HUFFINGTON
08.05.12
JAWEED KALEEM
SHALOM Y’ALL
from much of the state. She punctuates conversation with “sweeties” and “honeys” while extending
her vowels in a drawl. She has a
weakness for iced tea and banana
pudding, and can only take the
“hustle and bustle” of big cities like
Atlanta for a few days at a time.
With seemingly endless energy,
she starts her workday by checking emails and text messages from
home before arriving to the office
hours ahead of her small group of
colleagues. A recently certified spin
instructor, Seligman leaves midmorning to teach class, an occasion
where small-talk after exercises
often leads her to learn about new
Jewish arrivals to the city. In her
rare moments of relaxation, she enjoys lounging on the white coastal
sands of the Florida Panhandle.
When she picks up newcomers for tours of the city, she opts
to use her top-down convertible
over her sedan, where her stereo
shuffles between Frankie Valli,
Michael Jackson and Maroon 5.
But when she imagines what her
Jewish community may look like
in a generation, she thinks back
to growing up in Montgomery, 90
miles south of her current home.
She remembers the festive
songs and celebrations at Congre-
gation Etz Ahayem, the Sephardic
synagogue her grandparents’ generation helped establish in the
early 20th century after immigrating from Rhodes, Greece. The
small temple — its name means
“Tree of Life” — would overflow
on Fridays with the close-knit 30
families who had maintained it
for decades. Prayers were in a mix
of Hebrew, English, and Ladino, a
flavorful Judaeo-Spanish tongue.
Like many of those she tries to
lure back into the city, Seligman
moved away from her birthplace
after college in Tuscaloosa to follow her career in advertising and
her Birmingham-raised husband.
Her son’s Bar Mitzvah and confirmation were at Birmingham’s
Conservative temple, Beth-El
(their original rabbi moved to a
new job in Atlanta three years
ago), and she became an active
Emanu-El,
one of many
Jewish
temples in
Alabama
to close in
recent years.