Histories about the modern South have comparatively little to say about southern Jewish communities, which played important roles in freedom movements throughout the 20th century — and a Louisiana museum is working to highlight those stories.
The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans was founded to educate people about how Jews in the South lived and interacted with the religious, economic and civic communities around them, with exhibitions and collections that tell the story of immigrants, merchants, soldiers, civic leaders and more who helped shape the American South, particularly in the post-World War II era.
Kenneth Hoffman, the museum’s executive director, will speak at the Shadows-on-the-Teche Visitors Center at 320 E. Main St., New Iberia on July 16 from 6 to 7 p.m. His talk will center on southern freedom movements, from abolition to the Civil Rights era, and the ways in which southern Jews contributed to these history-defining touchpoints. Like much of southern history, it’s a complex story, but an important one, according to Hoffman…