A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s (review)

Studies of the Jewish experience in the American South have been few and far between, partly because the region is so heavily populated by people of English extraction. Jews, in fact, are not the only ethnic minority ignored. Irish, Italians, and Asian immigrants have received little attention, despite the contributions they have made to southern society. One reason historians have ignored Jews and these other groups is that they have been fascinated, understandably, by the drama of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Just when Jewish immigrants were beginning to appear in significant numbers in the South, southern historians were absorbed with the “peculiar institution” of slavery and attempting to come to grips with the disaster of the Civil War and its long-term consequences for the South. This fascination continued and even intensified in the 1950s and 1960s when the struggle over desegregation made people wonder whether the Civil War really accomplished much at all in the way of transforming southern society. Ironically, while the study of their presence in the South was still being ignored, people of Jewish extraction were playing a decisive role in the Civil Rights Movement.

But this book is not about the contribution of Jews to the Civil Rights Movement. Rather it is about their experience in the state of Arkansas beginning with the appearance of the first lone Jewish settler, Abraham Block, in the 1820s through the consolidation of the German and East European Jewish communities by the 1990s. The book is divided into five sections and each focuses on a specific aspect or period of the Jewish experience in the state. The first section, “Scattered Threads, 1820s–1860s,” records the history of the pioneer settlers to Arkansas from the 1820s through the Civil War. In this section the reader is introduced to various individuals and families, their interrelationships, and their lonely experience in a frontier state. Section two, “The Threads Come Together, 1860s–1930s,” is in the form of early congregational histories. This sections pulls the threads of the two great Jewish migrations, that of the German Jews and that of the east European Jews, together. The third section, “Colorful Threads, 1860s–1940s,” deals more explicitly with the economic and civic progress of both the German and East European Jews. In “Strengthening the Threads, 1830s–1950s,” the fourth section, the focus is on the Arkansas Jewish Assembly years. The final section, “The Warp and Woof, 1940s–1990s,” examines the merging of the German and East European Jewish communities.

The use of the word “tapestry” in the title is entirely appropriate for this meticulously researched and well written history of the Jews of Arkansas. Not only is there a successful effort to include an almost complete listing of the many Jewish families in the state, there is also considerable genealogical and historical detail about those families. In addition, the author demonstrates a thorough grasp of the importance of Jewish immigrants to the economic life of the state. Often excluded socially and politically, Jews nevertheless made a lasting and significant contribution to economic development, especially in the years after the Civil War. Certain Jewish immigrants, like Jacob Trieber, who came to Helena during the Civil War as a teenager, defied prejudice and rose to economic, social, and political prominence. Although he spoke with a thick German accent throughout his life, he became a prominent businessman and banker. He was a Republican who was appointed the first federal district Judge in the entire country and became known as a defender of civil rights for blacks. He also gained membership to Little Rock’s exclusive XV Club, a group of socially and politically prominent men, formed in 1904. Trieber’s experience reflects not only the ability of capable men to rise to prominence even in the face of prejudice, it demonstrates the possibilities for such men in a frontier society where prejudice fades when brilliant men come to the fore to...