Shalom, Y'all

One week has come and gone since I arrived in Jackson and, to my surprise and perhaps yours, there’s actually quite a lot going on around here. Between work and after-work diversions, I’ve yet to be awake in my apartment for more than two hours at a time. And that’s a good thing, mainly because my apartment is nothing to write home about. While technically it’s a guest house, it bears an uncanny resemblance to a garden shack, except with the little things in life such as beds and chairs and a bathroom. Air conditioning has also been a plus, given that the temperature in Jackson has been crawling towards the one hundred degree mark. Internet is fairly weak out here, but that is not to imply that this place is void of all technology. In fact, I have at my disposal not one, not two, but three televisions along with tons of game consoles. Oh well. Space hasn’t been an issue thus far, but it’ll certain become one when my roommate moves in tomorrow.

The internship itself has been much better experience than I could have ever anticipated. Non-profit work has revealed to me a whole new side of the professional world: one (somewhat) void of intense competition and nightmarish bureaucracy and instead guided by a common desire to make a difference. I’m well aware how hackneyed that sounds, but it’s absolutely true. As a history intern, it’s my job to do research on Jewish communities in the South—both past and present—in order to preserve their legacy. The project I’m working on is called the Digital Archive Project and is essentially a gigantic compendium of short histories on significant individuals, communities, and congregations in the Institute’s target region. Mississippi and Arkansas have already been completed and just like easing a finger onto a spinning globe, the next state will be…Louisiana! Hey, it’s far more exciting than, say, Oklahoma or Kentucky. Starting with New Orleans would have been a little overambitious, so instead I chose a smaller town: St. Francisville. Lying halfway between Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Woodville, Mississippi, that means it’s truly in the middle of nowhere. Jews—mostly German immigrants—nevertheless settled there via New Orleans and came in droves. Today, no Jews live in St. Francisville and the only remnants of a once-vibrant Jewish community is a small and dilapidated cemetery on the edge of town.

But why should anyone care about these communities? Because right now these communities exist merely in the form of records: censuses, tax rolls, probate records, congregation minutes, membership lists, etc. The objective, however, is to construct a narrative that carefully weaves together the people, places, and events that make up what we call “history.” I should then strike a delicate balance between two conflicting elements. On one hand, there is certainly pertinent and revealing historical information and statistical data that elucidate broader social, economic, political, and even cultural features. On the other hand, however, I must be careful not to extrapolate too far from the original sources and avoid far-fetched conclusions and false generalizations. Keeping a slavish fidelity to what “really” happened and what is actually “on the page” fails to produce a narrative with retrospective cohesiveness. Instead reality needs to be modestly embroidered in order to fill in gaps in the historical record and help what really happened approach larger truths than that attested by mere facts. Thus my job is really about “informed storytelling”: the records at hand could not provide the level of detail I aim to narrate; however, the plausibility of the stories told and motives explicated offsets a certain lack of historicity.

So that's what I do. More to come on life in Jackson.