Shalom, y’all!
We are so excited to officially launch this blog, and have this wonderful new way to share stories of the Southern Jewish experience with readers far and wide.
By way of introduction, we wanted to tell you a little bit about some of the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW of this new blog. So, here goes:
WHO are we? The content creators for this blog are all on staff at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life (ISJL). The majority of us spend most of our time on the road, throughout the South. We’re educators, culture vultures, travelers, adventurers, story-tellers – and we look forward to sharing stories in the days and weeks to come.
WHAT do we do? We partner with Jewish communities throughout the ISJL’s thirteen-state Southern region, providing cultural programs, itinerant rabbinic services, community engagement, Jewish education, and historic preservation through academic scholarship and community histories, individual oral histories, and museum projects. (Yeah. It’s a lot.)
WHERE are we located? Jackson, Mississippi. But we pretty much cover the entirety of the South.
WHY do you do what you do? Because regardless of a Jewish community’s size, they deserve access to Jewish life and resources. Because we’re all about challenging the status quo. Also, we love the people we partner with down here!
WHEN does the adventure begin? Right now.
HOW did this blog come to be? We started talking with the great team over at My Jewish Learning and realized that the stories we have and the readers (that’s you!) that they attract seem pretty
bashert
.
Thanks, My Jewish Learning – and thank all y’all* for reading! We look forward to sharing lots of Southern stories here.
*Southern vocab lesson: “all y’all” is the plural form of you which refers to “many of you.” Y’all can be appropriately used for two or more, but “all y’all” is generally reserved for three or more. It’s like blending English and Hebrew, see? 🙂
