“Foote had Jewish ancestors in a time and place where Jews were broadly accepted in the social and cultural circles of certain Southern cities. Greenville was one of them (Foote later remarked that there were more Jews in the Greenville Country Club than there were Baptists).”
This is something that is all to often overlooked. I am from the south and 72 years old, today the PC scat is that Jews were hated in the south, but I remember no such thing.
In our small town there were two Jewish owned retail stores, both of which carried people on the books between cotton crops. Not just the farmers, but also those who chopped and picked the cotton. There was also Jewish doctors and lawyers, a small Jewish place of worship and I never recall any anti-Semitic feelings expressed.
Not many people today know of Judah Benjamin. He was Jewish and a member of the Louisiana house of representatives, in 1852 he was elected by the state legislature to the US senate from Louisiana. When the civil war commenced, he resigned from the senate and was appointed by President Jefferson Davis to three different cabinet posts in his administration, Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He was hated in the north and was called the brains of the Confederacy.
IIRC, the only Jewish military cemetery outside the nation of Israel is the Hebrew Confederate cemetery on Shockoe Hill in Richmond, Virginia.
Some good history in these posts.
I had read of Judah Benjamin and wondered if he was Jewish...
Charleston, SC has had a Jewish population since before the Revolution and is home to the second oldest synagogue in the US. My earliest Charleston ancestors, the Moise, Tobias, and Levy families, are among them.
You beat me to it. Thanks for mentioning Judah Benjamin - my favorite and most fascinating character of the period. As with Shelby Foote, I so wish I could have met Judah Benjamin. I've read everything on him that I can get my hands on -- and it all raises more questions than it answers.