “Down Home” exhibit is featured. View the original article at: http://wfae.org/post/harry-golden-takes-seersuckered-south Harry Golden Takes On The Seersuckered South By…
Down Home: Cantata: Listen LIVE on The State of Things
Professor Eric Meyers, Composer Alejandro Rutty, and Conductress Lorena Guillen will be on The State of Things with Frank Stasio this afternoon at 12:40PM to discuss Down Home: The Cantata!…
Down Home: The Cantata is “Memorable, they say”
Triangle Jewish Chorale Presents a Memorable Panorama of Jewish Life in North Carolina By Ken Hoover April 28, 2013 – Durham, NC: Down Home: The Cantata came to life in…
Summering in the North Carolina Mountains of Yesteryear
For those of us with memories of heading to upstate New York for summer camps and resort vacations, you’ll be pleased to know that North Carolina was once home to…
May is Jewish American Heritage Month
Not widely known perhaps, but May is a time to celebrate our Jewish heritage in the United States. Our historian, Len Rogoff has written about the first Jewish person to…
A NC Holocaust Victim
In remembering the Holocaust, North Carolinians may feel a special poignancy in knowing that one victim was born in our very own Jewish community. In 1881 Therese Sternglanz was born…
NPR Interview on Jewish texts
NPR, ‘A State of Things’ recently interviewed Rabbi Steve Sager of Sicha. Click here for the Sicha website and to hear the interview
Read Charlotte Observer Article on Down Home
Click here to read the review of Down Home at the Levine Museum of the New South
Sources for local challah
Smelling the fresh challah at the JCC in Durham got me thinking today. Where else can one pick up challah? This is a new offering at the Charlotte and Dick…
Looking for a long weekend trip destination?
Check out the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia-over 25,000 sq. ft. of core exhibit space that explores the experience of American Jews. www.nmajh.org
Food memories from our museum exhibit recipe cards
My father would make gefilte fish with his brothers. They also made kosher pickles in the family store basement. My mom’s challah was amazing and she made it most every…
The Piyyut (Poem) Akdamut Milin: The Enigma and Perseverance of Tradition
In this article, that originally appeared at http://thetorah.com/akdamut-milin/, Duke Professor Laura Lieber gives a fascinating historical account of the famous and enigmatic piyyut—liturgical poem or hymn—of the Shavuot festival, Akdamut…