The Appalachian Jew

Tag: Appalachian Jews

  • Code switching

    Code switching

    In linguistics, code switching can be described as a person changing their language, accent, or dialect depending on the situation. However, it also can pertain to changing cultural behavior, mannerisms, or styles of dress, or modifying appearance in other ways, such as covering tattoos.

    In some ways, I have become an expert in code-switching.

    My great grandmother of blessed memory, through whom my Jewish ancestry came on my mother’s side, grew up in Appalachia and spoke in what has often been called the old Appalachian dialect. She lived to be 111 years old, passing away when I was in my late thirties, so I knew her well.

    Because of her and the influence of her way of speaking on my grandmother (who lived to be 99 years old), I can easily understand Appalachian dialect and have been called upon to “translate” a few times in my life:

    • My first job out of college was as a newspaper reporter for a daily paper. When the old mountain preachers wanted the newspaper to include a notice about a church event, they had to come into town to bring the notice. I was often called upon to speak with the preachers because I was the only person in the newsroom who could understand what they were saying
    • After living in northern Indiana for 20 years, I returned to North Georgia with my husband and daughter, both of whom had spent their entire lives in Indiana. Shortly after returning, my daughter and I were in the local post office, and I had a short conversation with the postal worker. As we were leaving the building, my daughter grabbed my arm, and with a horrified look on her face, said, “Mom, what language was that man speaking, and how could you understand him?”
    • I live in the woods, and there are wooded areas on all sides of the property. One day, a man walked up our driveway to ask if he could look at the wooded property next to us. My husband had been the one to go out and speak to him but had found it necessary to return to the house and ask me to come out because he couldn’t understand a word the man was saying.

    When I was growing up, my father (who was from North Carolina)used to drill me and my siblings on the “proper” pronunciation of words so that we wouldn’t sound so country or like we came from the hills. Because of that, and because I lived in Australia for a year and then in Northern Indiana for 20 years, I can move back and forth between dialects and accents and word choices. Many people can’t place my manner of speaking and are surprised that I grew up in the hills of North Georgia.

    Similarly, I can code switch back and forth between Jewish and Christian terminology.

    There are very few Jews in my neck of the woods. Everyone I know in my little local synagogue moved here from someplace else, either in connection with a job or to retire. I am the only person who regularly attends services who actually grew up here.

    I grew up in the Episcopal Church (there also are very few Episcopalians here) and attended graduate school at a well-known Catholic university where I studied the development of Catholic theology and liturgy. I also have been exposed to many other Christian denominations, including evangelical and Pentecostal churches. And now I am a Jew. (I always was Jewish but have now embraced that ancestry and have become a member of the Jewish people.)

    So I can converse using the terminology of Judaism, including words in Yiddish and Hebrew, and I can converse in the terminology of Christianity, including that of the Catholic Church and mainline and fundamentalist Christian churches.

    It all makes for an interesting life and interesting conversations.

    And interesting encounters, like the time a Jewish family originally from Indiana, who now live further up than I do in the hills of Appalachia, came down to a synagogue service at the synagogue I attend. They play Appalachian music and, after the service, they delighted us with a short concert. And yes, they are singing about getting drunk. LOL

  • Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary

    Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary

    The worship song “Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary,” written by a songwriter with Appalachian roots, can be found in many modern Christian hymnals and is sung in many Christian churches. However, it also is sung in Jewish synagogues.

    Also known simply by the title “Sanctuary,” the song was written by Randy Scruggs and John W. Thompson.

    Scruggs, who wrote the lyrics, was famous in his own right as a musician, producer and songwriter, and was the son of Appalachian bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs, remembered for popularizing a three-finger style of playing the banjo.

    This past week, “Sanctuary” was sung at Central Synagogue in New York City in conjunction with the assigned Torah portion of the week, the portion from the Book of Exodus in which Moses was instructed to have the Hebrew people build the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary that would travel with them through the desert.

    As an online member of Central Synagogue, I participated in a Wednesday Torah study during which we all sang “Sanctuary.” We sang it again during the Friday night Shabbat service which I livestreamed, and a third time during the Saturday morning Mishkan service in which I participate through Zoom.

