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The historic Bethel Baptist Church, bombed
three times during the civil rights struggle in 1960s
Birmingham and still standing, was the headquarters
of fi ery preacher and civil rights leader Rev. Fred
Shuttlesworth. Photo by Jeff Orenstein
This sculpture in Kelly Ingram Park depicts the
brutality of Bull Connor’s police against civil rights
marchers, including children.

Photo by Jeff Orenstein
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JUSTA FARM SHOPPING CENTER
1966 County Line Road, Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
215-969-9626 • HOT-FOOT-BOUTIQUE.SHOPTIQUES.COM
Jewish Birmingham
The statue of Vulcan, Roman god of fi re overlooks Birmingham at
Vulcan Park.

Photo by Art Meripol
This sculpture in Kelly Ingram Park in the Birmingham Civil Rights
District memorializes the four young girls killed when the 16th Street
Baptist Church was bombed in 1963.

Photo by Jeff Orenstein
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM BIRMINGHAM HAS THE LARGEST Jewish community in Alabama. About 6,300 of
the approximately 10,000 Jews who call Alabama home reside in Birmingham, according to
jewishdatabank.org. Most live on the city’s south side and are reasonably well-integrated into
the city’s civic and business life.

When the city was established in the 1870s, Jews were among its fi rst settlers. However
Jewish communal life did not begin to develop in earnest until 1882, when Birmingham had
a total population of about 3,100. Jewish merchants started most of Birmingham’s department
stores, and Jews entered many other phases of civic life. In the fi nancial panic of 1893, the
Steiner brothers of Steiner Bank kept the city from going bankrupt.

In the 1920s, antisemitism fl ourished in the region, and the Ku Klux Klan presence in
Birmingham grew to more than 20,000 members. Th e Klan’s anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic
rhetoric, as well as its violent tactics, caused alarm among members of all three congregations.

A bomb with enough dynamite to level a city block was discovered outside Temple Beth-El
in 1958. It had malfunctioned just short of detonation. White supremacists also threatened
numerous local Jews who spoke out on behalf of civil rights, and much anti-racial integration
literature and sentiment was overtly antisemitic. Th ough they had a lot to fear, many local
Jews worked behind the scenes to end racial strife and change the city’s form of government
in the 1960s.

Despite its small size, the Birmingham Jewish community maintains fi ve congregations
and supports several Jewish institutions, including a Jewish Federation, a Jewish Foundation,
the Levite JCC, the N.E. Miles Jewish Day School and a Jewish Family Services organization.

Th e Deep South Jewish Voice newspaper started publication in 1990 and is now Southern
Jewish Life Magazine.

Th e three historic congregations (Reform Temple Emanu-El and Orthodox congregations
Knesseth Israel and Temple Beth-El) continue to prosper, and they have now been joined by
a Chabad Center in Mountain Brook and the Or Hadash Humanistic Judaism Congregation,
which meets in members’ homes. ●
— Jeff and Virginia Orenstein
JEWISH EXPONENT
AUGUST 26, 2021
15