Group dangles $50K for Jews who move to Ala. town

Source: Associated Press

DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) -- Larry Blumberg is looking for a few good Jews to move to his corner of the Bible Belt. Blumberg is chairman of an organization offering Jewish families as much as $50,000 to relocate to Dothan, an overwhelmingly Christian town of 58,000 that calls itself the Peanut Capital of the World. Get involved at Temple Emanu-El and stay at least five years, the group's leaders say, and the money doesn't have to be repaid.

More Jews are living in the South than ever - about 386,000 at last count in 2001, according to Stuart Rockoff, a historian at the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss. But young Jews are leaving small places like Dothan in favor of cities like Atlanta and Birmingham, Rockoff said, and dozens of small-town synagogues have closed.

"A lot of the older people have died, and not many of the younger ones have stayed," said Thelma Nomberg, a member of the Dothan temple who grew up in nearby Ozark, where she was the only Jewish student in public school in the 1940s. "We are dying."

Being outside the Christian majority was never a problem, Nomberg said, even six decades ago: She won the Miss Ozark beauty pageant at 14 and sometimes attended church with friends after sleep-overs.

Now a widow, Nomberg has watched two of her four adult children leave for Florida as Temple Emanu-El lost nearly half its membership, down to about 50 families. She can only hope the recruitment plan hatched by Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services of Dothan works for her synagogue.



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n/t

Pay me enough, and I'll believe in any Big Guy in the sky you want!

$125,000 should do it :)

I live in bama and it isn't easy. But L.A. (lower Alabama) is worse than the north.

The Mobile/Fairhope area is a little better.

I am afraid to put out Obama Signs in the front yard. Good chance the windows of the house get bricked. I will ride around with an Obama flag on the window of the truck, but dont dare leave it unattended. And yes, this is Amerika.

in a place that small and that redneck. They should be offering a bounty on Democrats!

and my parents found humor on this.

To the town of Dothan - good luck.

I know a New York couple (with kids) that moved to the South - Atlanta.

And a dear friend of mine who tutored me in my Bar Mitzvah who is a rabbi and a cantor - does the High Holiday service every year in West Virginia. Lives right here in Denver.

Hawkeye-X

;) ;) ;)

my views are in the minority here, and I make no secret of that, but I've never had a problem with anyone. They leave me alone, and I leave them alone. I think some people have a skewed idea of what it's like to live in a Red state.

…if you were a mixed-race couple?

african american man married to a white woman. I've never inquired as to what their experience has been, and he's never volunteered any information. But they've been here several years, having moved from Pennsylvania, so they must like it well enough. I'm not claiming this is a particularly enlightened area, and I'm sure mixed race couples have difficulties at times. But just like any other part of the country, this is not a monolithic region. There are all kinds of people, and most of them, even the conservative ones, are not wild eyed cross burners.

I can damn near spit into Dothan, so I wdn't be losing anything.

And I'm already circumsized. I believe that qualifies me as a Jew (in Dothan; what wd those crackers know from Hebrew?)

A few years ago and trained with several people from Dothan AL. They were just super nice.

Although my friend Jim who I dubbed the Hightech Redneck commented on the fact that I was, "The nicest person from New York I've ever met!" :rofl: There ARE good people everywhere - if we are willing to see them.

Excuse me I was going to talk about how backwards most of the people in Alabama feel about the welfare of the underprivilaged,but I just can't talk about how bad it is with out wanting to puke.Most Alabamians have no heart,even the lower class.Its ignorance!

here in Alabama,If you ain't white,you ain't right!

Why would a bunch of Christians be putting up that kind of money to entice Jews to relocate there? Is this some sort of "Jews for Jesus" thing where they'll try to convert them?

Blumberg Family Jewish Community Services

It is still like the early 1960's in some places. It can seem like
a time warp.I am Jewish but needed to hide it sometimes because I
didn't need to hear that "I was going to hell!".

Have their very conservative areas. My state of Missouri has pretty conservative areas, even the suburbs.