    I wonder how many Jews realize that this was written as a Christian song by someone with Appalachian roots. And I wonder how many Christians know that Jews also sing the song during services, often adding words from Exodus in Hebrew:

    V’asu li mikdash (Make for me a sanctuary)

    V’shochanti b’tocham (That I may dwell among them)

    Va’anachnu n’varech yah (And we will bless God/Yah)

    Me-ata v’ad olam (From now and forever) 

    Here, Julia Cadrain who is a former cantor at Central Synagogue, sings both the Hebrew and English lyrics. (Note: Although the title of the video says that this is a Shaker hymn, it is a contemporary song, copyrighted in 1982.)

  • My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 4

    My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 4

    The Road to Conversion

    Livestreaming services from Central Synagogue in New York is what made me aware that there was a path by which I could convert to Judaism.

    Central Synagogue has a Center for Exploring Judaism, established in 2010 and geared mainly towards those with a Jewish partner or spouse, helping them to understand the Jewish faith and what it means to live a Jewish life. But the program also is open to individuals who desire to explore Judaism. Originally, all classes were held in person at the synagogue, but in recent years online cohorts have been comprised of people literally from around the world.

    In late Spring 2023, I contacted Rabbi Lisa Rubin, director of the Center for Exploring Judaism to ask about being accepted into the program. What fascinated me about the hour-long interview with her was that one of the first things she said to me was that she was wondering why a Jewish person (me) would want to be in a cohort group. She considered me to be already living a Jewish life. When I explained that I had been raised as a Christian by parents who also were raised as Christians (even though they knew they were Jewish), she agreed that actual conversion would be the proper course of action for me.

    My cohort group consisted of about 40 people from throughout the U.S. and from several other countries. Classes extended over a six-month period from July through December 2023, met once a week on Zoom, and were conducted like university classes. We had a syllabus, several required books, and weekly assignments and were expected to actively participate in class discussions and complete two projects . Both projects could be submitted after classes ended, but no one could be considered an actual candidate for conversion until both were turned in. In addition, each of us had to meet individually on Zoom with Rabbi Rubin on a regular basis.

    The following is from Central Synagogue’s website:

    Summary of the Conversion Process

    1. Initial meeting with Rabbi Lisa Rubin, our Director of the Center for Exploring Judaism 
    In this introductory meeting, we will discuss your background and interest in Judaism and do our best to ascertain whether our program may be a good fit for you.

    2. Enrollment in our Exploring Judaism course 
    Our course covers the foundations of Judaism: holidays, history, prayer, theology, and life cycle. A new class begins every other month and we meet weekly for a six-month period.

    3. One-on-one meetings with Clergy
    These regular meetings (during the six-month period of the Exploring Judaism course) are for individual guidance and mentorship.

    4. Extended study after the course
    Conversion candidates are encouraged to study with a rabbi as long as is needed to attain confidence with a basic “literacy” of Judaism. Time will vary with each student.

    5. Completion of a conversion project and spiritual autobiography
    Students are asked to complete two small projects toward the end of the conversion process.

    6. Bet Din and Mikveh
    A bet din (rabbinic court) will be assembled on the day of your conversion followed by a visit to the mikveh (ritual bath).

    Everyone in the cohort group had to submit, as one of their projects, a personal spiritual autobiography. Much of my spiritual autobiography has been included in earlier posts of this blog as My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

    The second project could be anything relating to Judaism that was of interest to the individual student, but the topic had to be approved by Rabbi Rubin. For my second project, I did extensive research, reading another dozen books plus several articles and participating in a webinar sponsored by the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans. Much of that research also was included in earlier posts of this blog as The Melungeons: Conversos, Crypto-Jews and Hidden Jews in Southern Appalachia – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and in The Melungeons: Conversos, Crypto-Jews and Hidden Jews in Southern Appalachia – Sources.

    I submitted my second project in February 2024, thinking I probably was the last person in my cohort to submit their work, but this turned out not to be the case. In addition, I had been under the impression that each of us would be assigned to another rabbi at Central Synagogue to continue studies until such time as that rabbi determined we were ready to complete conversion. That also turned out not to be the case for me.

