Judaism in
Why We Never Danced the
Charleston
Michelle L Torres
Lowcountry Literature
Spring 2008
Timeline of Judaism in Charleston and the South
 1585 Joachim Gans – Metalurgist from Prague –first recorded
Jew in the colonies. Came with Sir Walter Raleigh to NC and
established the first smelting furnace.
 1669 – The Charter for the Carolina Colony was drawn up. It
stated that “Jews, heathens, and dissenters” would find
freedom in Carolina. This is often cited as the determining
factor for the initial attraction of Jews to South Carolina.
 1670 – South Carolina was officially established
 1695 – first recorded Jew in Charleston – was interpreter to
Governor Archdale
Timeline Continued
 1749/ 1750 – Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (KKBE) established. Was on Union St.
Is now on Hassell St. It is the fourth oldest congregation in the US after NY,
Newport, and Savannah. The Coming St. cemetery is the oldest Jewish burial
ground in the South.
 With the American Revolution, Jews fought alongside Christians for
independence from England. Many were very heavily decorated and the
patriotism of the Jewish people won them a greater acceptance with Christians.
 1800 there were 2000 Jews in South Carolina. They were overwhelmingly
Sephardic exiles from Spain and Portugal, and most lived in Charleston.
 Charleston had the largest population of Jewish people in the US until the 1830s.
 1830s – German and Eastern European Jews (Ashkenazic) emigrated to the US
in large numbers via NY to flee pogroms – Charleston waned as the center of
Judaism in the US, but remains very influential.
Timeline Continued
 1922 census – 350 Jewish families in Charleston
 1948 census – 589 Jewish families in Charleston
 SC was the first place in the Western world to elect a Jew
to a public office.
 Charleston is the birthplace of Reform Judaism in the US.
Judaism in the 1920s
 Post WWI… time of great Jewish emigration to the US. Anti-
Semitism was rampant in Eastern Europe and Russia.
 Germans and Austrians believed that internal traitors cost
them the war – especially those working for foreign interests.
They targeted Jews and communists. Germans in particular
had a hard time believing that they had been beaten on the
battlefield… there had to be something more nefarious
behind their defeat. “Stab in the back” legend.
 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Led to communism in
Barvaria and Hungary – leading many to label Jews as being
susceptible to conversion to communism.
Judaism in the 1920s cont.
 Germany, Austria, and Hungary were forced to pay reparations for
WWI - as written in the Treaty of Versailles. The people of these
countries were carrying a huge financial and psychological burden
and took many of their frustrations and hardships out on their
Jewish neighbors.
 Many Jews fled the pogroms (riots in which Jews and others were
run out of town or killed) of Eastern Europe and Russia and came
to the United States. Charleston was called the Promised Land in
America by many, and was considered a welcoming and nurturing
Jewish community.
 Much of this settled down towards the late 20s and early 30s.
 Meanwhile, in America, the roaring 20s were in full swing.
Prosperity and cultural experimentation were a stark contrast to
the suffering of most of the eastern European nations.
Homosexuality and Judaism
 The Torah states… (Jewish holy writings, Christian Old
Testament)


