
Description
From South Carolina to Arkansas, she explores the small towns where Jewish people once lived and thrived. She visits the site of her distant cousin and civil rights activist Andrew Goodman's murder during 1964's Freedom Summer. She also talks with the only Jews remaining in some of the "lost" places, from Selma to the Mississippi Delta to Natchitoches, and visits areas with no Jewish community left-except for an old temple or overgrown cemetery. Eisenfeld follows her curiosity about Jewish Confederates and casts an unflinching eye on early southern Jews' participation in slavery. Her travels become a journey of revelation about our nation's fraught history and a personal reckoning with the true nature of America.
Product Details
Publisher | Ohio State University Press |
Publish Date | April 01, 2020 |
Pages | 292 |
Language | English |
Type | |
EAN/UPC | 9780814255810 |
Dimensions | 8.5 X 5.5 X 0.7 inches | 0.8 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"A digestible introduction to a specific piece of the history of the South's racial politics."--Kirkus Reviews
"In [Wandering Dixie], Eisenfeld's itinerary is both organized and serendipitous. The souvenirs she picks up along the way, like the weeds in so many of the overgrown Jewish cemeteries she visits, amount to a beautifully nuanced and moving portrait of acceptance and accountability."--Cathy Alter, Washington Independent Review of Books
"Beautifully written and highly thoughtful, Wandering Dixie takes us on a powerful journey through the physical and internal landscapes of the South. Eisenfeld confronts religion, race, and reckoning, revealing the powerful vectors in our lives that push us into the unexpected." --Randon Billings Noble, author of Be with Me Always
"In stunningly elegant prose, Eisenfeld uncovers the anonymous corners of Jewish and Confederate history. In this immersive gem of a book, she inspires hope for a nuanced and vital conversation about race by claiming her own role in 'our troubled American story.'" --Michelle Brafman, author of Washing the Dead
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