    As soon as Rabbi Rubin had my second assignment in hand she asked me when I could come to New York to complete my conversion.

    Conversion

    I made the trip to New York in mid-March 2024 and formally converted to Judaism on March 14. Unlike in Christianity, in which conversion is often a public event including baptism witnessed by friends and family, conversion in Judaism is a private event involving only the convert and three rabbis.

    My Bet Din, or rabbinic court, consisted of three female rabbis, all of whom teach in the Center for Exploring Judaism.

    (Two other members of my cohort converted on the same day and one had a different configuration of rabbis on her Bet Din.)

    I expected an intimidating scene in which I would be grilled by the rabbis on various aspects of Judaism, but it turned out to be a delightful discussion. All three rabbis considered me to be living a Jewish life and told me that they saw me not so much to be converting as returning to the faith my ancestors had once practiced but that had been hidden for several generations.

    As part of my conversion I was formally given my Hebrew name, which, as an adult, I had chosen. I kept my given name, given to me at birth by my mother who had named me for a heroine in the Hebrew scriptures, but I changed my middle name from Leigh (Leah) to Shira, a name that means song because I have always been a singer. דבורה שירה

    Immersion in the mikveh, the ritual bath, is an integral part of conversion. Central Synagogue uses the community mikveh on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. Those coming to the mikveh enter from the street through a rather non-descript door to find a beautiful, spa-like atmosphere inside. As a convert, I immersed in the mikveh’s warm water alone, completely submerging three times and saying a specific blessing after each immersion. The rabbis waited outside the door and greeted me with a rousing chorus of Siman Tov Mazel Tov.

    Here’s what that sounds like…

    Afterwards, I was given the priestly benediction and was declared to be officially a part of the Jewish people.

    The priestly benediction can be heard here, beginning at about 3:11 in the video. Here, Central Synagogue’s Senior Rabbi Angela Buchdahl gives the blessing to former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer who had been interviewed at the synagogue…

    The evening following my conversion was a Friday, and at Central’s Friday night Shabbat service, I along with many others who had converted at Central Synagogue in the preceding twelve months, was called to the bimah (the platform at the front of the synagogue) to bless the reading of the Torah and to receive the priestly benediction.

    In this photo, which features Rabbi Rubin from the Center for Exploring Judaism, I am among the group on the bimah although, because I am so short, I cannot be seen.

    I returned home from New York a different person, knowing for certain what I had “known” all of my life, that I was, in fact, a Jew. I finally was where I belong.

    The following song from Temple Israel Westport expresses what I had always known. Written and sung by Cantor Becky Mann, on the left, joined by Cantor Julia Cadrain (formerly at Central Synagogue) on the right, it says, “You’ve always belonged here.”

  • My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 2

    My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 2

    Jewish beginnings

    Even though I was raised as a Christian and was immersed in Christianity, ever since I was a small child there was another track running through my life. I felt that I was Jewish and wanted to be part of the Jewish people.

    I didn’t know how I knew this; it was just a knowing. I believed I was someone born with a Jewish soul, although I wouldn’t have used those words when I was a child.  In my child’s mind, I thought I was a Jew who had been born into the wrong family. But as I listened to my mother, I realized she was dropping hints.

    My mother made it clear that she named each of her children for people from the Hebrew Scriptures.  She also spoke of going to Jewish summer camp when she was young. That, of course, leads to the inevitable question of who in a small town in the South would send their daughter to Jewish summer camp in the early 1940s unless they were Jewish?  When I was old enough to go to camp she sent me to a secular camp where a large number of campers were Jewish.

    When I was older, my mother helped manage the book and gift shop at the local Episcopal Church. Her inventory there included this wall hanging, which is now in my home…

    The shop also sold cassette tapes and songbooks from the series “Scripture in Song,” musical settings of the Psalms.

    I now know that my father, too, had Jewish ancestry, but I didn’t pick up on his hints when I was young. He said only that he had Black Dutch ancestry and that his grandmother told him that anyone who researched the family history would be cursed and die a horrible death. The term Black Dutch is often used as a euphemism for Sephardic Jewish ancestry from Spain.

