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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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, 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 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…
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…
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…
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. …
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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, 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…
“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…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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. …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
‘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…
As Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) arrives on April 15, North Carolinians can celebrate its own legacy of Zionist achievement.
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.
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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!…
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…
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…
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…
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, ‘A State of Things’ recently interviewed Rabbi Steve Sager of Sicha. Click here for the Sicha website and to hear the interview
Click here to read the review of Down Home at the Levine Museum of the New South
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…
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
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…
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…
