A Shtetl Grew in Bessemer - Southern Jewish Historical Society

18 SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY
Rabbi Myron Silverman from Birmingham’s Temple Emanu-El
officiating. 81 In 1944, Elaine Becker was confirmed by Rabbi
Milton L. Grafman who had replaced Rabbi Silverman at Temple
Emanu-El in 1941. 82 These examples reflect how proximity
to a larger Jewish community could foster the maintenance of
ritual. 83
Bessemer’s Jewish population was stable from 1907 through
the 1940s. 84 From a total of 100 individuals in 1907, the number
increased slightly to 111 in 1927 85 , out of the city’s overall population
of just over 20,000 in 1930. 86 By 1938 there were
approximately forty-three Jewish families in Bessemer. 87 Shortly
after the end of World War II, Bessemer’s Jewish population again
totaled 111 people. 88
During the 1940s family ceremonies and observances regarding
Jewish rituals varied. While most did not keep strictly
kosher, neither did they eat the proscribed pork and shellfish. As
Marvin Cherner indicated, after his grandparents passed away,
while his family still observed the “special rules for Passover,”
they modified its eating strictures. 89 Elaine Becker has memories
of her mother picking her up from school every day during
Passover and driving her home for lunch “to observe the holiday.
I can still taste the ‘sweetness’ of the Dr. Pepper that had apparently
been blessed by the Rabbi.” 90
Alvin Barr, who with his parents came to Bessemer every
Sunday to have lunch with his paternal grandparents, Martin and
Jenny Barr, and his Aunt Dora, Uncle Harry, and cousins Elaine
and Sylvia Ray Hart, can still visualize the ritual of those Sunday
meals:
My grandparents did the cooking. We’d eat, and what I remember
most about it was my grandmother would never sit down at
the table with us. She would always stay in the kitchen and
wouldn’t eat until everyone else had eaten. I think that’s a tradition
from way back in Russia. . . . Often she’d cook tsimmes, a
conglomeration of meat, potatoes, and prunes. I know a lot of
people wouldn’t include the prunes, but I enjoyed it. She’d have
homemade pumpernickel bread too. 91