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…
Read more
JHNC collects, preserves, and presents
the heritage of the Jewish People in North Carolina
0
NC Synagogues and Temples
0
Judaic Studies Programs
0
Federations & JCCs
0
Jewish Schools, Colleges, and Hillels
Jewish Heritage North Carolina
Jewish Heritage North Carolina is the only statewide independent 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.
Use our custom map search to connect with Jewish life in North Carolina.
Blog and News
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…