HUFFINGTON
08.05.12
COURTESY OF CAREN SELIGMAN
FEATURE_TITLE
volunteer in the community.
But each year for the High Holidays, Seligman would return to
Montgomery for services at the
temple of her forefathers. Cousins
and old neighbors would catch up
over fried snapper and potato and
cheese-filled pastries, traditional
Sephardic foods that transported
Seligman back to her childhood.
Etz Ahayem, no longer able to
sustain a congregation and long
without a full-time rabbi, closed
and merged with another synagogue
a decade ago. Its Torah scroll was
transferred to the new temple along
with its sanctuary doors. The building is now a Baptist church, indistinguishable from so many others.
Only a memory remains.
Seligman hopes the same won’t
prove true for Birmingham’s Jewish communities.
In her purse, she carries
black-and-white business cards
stamped with large blue Stars
of David. She’ll slip them into
the pocket of any young Jew she
comes across. “YOU Belong in
Birmingham!” they say in large
letters beside her phone number.
Like most of the broader American-Jewish community, most
Jews Seligman recruits are secular
or from the Reform or Conserva-
The
congregation
at Temple
Beth-El
gathers
during
Hanukkah.