A Shtetl Grew in Bessemer - Southern Jewish Historical Society

38 SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY
gone. . . . I really have enjoyed the time I’ve lived in Bessemer,
and I think that the Jewish community in itself did a remarkable
job of doing what they did do while we were there. When I
moved here in 1933, there were about thirty-eight families. I can
visualize the sixty-seventy families that we had at one time. But
we have all remained close friends, even the ones who have
moved away. 156
That closeness is attested to by former Bessemerites who
maintain ties, visit each other for high school reunions, hold
monthly lunches, and make frequent phone calls. Perhaps Elaine
Becker Bercu best captures the nostalgia for Jewish life in these
disappearing small Jewish communities. She has lived in Shaker
Heights, Ohio, since her marriage in 1953, and her parents, Levi
and Eva, were integral to the community history. Bercu writes,
As you get older you begin to reflect. I live now in a much bigger
home. I belong to The Temple. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and his
son Rabbi Daniel Silver were our chief rabbis before their passing.
But I must tell you, there isn’t a time when I stand for the
“She-Ma” that I don’t think of our family in that little wooden
temple in Bessemer, Alabama. 157
N O T E S
1 In a Jewish Monitor story from January 1957, the temple was referred to as Congregation
Beth-El, perhaps its original name as remembered by Mrs. H. Goldberg, who at the
time was the only person still living who was there at its founding in 1891. Otherwise, in
this same article and in all other found sources, Beth-El is referred to as Temple Beth-El.
“Bessemer Celebrates Anniversaries In State’s Second Oldest Synagogue,” Jewish Monitor,
January 1957, 7.
2 Jewish Monitor, January 1957, 7.
3 Albert (Buddy) Sokol interview conducted by Terry Barr, December 24, 1996.
4 Ibid.
5 Ralph Sokol to Terry Barr, July 16, 1997.