Huffington Magazine Issue 8 | Page 51

HUFFINGTON 08.05.12 SHALOM Y’ALL a welcome kit of shabbat candles, kosher wine, memberships to the Jewish community center and a pitch to stay. Once a place where Eastern European Jews flocked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Birmingham was home to powerful, enterprising Jews who ran major merchants and department stores, such as the now-defunct Parisians chain. Poised for much of its history to become the new Southern Jewish metropolis (the titles instead went to Atlanta and South Florida) the community is now at a crossroads. The old are getting older. The young are in short supply and headed to big cities. Neither the smaller towns that once fed into the city’s Jewish landscape nor the region’s former industrial or retail strength can be counted on to propel the population into the 21st century. Birmingham isn’t the only place recruiting Jews. In Tulsa, Okla., a similar effort is underway, while in Dothan, Ala., and Meridian, Miss., graying small-town synagogues have offered to pay Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate. In New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina wiped out an Orthodox syna- “We’re not worried about the Jewish community in the next 10 or 20 years. We’re worried about the next 100.” gogue, the Jewish Federation gives small stipends and memberships to a Jewish dating website to encourage newcomers to settle. Fueled by immigration and transplants from other parts of the country, the religious makeup of the South has diversified, with Islamic, Mormon and Spanishspeaking congregations making headway in places once reliably spiritually homogeneous. Birmingham, too, has become more diverse. But unlike more prosperous Southern cities with large Jewish populations, Birmingham’s Jewish community is being confronted with a harsh reality: It needs to grow to survive. “We’re not worried about the Jewish community in the next 10 or 20 years,” says Seligman. “We’re worried about the next 100.” “YOU BELONG IN BIRMINGHAM” A third-generation Sephardic Jew, Seligman exudes Southern hospitality with a sense of cosmopolitanism that sets Birmingham apart