A Whirlwind Tour of 250 Years
of Jewish New Orleans
From its earliest roots, the New Orleans Jewish community, which celebrates its 250 th anniversary this year, has always been colorful and freewheeling, reflecting the city in which it lives.
Most of the Jews who settled in New Orleans soon after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 came from the Alsace region of France; they were attracted to the city because most of its residents still spoke French and followed the Napoleonic Code, not English common law.
At that time, New Orleans was a frontier town that rewarded people who were not bound by tradition, and this applied not only to business but to all areas of life. Because it was a port city, in which people from many cultures and countries came to make their fortune, New Orleans was probably the most tolerant of any important American city. In some ways, New Orleans was a meritocracy where people were judged by their business skills and smarts. For that reason, Jews were very successful in politics - Judah Benjamin, later the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, was the first Jewish Senator, and there was a Jewish lieutenant governor and attorney general in the 1850s as well.
But the early Jewish community was not known for its religiosity. Most of the Jews who came here emigrated alone or with other men. Once here, many married Catholic women and raised their children as Catholics. A German Jewish correspondent described New Orleans after his visit here in 1842: “Although the political atmosphere is so liberal that a Jew could win unanimous election to the legislature, only four homes kept kosher, only two followed the laws of Shabbat, and two-thirds of the boys were not circumcised.”
The New Orleans Jewish community would no doubt have been an interesting relic, doomed by intermarriage and assimilation, had Judah Touro not come to town. The son of the cantor at the oldest American synagogue (in Newport, Rhode Island), Touro arrived in New Orleans in 1803 just as the economic boom was taking off. A shrewd investor and a skinflint as well, he soon became the owner of most of what is today’s downtown.
Judah Touro attended services at Christ Church and his closest friends were not Jewish. However, he became quite close to a man named Gershom Kursheedt, who had a strong Jewish identity. He convinced Touro to give money to finance a new synagogue, and that was the start of his Jewish philanthropy. When Touro died in 1854, his will was so famous that it was published in the New York Times. America’s first philanthropist, he gave away the then-astronomical sum of $483,000 to synagogues, schools and benevolent societies in 19 cities, and even gave money to Jews in Palestine and China. In New Orleans, he supported two synagogues and founded the Touro Infirmary, a noted area hospital.
Now on a firm financial footing, the Jewish community grew steadily but slowly in the second half of the 19 th century. The Reform movement, which had started in Germany in the 1830s, increased its influence and the two existing synagogues in New Orleans at that time became Reform. Circumstances conspired to keep the Reform movement dominant in New Orleans. In the late 19 th century, the city was rocked both by yellow fever epidemics and several financial reversals. As a result, the large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe of more traditional or Orthodox Jews bypassed New Orleans. And so what happened in most Jewish communities, where the large numbers of Eastern European Jews dwarfed the existing smaller community of German Jews, did not happen in New Orleans.
Although the Jewish community has never represented more than 1% of the metropolitan area population, it has always played a very important role in the city. Consider this statistic, which measures their philanthropic prominence. A full one-third of the recipients of the Loving Cup, an award given by the newspaper each year to recognize the city’s most civic-minded citizen, have been Jewish. Jews founded the local art museum; the city park; the academically elite private schools - Newman School and Country Day School; Dillard University, the first black university; and one of the first television stations.
Jews have also played a leading role in the civil rights movement in New Orleans; the first African American to speak to an integrated audience, Ralph Bunche, spoke at a synagogue, and local rabbis were fervent advocates of equal rights.
The tolerance that has always marked New Orleans still stands strong today, and the Jewish community is held in great respect by their non-Jewish neighbors. Ben Toledano, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1971, said this about the Jewish community: “In what other city do the men sit down and plan costumes, themes, color schemes and plumage [he was referring to Mardi Gras]? We in New Orleans do not clutter our minds with information; we are not an intellectual city. If you would look for intellectual activity you would have to look for it in the Jewish community.”
In the post-Katrina recovery, the Jewish community is again leading the way; its strategic planning effort and initiatives to welcome newcomers were featured recently in a front-page article in the local newspaper. The President of the City Council and the President of the renowned Tulane University are both Jewish.
No doubt, the Jewish community will continue to play a major role in New Orleans life in the next 250 years.