We’re Not Jewish; We’re Southern!

When they were nine and six, our oldest grandchildren were discussing religion around the kitchen table. Their mother was a family counselor for the large Jewish Community Center in Charlotte, so she enjoyed the various holidays of that faith.  Since this family had yet to find a “church home”, religion was a confusing topic at times.  So Cooper raises a question at the table:  “Mom, are we Jewish?”  Having just observed Christmas and Hanukkah, of course the kid was confused.  While his mother was trying to explain it all, his very wise sister Claire exclaimed in exasperation, “Cooper, we are not Jewish; we’re southern!”

The combination of those words — Jewish and southern — felt right at home with me. Fate and faith combined their forces on me early along by letting me grow up in a neighborhood full of wonderful Jewish folk who had settled in our town as immigrants to this country from eastern Europe and Ukraine. The Kaplans and Rosens and Goodmans lived next door or across the street and shared their lives with us in many ways. One night they let me ask the childhood question before the Passover Seder “Why is this night so different than any other?” Rabbi Blumenthal was one of my daily newspaper subscribers, and I hand-delivered the Clarion Ledger to his second floor room at the Trolio Hotel. The local Synagogue was still active in the days of my youth, but has vanished into the evolving diaspora over time.

During my early ministry, I cherished and maintained my relationship with the Jewish community. While I could not wrangle him the invitation to pray over high school football games like a protestant, the rabbi and I enjoyed tennis and sharing services on Fridays and Sundays. We opened our fellowship meals with our congregations and taught our youth the elements of each faith. In my last parish in West End, we welcomed several Jewish neighbors to worship with us since there were no places of worship for them in our vicinity. When the new synagogue was established, the interim rabbi was my age and had grown up southern about twenty miles south of my hometown. We instituted an interfaith worship Thanksgiving service with other congregations that would eventually welcome Buddhists, and Muslims in the area.

Antisemitism has a long history of horror and can take many scary turns. The great reformer Martin Luther’s outrage against the Jews in Germany set the stage for Adolf Hitler’s manifesto and the Holocaust. I never knew what it was until I heard a Baptist preacher in our town include the term “Christ killing Jews” in his prayer. The Klan had bombed the synagogue in my second parish in Mississippi, reiterating the senseless sentiment. As if we don’t have enough to say grace over these days, we must face the resurging threat of Christian nationalism that’s linked with white supremacy challenging the sanctity of religious freedom in this country.

According to the gospels, Jesus suggests that religious freedom should not be used as a political weapon that incites hatred and bigotry to bash the downtrodden or those other poor losers, but to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, provide universal medical care for the sick, visit the prisoners, and taking care of the immigrants and other strangers. In the letter to the church in Galatia, we discover that “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

Shalom, y’all!