“A man shall not lie with another man as he would with a woman, it is an
abomination.” (Leviticus 18:22)
“A man shall not lie with another man as he would with a woman; the
two of them have done an abomination; they shall be put to death; their
blood guilt is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13)
 Punishable by death, but there is no known case where the
death penalty has been used.
 Orthodox and Conservative Jews are against it in all cases.
 Reform tend to be more liberal.
 Reconstructionist Jews accept it as part of life.
Hirsch Hess, Judaism, and Homosexuality
 Hess – German name
 Hirsch’s mother is from Poland – escaped from the pogroms.
Quiet, and shell-shocked. Rumored that she was educated at
university.
 Hirsch’s father is also a survivor of the pogroms. He is a shoe-
repairman by trade, but everyone avoids him. He seems lost in
another world at times. He hides behind his news paper.
 The Hesses are foreign to Charleston in every sense of the word.
They live in the “black” section of town. They don’t even have
the distinction of being WASP outsiders. Other Jews in
Charleston are uncomfortable with them, and Hirsch’s friends
are ashamed of them… they never speak to the elder Hesses –
even when they pass by the Hess home.
Hirsch Hess, Judaism, and Homosexuality
 Hirsch has to deal with being an outsider in an very
insular environment.
 All of the boys feel as though they are damned, but
Hirsch “…would not forget this [the idea of being
damned], though sometimes it brought him close to
violence. It was more real for him than for us; he kept it
as a frontlet before his eyes; and like a daub of blood,
marked his doorpost with it. It was his religion, that
which determined him. If he could only spawn children,
he could make sense of the past, could ease his parents’
suffering; he could show them that their blood would go
on. But he couldn’t. He was doomed to the cold
comfort to be extracted from other men’s bodies.” (43)
Hirsch Hess, Judaism, and Homosexuality
 The previous quote refers to a frontlet: a leather box warn by Orthodox or
Conservative Jews in the synagogue. One is strapped to the forearm, one to the
forehead. Each contains scripture from the Torah. It is designed to make one feel
closer to the word of God, and to serve as a physical reminder.
 Quote refers to Passover. Ramses II further enslaved the Jews in Egypt and chose
to slay the first born son of each Jewish family. God sent plagues to the people of
Egypt and commanded the Jews to mark their homes with blood so that he might
pass over them and leave them unharmed. This “Passover” left the Jews free to
leave Egypt in what is called the Exodus. Led by Moses, they wandered in the
wilderness for 40 years before settling down. Exodus 12:7 and 13
 Judaism is not just a religion, it is more like a race unto itself. If one’s mother is a
Jew, he is a Jew. Therefore, bloodlines are very important to the Jewish people.
Hirsch feels the importance of bloodline and shared history through bloodlines.
From the previous quote, he seems to feel that if he can carry on his parents’
bloodline, he can not only understand the past, but make the future more secure
somehow.
Hirsch Hess, Judaism, and Homosexuality
 “Because he was Hirsch, a Jew: he had assumed the burdens carried by all
the sons of Solomon; he was sinned against and the sin, all the hideous
conundrums.” (61)

Solomon was the wisest and the most foolish of kings. Son of David, completely devout in the
first half of his 40 year reign. In the latter half, he married foreign women who worshipped
other gods. He built temples for them so that they could worship as they pleased. His
kingdom went from one of the most peaceful and most prosperous to one that was in
shambles. His sons were left to learn from the past and to pick up the pieces. Great wisdom
means nothing without devotion to God.
 Fantasizes that his parents had been killed in the pogrom and had not
escaped to the US – thus saving the world from his presence.
 Hirsch had to come to terms with his “otherness” on several levels


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Not a member of Charleston society as the other young men were
Jewish – and not accepted by other Jews in the Charleston community because parents were
first generation immigrants (42)
Homosexual – and very beautiful – envied, coveted, and targeted by others
 PP 40-43 are very important when studying the Hesses.
Hirsch’s Characterization – as told by Dr. Green
 “Hirsh Hess, Ned’s lover, a sort of Heathcliff character, was
created out of necessity. He needed to be the foil, the
Montague to the Capulet of Ned Grimke. Hirsch came from
my past a bit and from Ludwig Lewishon, a Jewish writer,
whose emigrant parents had moved to Charleston from
Berlin, Germany in the 1880s.”
(126 – Afterword)
 Dr. Green’s parents were holocaust survivors.
 Other novel The German Officer’s Boy story of Kristallnacht –
the beginning of the Holocaust. A young male Jew goes into a
German building and shoots and kills a German military
officer. It is believed that they were lovers. Anti-Semitic fury
rages out of control – and pogroms erupt all over Germany.
November 9 and 10, 1938.
Questions to Ponder
 How might the distinctions made about Hirsch in the
novel make his psychological burden harder to bear
than those of his associates who are members of
“polite society”, Christian, and wealthy?
 In the end, who has the most to lose? Is it Hirsch, or
is it the Charleston Society Boys?