The Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina

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History and Information

The Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina (JHSSC) was founded in 1994 as a result of a panel discussion at the College of Charleston. The topic under discussion was small town Jewish life in South Carolina and the conclusions the panelists reached were inescapable: Jewish life in South Carolina's small towns is rapidly disappearing and the people who remember it are passing from the scene. The only way to preserve living memories of this once vital element of the Jewish Diaspora was to start recording them immediately.

The Historical Society was organized to encourage the study and interpretation of South Carolina Jewish history and to increase awareness of that heritage among Jews and non-Jews. The Society holds two meetings a year, one a large gathering in Charleston or Columbia, the other a regional event in a smaller town. Historian Dale Rosengarten and a dedicated corps of volunteers have recorded some 300 oral histories pertaining to South Carolina Jewish life and culture. Project staff have been compiling an extensive manuscript archives, including records of families, businesses, synagogues, and Jewish organizations. The archives already contain hundreds of manuscripts, historical photographs, genealogical records, and fieldwork files.

Martin Perlmutter and Harriet Keyserling

The Society's major research initiative has been the Jewish Heritage Collection, sponsored by the College of Charleston and housed in the Special Collections Department at the College library. The project's Web site contains an easy guide to the oral history archives and topically-organized excerpts from the interviews. Artifacts, photographs, and audio segments from the collection are featured in "...A Portion of the People": Three Hundred Years of Jewish Life in South Carolina, a museum exhibition co-sponsored by the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina. Starting in February 2003, the exhibit was at Yeshiva University’s Center for Jewish History for six months. It then opened at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC on September 14, 2003.

In the past 10 years, the Jewish Historical Society of South Carolina has met in Abbeville, Sumter, Greenville, Beaufort, and Florence, and Camden, averaging well over 100 registrants at both annual and regional meetings. In 2002, the society passed the 500 person membership mark.

In October 2008, JHSSC wil hold a Genealogy Workshop to help members search for their ancestors. Click Events to learn more about the Workshop.

JHSSC Office
Room 215
Sylvia Vlosky Yaschik Jewish Studies Center
96 Wentworth Street
Charleston, SC 29424

Telephone number
843.953.3918

Email address: jhssc@cofc.edu
Website address: www.jhssc.org.

 

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