A day at the museum

As many of you know, almost two years ago Rachel and I moved to New Orleans. As you also probably know, we lost her a little over a year ago to dementia. And, the “Let the Good Times Roll” city shut down shortly after we arrived due to Covid.

Well, times change. For the first time in two years the town opened up for Mardi Gras and the Good Times are rolling once again. The question for me again was, okay — what now?

I had that same question when we came to Orlando from Cleveland. My first project was to build and create a radio station, which with help we did. Called it “Mellow” as it played music by pop stars from Sinatra to the Doobie Brothers.

But where was our Jewish Connection? The “Federation” in the 1970s was a shadow of what it is today. Then along came a new Federation professional. Paul Jeser. A New York Jew in every sense of the word. He descended on the sleepy Jewish Community in Orlando like a whirlwind.

Seemingly overnight the “Old Guard” of Orlando Jews gave up their tenuous hold on the Community and I was suddenly taking the Jewish point of view to Kiwanis, Rotary, Elks — anywhere in the Gentile Community we could get a speaking date. I took a role in the Annual Fund Raising Campaign and was even speaking at temples.

I think it worked.

Then we moved to New Orleans. I had been away from the Speaker’s Podium for years. I really thought I was done. An overall look at this “Small Market” showed that it was a tourist haven, especially at Mardi Gras time. It is the smallest market with an NFL team, which they wear like a badge. Out of some 230,000 residents, there are maybe 10,000 Jews — that we can count. I am trying to breathe life into the Federation which, in terms of Community Outreach is pretty well absent.

The one place I could find where there was a true Jewish approach is the fairly new “Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.” It is right downtown and really well done.

So, I am a “Volunteer Guide” at least twice a week. It gives a really well thought out chronological journey through the Jewish Experience in the South. From the first Jew arriving here in the 1500s through the Southern struggle in the Civil War and up to today’s Jewish life in the South. The emphasis is on the overall Southern Experience as opposed to strictly New Orleans.

As I take guests through this chronological journey, we come to the Civil War and the fact that many Jews owned slaves in the South. There is an explanation on the wall that states, “It was a way of life.” I have never been happy with that lame explanation.

Last week, as I was accompanying guests through the museum; guests who happened to be Jewish, I stopped. In a few weeks it will be “Pesach” — Passover — when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt.

As we got to the Civil War section of the displays, I looked at the “excuse” and realized how lame it is. I stopped and told the guests that I was sorry, but I just could not get my head around that explanation. I said to them “Soon it will be Pesach, Passover, where the whole point is that God took us out of Egypt where we were SLAVES.”

I got a lot of positive head shakes. I asked: “Can we really tell this story without admitting that what Southern Jews did in that time was wrong and as anti-Jewish as you can get?”

In modern times, Jews have been at the forefront of every Civil Rights drive that has been organized. Jews went South to make sure that Black people had the same rights as everyone else when it comes to voting.

As we come closer to the mid-term elections, it looks like there is a real brand new effort to suppress the vote of minorities. I read an article that stated that the Republican Party had stated to “Insiders” that the only way they can win in today’s noxious atmosphere is to keep minorities away from the polls. I cannot say for sure that this has actually happened, but from what we see here in the State of Florida and elsewhere it sure makes sense.

Meanwhile, the best I can do is my best to try and shake life into the local Jewish Federation, tell the story of Southern Jews at the museum and write what I can where I can.

My time here has solidified my belief that Orlando is not the South — might have been once with its segregation and “Division Street” and other signs of the “Old South” — but they have disappeared. Not quite as easy here in the “Big Easy.”