The Settlement of Rhodian and Other Sephardic Jews in Montgomery and Atlanta in the Twentieth Century

The Jews from the island of Rhodes and the other Sephardic Jews that followed them to Montgomery, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, formed unique independent communities while retaining strong ties to traditions and coreligionists from their place of origin. Strong Sephardic identity complemented by strong social and familial ties with lansmen brought and kept these Jews together. Although some ties have loosened with the passing of the generations, common ancestry has bound the descendents of the founding generation together in a united communal and synagogual structure.

Development of the Sephardic Community of Montgomery

The first Jews in Alabama were three Sephardic Jews—Samuel Israel, Alexander Solomon, and Joseph Depalacios—who bought property in Mobile County on July 9, 1765. ¹ However, this group was never large enough to form its own community, becoming an integral part of the Central European Jewish community. Mordecai Moses, mayor of Montgomery at the end of the nineteenth century, came from an old colonial Sephardic family, but his family had no contact with the Balkan Sephardim who arrived later. In 1906 the arrival of a Sephardic Jew from Rhodes, Ralph Cohen, paved the way for the formation of a separate Sephardic community. Ruben Hanan has described Cohen’s arrival:

Mr. Cohen, the father of Dr. Nace Cohen, arrived in the early summer of 1906 on a small frigate from the Island of Patmos, Greece with John Costarides. They were legally sponsored by Petro Costarides, uncle of John Costarides and founder of Montgomery’s Elite Cafe. Mr. Cohen was very successful in business, and at one time owned a hat shop at 30 North Court, Montgomery, Alabama. ²

As happened in Seattle, the first Sephardim from the Greek Peninsula to arrive in the South followed Greek Orthodox friends and townspeople to the “America filled with gold.” They had heard stories from members of the Greek Orthodox community who had emigrated to the United States and returned to their home towns in the Ottoman Empire to visit their families. ³ Cooperation and good relations between Rhodian and other Turkish Jewish and Greek Orthodox immigrants to the South continued throughout the twentieth century. They mostly retained contacts in business and on a private level in Montgomery.

Unintentionally, Mr. Cohen was a pioneer and a founder. Many men and women followed him and made contributions to the city as outstanding merchants, professionals, and businessmen. They created a vibrant Sephardic religious and cultural community. Rubin Hanan, who arrived in the 1920s and would become a Sephardic congregation leader and political advisor, noted the yearning of those who arrived after Cohen:

Behind him were to march a steady stream of men and women from Rhodes, Greece, Turkey, and the other islands of the region anxious to find for themselves the taste of freedom—and to grasp an opportunity—something which had been denied to them since the days of the Inquisition when they had fled a cruel despot in Spain who ordered them to bow down to religions against their choosing. ⁴

The Sephardim of Rhodes came from a traditional Judeo-Spanish-speaking community. They were a tight-knit group living in the Juderia, the Jewish quarter of Rhodes. With little economic future on this small island, the young teenage boys looked for locations to emigrate to around the globe—such as Seattle, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, the Belgian Congo, and Rhodesia—where they aspired to become wealthy. Most of those leaving were not only young but poor and possessed only a few years of primary school education. Highly motivated to succeed in the new country, they united as Rhodian immigrants in their new location, established informal self-help networks to employ newcomers or provide loans to open new businesses, and retained close contact with each other.

In the same year Ralph Cohen arrived another 11 male Rhodian Jews came to Montgomery. ⁵ Three were from the noted Franco family of religious and communal leaders in Rhodes, including Mose “Haham” Franco. In 1907 and 1908 there was a sizeable increase in Sephardic immigrants from...