West Virginia: Jews of Appalachia, July 22

The Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling, West Virginia will host historian Deborah R. Weiner to discuss her book, Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History.

The event begins at noon Tuesday, July 22, as part of the library's Lunch With Books Program.

Weiner is a research historian and family history coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland and director of Historic Jonestown, Inc., both in Baltimore.

The book is the first extended study of Jews in Appalachia, and explores the mass migration of Eastern European Jews to America and the effects of the coal boom (1880-1920) on settlements and culture. It won the Southern Jewish Historical Society Award “for the book making the most significant contribution to the field of Southern Jewish history published during 2003-2006.”

Jewish immigrants traveled to southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia to investigate opportunities during the coal boom, and some were successful in business, establishing numerous small Jewish communities.

Weiner used a wide range of primary sources in social, cultural, religious, labor, economic and regional history, personal statements, interviews, oral histories and archival sources to produce a picture of a little known piece of American Jewish life. The descendants of these families should find information about their ancestors and their way of life.

Film about Appalachian Jewry: The righteous remnant

Back in December, I informed readers about a blog by Eric Drummond Smith - Hillbilly Savants By Appalachians, for Everyone - who had included information on the region's Jewish presence.

Yesterday, Eric gave a link to a Public Broadcasting documentary titled Righteous Remnant: Jewish Survival in Appalachia, produced by Professor Maryanne Reed of West Virgina University.

The Web site includes photos and a short section of the film.

The film details those immigrants who chose alternative destinations to the crowded Eastern or Midwestern cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and migrated into West Virginia after hearing about the "black diamond" coal mining and lumber industries.

The film examines the history and current situation of the small community in Beckley, West Virginia, which the filmmaker believes is representative of small Jewish communities.

During the state's coal boom, Jews arrived and opened businesses supporting the local economy, but when the industry declined in the 1950s and 60s, Jewish and non-Jewish families left for other places.

Those who left did not return, for both economic reasons and because of cultural problems which included a lack of kosher food, and difficulties in finding marriage partners and providing Jewish educations. Many left for Charleston (the one in West Virginia, not South Carolina!) and Cincinnati.

Reed's great-grandfather - Simon Fox - and his family were at one time the only members of the tribe living in Davis, a small Tucker County town. He eventually took his family to Akron, Ohio to find Jewish husbands for his daughters.

Judaism in Appalachia

Jewish resources for researchers pop up in some strange places.

There's a blog by Eric Drummond Smith -- Hillbilly Savants By Appalachians, for Everyone -- and he has posted about the Jewish presence in Appalachia, with a nice compilation of interesting resources, and a list of more than 30 synagogues and their Web sites.

For those international readers who aren't exactly sure where Appalachia is, it generally covers the Southern states of Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Virginia.

Several years ago, I was tracking down a branch of my Galizianer FINK family (originally from Suchastow near Skalat).

I knew that a husband and wife in that branch had lived in West Virginia for a few years in the 1930s, and I was able to speak to the current rabbi. He checked the congregational archives. It turned out that my grandfather's sister was famous for her cooking and had won numerous blue ribbons and other prizes at county fairs.