On June 10, 1943, as the Nazis were systematically murdering the Jews of Europe, the Alabama legislature took a stand that no other American state had yet taken.
By unanimous vote, it adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel. The measure declared that the extermination of European Jewry “cries out for action” and described a Jewish homeland as “an act of justice to the Jewish people and the righting of an ancient wrong.”
Five years before Israel declared independence, lawmakers in the heart of the Deep South were publicly endorsing the Jewish people’s right to a national home.
The effort was spearheaded by Abe Berkowitz, a Birmingham attorney and Zionist leader, with state senator James Simpson and state representative Sid Smyer advancing the measure.
By then, Jews had spent generations helping build Alabama’s businesses, cities and civic institutions. Yet there was a time when they were not even permitted to settle in the region.
In 1724, when Alabama belonged to French Louisiana, King Louis XV issued the Code Noir, ordering Jews to leave the colony.
Six decades later, Abraham Mordecai, a Jewish trader from Pennsylvania, settled along the Alabama River, long before Alabama became a state in 1819.
Mordecai traded with the Creek and Chickasaw Indians, learned their languages and married a Creek woman. He believed the Native Americans he encountered descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel and reportedly attempted to address them in Hebrew. He also introduced an early cotton gin to the region.
But Mordecai had no synagogue, no rabbi and no Jewish neighbors. According to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, he spent his final years in poverty and isolation, with an old Hebrew Bible and a coffin he had made for himself among his few possessions.
The Jews who arrived in Mobile in the following decades began building what Mordecai had lacked. In 1841, they purchased land for a cemetery. Three years later, they established Shaarai Shomayim, Alabama’s first Jewish congregation.
Its members also became part of the wider city. When yellow fever swept through Mobile in 1870, Rabbi Abraham Laser refused to flee. He remained to care for the sick, contracted the disease and died.
Alabama offered economic opportunities that drew Jewish immigrants well beyond the coastal area.
In Montgomery, Henry Lehman, a Bavarian Jew, opened a dry-goods store in 1844. His brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, joined him; in 1850, it became Lehman Brothers. As farmers paid in cotton, the brothers expanded into cotton brokerage, laying the foundations of the Wall Street firm that would eventually collapse in 2008.
Jewish merchants opened stores in Selma, Eufaula, Huntsville and other towns. Some entered politics, including Mordecai Moses, who became mayor of Montgomery in 1875.
Their integration into Southern society also had its darker side. Some Jewish Alabamians owned slaves, and more than 130 fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
In Birmingham, founded and incorporated in 1871, Jewish businessmen helped develop the industrial city. Samuel Ullman, a merchant and school-board member, pressed for better educational opportunities for black children and helped the city establish its first permanent public high school.
Ullman was also a poet. His poem “Youth” became a favorite of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who displayed it in his Tokyo office after World War II. Ullman’s Birmingham home is now a museum.
Struggles with a state
But Jewish Alabama was more than just its businessmen and civic leaders.
German immigrants generally favored Reform Judaism, while Eastern European arrivals built more traditional congregations. Birmingham’s Northside neighborhood had Yiddish-speaking residents, Jewish bakeries and bookstores.
On Sand Mountain, Jewish immigrants attempted something entirely different: a socialist farming colony. Founded in 1904, it struggled with poor soil and isolation before disbanding in 1906.
In Montgomery, Sephardic Jews from Rhodes and other Mediterranean communities established Congregation Etz Ahayem in 1912. Its constitution was written in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish language their ancestors had preserved for centuries.
When the Nazis deported the Jews of Rhodes to Auschwitz in 1944, nearly every family in the congregation lost relatives. A Torah scroll hidden on Rhodes before the deportations eventually reached Montgomery.
Despite their growing prominence, Alabama’s Jews were hardly immune to the prejudices and conflicts of the society around them.
The civil-rights struggle divided the community. Some Jews favored segregation; others opposed it. Many worried that taking a stand would endanger their families and synagogues.
Rabbi Seymour Atlas of Montgomery befriended Martin Luther King Jr. and supported the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56, a defining moment of the civil-rights movement. His congregation declined to renew his contract in 1956.
White supremacists frequently portrayed the civil-rights movement as a Jewish-Communist conspiracy, and synagogues across the South became targets of violence and intimidation. On April 28, 1958, 54 sticks of dynamite were discovered at Birmingham’s Temple Beth-El. The fuse had burned, but the bomb failed to explode. Those responsible were never identified.
Two years later, Gadsden’s Temple Beth Israel was attacked during a ceremony dedicating a new wing of the synagogue. A 16-year-old who had attended a rally for an antisemitic politician threw a firebomb at the building and then shot two congregants who rushed outside. Both survived, although one was critically wounded.
Birmingham’s Rabbi Milton Grafman, who opposed segregation, was among eight white clergymen who criticized King’s demonstrations. Their statement prompted his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Demographic changes
But Alabama’s Jewish history was hardly confined to religious and political controversies. Jews also made their mark in an area of life that Alabamians take especially seriously: sports.
Mel Allen, born Melvin Israel in Alabama in 1913, began broadcasting University of Alabama football before becoming the legendary voice of the New York Yankees. When he joined CBS in 1937, executives encouraged him to adopt a name that sounded less Jewish.
At Auburn, by contrast, Bruce Pearl became the university’s winningest men’s basketball coach while openly embracing Judaism and Israel. He took his team to Israel, denounced antisemitism and called publicly for Hamas to release Israeli hostages. His teams reached the Final Four in 2019 and 2025; he retired later that year.
Throughout the years, Alabama’s support for Israel has remained strong. In April 2026, the state legislature adopted a resolution encouraging government agencies to use “Judea and Samaria” rather than “West Bank” in official materials. The measure explicitly cited Alabama’s historic 1943 resolution and affirmed the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the Land of Israel.
Sustaining Jewish life within Alabama, however, has become increasingly difficult. The Jewish population of Alabama, which approached 13,000 in 1927, has since declined, particularly in smaller towns.
In 2008, Dothan philanthropist Larry Blumberg launched an unusual initiative, offering grants of up to $50,000 to Jewish families willing to relocate to the city. Eleven families eventually participated, although seven subsequently left.
Birmingham, however, remains home to an active Jewish community, complete with synagogues, a Jewish day school, Chabad and an eruv.
Knesseth Israel, founded in 1889, is Alabama’s only Orthodox synagogue. An eruv established in 2012 enables observant families to carry on Shabbat within its boundaries. The congregation even operates a kosher-deli food truck.
Chabad of Alabama maintains a mikvah and offers religious services and educational programs.
The N.E. Miles Jewish Day School provides Jewish and general education from kindergarten through eighth grade, while the Levite Jewish Community Center remains a gathering place for the community.
More than two centuries ago, Abraham Mordecai lived in Alabama with a Hebrew Bible but no Jewish community around him.
Today, Jewish children in Birmingham attend a Jewish school, families gather for Shabbat, and synagogues continue to serve a community that has survived despite its small numbers. For all their contributions to Alabama’s past, the greatest challenge facing its Jews today may be ensuring that they remain part of its future.
