The story of Jewish immigration to Tennessee and how those who came here embraced the culture they found is documented in an exhibit now on display at the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University.”Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience in Tennessee” is a joint project of the Tennessee State Museum in collaboration with the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, Jewish Community Federation of Greater Chattanooga, Knoxville Jewish Alliance, and Memphis Jewish Federation, with the participation of other Jewish communities around the state. The exhibit’s statewide tour is supported in part by a grant from Humanities Tennessee, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The exhibit begins with the saga of early Jewish settlers emigrating from Europe, where most faced religious persecution. A few came to upper East Tennessee in the 1770s, and to Middle Tennessee by the 1820s. By 1870, groups in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga had purchased land for cemeteries – a first concern of new Jewish communities – and founded congregations for worship.

Chronicling the life of Jewish families during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the exhibit focuses on the historic contributions during this period. Stories of interest include the beginnings of one of America’s most respected newspaper empires, which started when 20-year-old Adolph Ochs, son of Julius and Bertha from Knoxville, bought The Chattanooga Times in 1878. In 1896, he added The New York Times to what is still today a family-controlled enterprise.

Stories of the huge wave of immigrants, who, fleeing anti-Semitic laws and mob violence, arrived between 1880 and 1924, are followed by those of Tennessee Jews during World War II. More than 1,000 Tennessee Jews served their country in the armed forces. Many distinguished themselves; some perished. The secret Manhattan Project in East Tennessee 6brought many Jewish scientists to work on the atom bomb. These Oak Ridge families later hand-constructed their own synagogue, a feat possibly unique in American Jewish history. During the same period, Holocaust refugees and survivors were welcomed with housing, jobs and English lessons.

As the young left to seek their fortunes after the war, Tennessee’s Jewish population declined to less than 17,000 in 1960. The Civil Rights era raised ongoing challenges for Tennessee Jews. The Nashville Jewish Community Center was dynamited in 1958, while a Chattanooga synagogue was destroyed in 1977.

“Bagels & Barbeque” also documents the recent influence of the Jewish community in Tennessee. The state has seen an influx from around the nation of Jewish health and music industry professionals, university professors, executives, artists, and their extended families.

In 1984, the Tennessee Holocaust Commission Inc. became the third such state organization in the country. And in 1998, to understand the enormity of Hitler’s atrocities, non-Jewish middle-school children in Whitwell, Tennessee, collected 6 million paper clips from around the world. Dedicated to tolerance and peace and documented in an award-winning film, their internationally acclaimed Children’s Holocaust Memorial is another unique contribution to the ongoing, many-sided Jewish experience in Tennessee.

Scholars from across the state of Tennessee provided the research for the exhibit, along with noted authorities on Jewish history from other locations. The exhibition has been organized, designed and produced by the staff of the Tennessee State Museum.

“Bagels & Barbeque: The Jewish Experience” was shown at the Tennessee State Museum from Dec. 9, 2007, to Feb. 3, 2008. It is now traveling for three years to other museums across the state.

The Reece Museum is featuring local artifacts in conjunction with the traveling exhibit that tell the story of Jewish families, business and religious life in the Tri-Cities. There will also be special events during the run of the exhibit. On Sept. 9 at 5:30 p.m., the Archives of Appalachia’s Ned Irwin will give a talk entitled “Cone & Adler: Old World Ways and a New World Business,” and a closing reception will take place on Sept. 23 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. with a lecture starting at 7 p.m. in Rogers-Stout Hall by Deborah R. Weiner, author of Coalfield Jews: An Appalachian History, and research historian and family history coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. This exhibit has been brought to the Reece Museum with the support of ETSU’s Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, the Erna P. Kaldegg Fund, and B’nai Shalom, a non-denominational Jewish congregation serving the Tri-Cities Tennessee/Virginia region.

The Reece Museum is located at the corner of Stout and Gilbreath Drive on the campus of ETSU. Reece Museum hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday. For more information or for special assistance for those with disabilities, call the museum at 423-439-4392.

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