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<\/a><\/p>\nBeth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, on Jan. 16, 2025. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Goldring\/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life is housed at the opposite end of the Beth Israel building from the library where the fire started. Most of its activities take place off site, in the small Jewish communities scattered across the region, and much of its archives had been digitized before the fire.<\/p>\n
Still, the arson attack struck an institution that, since its founding in 2000, has linked far-flung congregations across the South and imbued generations of Jewish leaders with an appreciation for Jewish life in a region where community is often small, deeply rooted and hard-won.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is sort of the hub of where things happen, so we\u2019re still assessing what is truly lost, what can be repaired, what can\u2019t be,\u201d Michele Schipper, the organization\u2019s CEO, said ahead of the synagogue\u2019s first Shabbat since the attack.<\/p>\n
Even as the institute embarks on the long road of repairing its brick-and-mortar headquarters, its core mission of connecting and sustaining Jewish communities across the South remains unchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be important for my communities this winter and spring to be with me, to hear from me about what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Rabbi Salem Pearce, who is officially ISJL\u2019s director of spirituality but unofficially \u201cthe traveling rabbi of the South.\u201d She roves from her home in Durham, North Carolina, across 70 congregations throughout a 13-state region that extends from Texas to Florida.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Institute of Southern Jewish Life’s board and staff retreat at Congregation Beth Israel in 2024. (Courtesy Michele Schipper)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Following the arson attack, Pearce said she believed the communities she serves had taken the attack personally because \u201cthey identify strongly, both with the ISJL and with the idea of being vulnerable being a small Jewish community in the South.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always want to ground what I do in Torah and in Jewish tradition, and I think that both of those things have a lot to say about the power of community and resilience and being together and survival,\u201d said Pearce.<\/p>\n
For years, the institute also placed early-career Jewish educators in Southern communities through its flagship fellowship program. The program ended in 2022, but the network of dozens of former fellows scattered across the country say their work supporting Jewish life in the South left lasting impressions on their own Jewish identities.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Lex Rofeberg, an ISJL fellow from 2013 to 2015, was attending a gathering of clergy from the Jewish Renewal movement in Philadelphia when he first heard the news of the arson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt in my body like a deep pain, and I immediately flashed to the incredible experiences I had as part of that synagogue community,\u201d said Rofeberg.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe original building of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, which was the precursor to the ISJL, at the Henry S. Jacobs camp in Utica, Mississippi. (Courtesy Bill Aron)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He wasn\u2019t the only one at the conference to feel that way. \u201cI was with people that had a shared connection to the space and who I had met through this incredible community, and I thought all that was helpful,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it was heartbreaking, and it was meaningful to see in that space a couple hundred people looking to be supportive of this community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molly Levy, ISJL\u2019s director of education, said one of the reasons why the institute shifted away from the fellowship program was that the communities were so strong that they needed more than temporary fellows could provide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve all used the curriculum, they\u2019re very familiar with it, and they want to do things that are more experiential, and looking at making their schools fit the students that they have today, as well as having these big conversations around antisemitism, around safety, making sure that their students feel safe,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n
The communities in the network also bond with each other. For Beth Israel Congregation\u2019s first Shabbat service following the arson attack, the congregation used a Torah borrowed from Temple B\u2019nai Israel, located about 90 miles southeast along Route 49.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just down the road in Hattiesburg. So people immediately wanted to know, OK, how can we help?\u201d said Rabbi Debra Kassoff of Temple B\u2019nai Israel, who became the ISJL\u2019s first director of rabbinic services in 2003.<\/p>\n
During her stint as the ISJL\u2019s resident rabbi, Kassoff traveled across the region to offer rabbinic services to congregations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an honor, it was fascinating and overwhelming,\u201d said Kassoff. \u201cWhen I first came here I felt really embraced, people seemed excited to have me, and were glad that I was wanting to be there and be a part of this kind of corner of the American Jewish landscape that is so often overlooked.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the attack, rabbis from several Southern congregations quickly voiced their dismay and solidarity with the institute.<\/p>\n