    My father also had a love for Israel that went beyond any I had ever seen among Christians. Tithing ten percent of his income was central to his spirituality, and he found a way to pay a tithe from the profits of his business directly to Israel. An inventor and manufacturer of the chicken deboning machine, he sold that machinery around the world. However, every tenth machine that was manufactured was given to a kibbutz in Israel, and he personally escorted the machines to the kibbutzim.

    After his death, a former colleague told me that my father often spoke to her about being Jewish, but he never told his own children, and he lived his life as a very devout Christian.

    Both of my parents had been in musical theatre (my mother’s dream had been to be on Broadway), and they made many trips to New York to see Broadway shows. This was in the late 1950s and early 1960s. On one occasion, after their return from New York, I overheard my mother tell someone that they had been denied service in a restaurant because they were Jewish. I wondered then how anyone would know they were Jewish and why they had not simply said they weren’t Jewish.  They always denied being Jewish whenever I asked directly about it. I remember once saying I wanted to be Jewish, and my mother’s response was, “Why do you want to be something you’re not?” 

    I wanted to know who I was…

    There weren’t very many Jewish families in my small hometown when I was growing up, but my mother made sure I knew who all of them were, and they seemed to know my family well. I was only in first or second grade when I learned about the Holocaust and about the Jews in my town who had come to the U.S. as refugees.

    When I was in 4th grade, the mother of one of my Jewish classmates called my mother to ask if I could go to the movies with her son. My mom said yes, and that began a friendship that lasted for several years. By 7th and 8th grade, he and I were considered to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and I became close to his entire family. At the time,  I.D. bracelets were popular among boys, and I wore his bracelet which was obviously Jewish, with the Star of David on it and his name in Hebrew. My friends’ mothers would never have allowed them to wear such a bracelet. When he had his Bar Mitzvah in Atlanta, we were the only family in our town that was invited.

    In college my closest friends were Jewish, and people have always assumed I was Jewish. After graduate school, I worked for several years as a civil rights investigator, investigating employment and housing discrimination, and members of the Jewish community with whom I worked just assumed I was Jewish. Here in the South, oddly enough, perfect strangers have walked up to me and asked if I’m Jewish.  (Why?) Yet no one in my family would openly admit having Jewish ancestry.

    I still have many questions about all of this. It has been like trying to put a puzzle together and realizing that there are many missing pieces. Unfortunately, there is no one who can provide answers. No one is still alive who would be able to give me any more insight than what I already have gleaned.

    One thing I did know for sure, however, and that was that I wanted to claim my Jewish ancestry and live a Jewish life.

  • My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 1

    My Journey Back to Judaism, the Faith of My Ancestors – Part 1

    Christian beginnings

    Born into a privileged and prominent family in a small town in North Georgia in the foothills of Appalachia, I was raised a Christian, as were both of my parents.  However, I’ve known for most of my life that I have Jewish ancestry.  It has taken a lifetime , but I have finally been able to put the puzzle pieces together and to fully realize that both of my parents were “hidden” Jews, known only to a few people, and those few did not include their own children.

    All four of my grandparents were nominal Christians, but not one was a regular church goer. My father was born into a large family in what has been described as abject poverty, and to keep him on the straight and narrow, his oldest sister took him to the Methodist church. He grew up faithfully attending that church.  My mother’s parents made sure she and her sisters faithfully attended a Southern Baptist church.

    When my parents married, they joined the local Episcopal Church and became very active there. My siblings and I became what is known as “cradle Episcopalians,” baptized there as babies, confirmed there, and very active in children’s and youth activities as we grew up.

    My earliest memories are of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. My family faithfully attended church every Sunday, and both of my parents were very active in the parish. As a youngster I regularly went to Sunday school, sang in the youth choir, and participated in youth activities. When I look back I can see that even as a child, I was already very spiritual. I felt the presence of God with me. I loved to read the Bible, especially the Hebrew Scriptures, and I particularly loved the Psalms and the writings of the Prophets.

    Grace Episcopal Church as it looked during my childhood.

