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Jewish Students Discover Southern Jewish History
Confirmed
In Short: Jewish college students are increasingly attending Southern U.S. institutions, uncovering a rich but often overlooked history.
Jewish college students are increasingly attending Southern U.S. institutions, uncovering a rich but often overlooked history of Jewish communities in the region. This trend, which began before the recent Israel-Hamas conflict, has been fueled by a desire to connect with local Jewish heritage.
According to the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston, many are surprised to learn about the significant Jewish presence in the South, particularly in cities like Charleston, which was a bustling commercial hub in the early 1800s.
In Ukraine, non-Jewish students are also showing interest in Jewish history, particularly through programs like the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City, which offers Yiddish classes at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.
Kahaniuk's mother, who is very interested in Jewish history and culture, encouraged her daughter to study Yiddish, leading to a deeper connection with the region's Jewish past.
What this adds
The surge in interest among non-Jewish students in Ukraine reflects a broader trend of reclaiming the region’s Jewish history after Ukraine’s independence.
What's confirmed
- Although the uptick began before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and the Israel-Hamas war, observers have argued that campus politics now plays a role – particularly for Jewish students, some of whom are avoiding campuses with reputations as hotbeds of activism.
- (The Conversation) — For nearly a decade now, news outlets ranging from The Atlantic to the Forward and The Free Press have reported on the increasing number of Jewish students attending college in the South.
- Most American students attend schools in their own state, but Southern institutions have also seen a surge of out-of-state applications, especially from the Northeast.
- Many Americans seem surprised by the idea of Jewish students drifting south.
- I direct the Pearlstine/Lipov Center for Southern Jewish Culture at the College of Charleston and am co-authoring a book about the city’s history of East European Jewish migration.
What's still developing
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- But in the early 1800s, Charleston was a bustling commercial hub, and Jewish merchants from a variety of backgrounds gravitated there in search of security and new opportunities.
- They said the course has helped them connect with Jewish history in their region and sparked an interest in contemporary Jewish life.
- “Jewish people have been an important part of Ukraine’s history and population and I wanted to get closer to their culture,” Kahaniuk said.
- Prof. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, an expert in Ukrainian Jewish history at Northwestern University who is not affiliated with the YIVO program, said Ukrainian students today are several generations removed from the Holocaust and do not feel complicity in the genocide.
- Instead, they are taking an interest, reclaiming the region’s Jewish history after Ukraine’s independence, said Petrovsky-Shtern, who has written a series of books about Jewish history in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and taught at Ukrainian universities.
- “It’s a brand new generation that is interested in multicultural studies, that does understand that there is kind of a lacuna in their knowledge of East European history if they do not include the Jews,” he said.
- Their textbook provided insight into Jewish culture, such as through traditional Yiddish songs that “explain what life was like for Jewish people,” she said.
- “On the one hand, it was so funny and cheerful, but on the other hand, the meaning of the song, it was about how hard life was for Jewish people,” she said.
- “Even though I knew that there is a Jewish cemetery, a graveyard, in my hometown, I never thought about that,” said Blaha, who studies English language and literature.
- Several years ago, Daryna Kahaniuk, a Ukrainian college student, visited a history museum in the western Ukrainian city of Volodymyr with her mother.
- The family jokes that she might have an unknown Jewish ancestor and should get a DNA test.