donbosco
Honored Member
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- 964
The first Jew that I knew was my freshman college roommate. Growing up there ‘had’ been a salesman that came by my father’s hardware store infrequently that I knew to be Jewish. I say infrequently because he was the bottle rocket and smoke bomb provider, two commodities that I, along with the other #Bonlee Boys cherished dearly - but unfortunately used up rapidly. My roommate, Scott, was a good guy, from Charlotte like what seemed like 70% of the #UNC student body in those days, had gotten a fine education in math at Myers Park High, and was a helluva wrestler. On move-in day - Everett Dorm - our families met. Southern Baptist to Orthodox Jewish. At the time what I thought that I knew about Jews came almost entirely from the banter of the guests on The Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, and Merv Griffin Shows and a WUNC-TV production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’
Who could have predicted that our fathers would hit it off so famously? The reason? Through both of their veins flowed the Miracle Elixir of HARDWARE! Both had made their livelihood providing for people that simply wanted to improve or fix things. Retail. The two of them were soon off to the side literally talking about nuts and bolts. Scott and I made it through the year fine - he pledged TEP, where I played a good deal of hoops, had some memorable dinners and made some friends, majored in Math, and moved to Georgia after graduation. He’s doing well from what I can tell.
As for a Jewish presence in North Carolina, I have come to understand that despite my own isolation in #DeepChatham there is quite a robust history in more urban places like Greensboro, Charlotte, Durham, and Asheville. The historian Leonard Rogoff has chronicled this in books like, ‘Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina.’ From Polish Jewish cigarette rollers brought to their tobacco factory in Durham by the Duke family to the textile empire built by Moses and Ceasar Cone in Greensboro. Jews have been both workers & entrepreneurs in NC. The history is, in fact, far more wide and deep than my rural upbringing and education indicated and I am still on a learning path.
From 1944 to 1968 it was the voice of Harry Golden that represented, for good or ill, a Jewish point of view for many Tar Heels. By way of his newspaper, ‘The Carolina Israelite,’ Golden regaled his public with stories of migration (in his case from NYC) to the South, the absurdity of segregation and racism, and the confluence of Yankee and Southern cuisines. He wrote about weighty topics like lynching, the Klan, the Jerusalem trial of Nazi Eichmann, and was a champion of non-violence in the pursuit of equal Civil Rights for all.
#OTD (October 2) in 1981 publisher/humorist Harry Golden died. His ‘Carolina Israelite’ (44-68) mocked southern racism, showing it ridiculous. MLK Jr., said, “he was one of our white brothers who have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it.” Golden noted that white Southerners didn’t mind standing with African Americans: “It is only when the Negro ‘sets’ that the fur begins to fly.” His satirical, ‘Vertical Negro Plan’ suggested schools could be integrated by providing stand-up desks. He was advisor to RFKennedy. Harry Golden of the Carolina Israelite, One of a Kind
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