    As a denomination, the Episcopal Church has always been more progressive and more involved in social justice issues than other Protestant denominations. Grace Church had a very active youth group that did a lot of work in the area of social justice when I was in high school. That work had a massive influence on my life, both then and later. And by the time I was in high school I was already teaching younger grades in Sunday school and was playing the piano for and traveling with a Black gospel choir, all of whose members went to the Black high school while I attended the all-white high school, as the schools in Gainesville were still segregated.

    Playing the piano at the age of 15 and 16 for the gospel choir is a story in itself, as I essentially led a double life. My parents supported the 1960s civil rights movement and were labelled as “communists” by some in my small town. My white friends had no idea my family was as active as it was in the Black community. I managed to hide that part of my life quite well, as it could have been dangerous to let that be known.

    At this same time, my parents made the move into more evangelical, Pentecostal Christianity, becoming “saved” and “born again,” even while staying in the Episcopal Church.  They took me and my siblings to every Pentecostal church, evangelical meeting, healing service, “miracle” service, and revival meeting that they could find. Both parents became well-known retreat leaders and speakers and were involved on the local, state, national, and even international levels in various evangelical organizations. 

    I now see how spiritually damaging this was to me and my siblings. We were going to services that were highly emotional.  We saw people “get saved,” fall out on the floor, be “delivered” from demons, run up and down the aisles and speak in “tongues,” and we were expected to follow suit.

    We continued to attend the Episcopal Church, which although socially progressive, was very staid and formal to the point that  Episcopalians were known as “G-d’s frozen people.” I am the eldest and perhaps suffered less than my younger brother and sister, both of whom still struggle with religion to this day.

    College and beyond

    Once I was away from this and in college, I remained in the Episcopal Church even as I began questioning my Christian beliefs. In fact, I remained an active Episcopalian for decades, always wondering why I could not accept certain core Christian beliefs.

    After college, I worked as a newspaper reporter for three years before moving to South Bend, Indiana for graduate school at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, studying medieval history, literature and music.

    Studying the world of late antiquity, the development of Christianity, how Jesus became “G-d,” the emergence of the Catholic tradition, Catholic theology, and the medieval church, I began to have multiple doubts about the Christian faith. Questioning was not allowed, and one of my professors told me my beliefs were heretical.

    However, in medieval music classes, we studied the influence of synagogue chant on early Christian chant, and I was captivated by what I learned there.

    While in graduate school I remained in the Episcopal Church. My late husband and I met at the Episcopal cathedral in South Bend and were married there but became members of a smaller parish where our daughter was baptized and confirmed.

    I became the church musician for about four years, playing the guitar and leading the singing of all liturgical music and hymns. When an organist was finally hired, he and I continued to sing together.  Interestingly, apart from the liturgical music itself, most of the songs were based on the Psalms and writings of the prophets, and we often sang in English what I now know to be the Jewish song of redemption, Mi Chamocha.

    Years later, after moving to the North Georgia mountains in rural Appalachia, we immediately joined the local Episcopal church where we were very active.  I was a Sunday school teacher and was one of the people who read Scripture from the podium during the service.  There were three readings every week.  I always chose to be the person who read the “Old Testament” Scripture. 

    Interestingly, as I made my journey into Judaism, the priest of the parish and my friends there, along with my daughter (who is married to a Christian minister), were my biggest supporters.

  • The word “Melungeon”: Another explanation

    The word “Melungeon”: Another explanation

    In a previous post I stated that the origin of the term Melungeon is unknown and that it has been suggested that the word comes from an Arabic word meaning “cursed souls” or from the French word “mélange” for mixed race.

    However, today I came across another explanation for the origin of the word. In his book Recipes From the American South, Michael W. Twitty states that Melungeons are “an ethnically-mixed community dating back to the 17th century, descended from enslaved Africans, indentured European servants, and others (and here I would add Native Americans and Spanish soldiers in Appalachia) living in Southern Appalachia and beyond.”

    He continues, “The word comes from Mbundu from Angola, mulango, meaning “shipmate.”

    Twitty is an African-American Jewish writer, educator, culinary historian, and author of the book The Cooking Gene.

    His explanation of the origin of the word Melungeon is fascinating to me because I am of Melungeon descent, and my African American ancestry is from Angola.