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News & Features

Muskogee, Oklahoma St. Louis Native Serves as Roving Rabbi to the South
by Jim Winnerman
Traveling across 13 Southern states 50 weeks a year, native St. Louisan Rabbi Marshal Klaven has, perhaps, the most unusual "congregation" in the United States.

"I (visit) as many as 100 congregations, none of which has a full-time rabbi," says Klaven, 31, who graduated from Parkway North High School and grew up attending Congregation B'nai El.

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Cycling Sabbatical

The ISJL Southern Cycling Sabbatical
by Rabbi Marshal Klaven
This spring, the ISJL Rabbinic Department introduced its first Southern Cycling Sabbatical, coordinating a five-community bike trip that took Rabbi Bob Levy of Temple Beth Emeth (Ann Arbor, MI) from the Georgia coast to New Orleans. Along the way, he offered leadership—at religious services, adult education events and more—to small and underserved communities.

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A loaf of challah, a jug of wine and Rabbi Marshal Klaven
by Andy Muchin
It's not easy to find a challah in the Upper Cumberland section of north-central Tennessee.  It's even harder to find a rabbi or a usable Torah scroll - except on a recent October weekend.  That's when Rabbi Marshal Klaven, director of the Rabbinic Department of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life...


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Chattanooga and others offering help to small, vibrant Jewish communities
by Clint Cooper
Jews who live between large metropolitan areas must take on the responsibilities of keeping their communities together as their numbers shrink...

 

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Traveling Rabbi Serves Tiny Southern Congregations
by Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press Writer
As the sun inched below the horizon in this Mississippi River town, people arrived alone or in small groups and walked up the steps of Temple B'nai Israel on Shabbat.

Only about a dozen Jewish residents remain in Natchez...

 


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Cotton, Catfish and Challah:
A Tale of A Traveling Rabbi in the South
by Jennie Rothenberg
It's early on a sunny Friday in January and the cotton fields of southeast Arkansas are a cold muddy brown. Rabbi Debra Kassoff's blue van streaks down Highway 65, two narrow lanes leading into the town of McGehee. The land here is flat, the arrow-straight highway running parallel to ever-present railroad tracks. Tractor dealerships, catfish eateries and rundown shacks blur by punctuated Baptist churches. Every few miles, a green sign announces another town with a population under 300...
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©2006 Goldring-Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life