Why Is a Jew in Texas Funny
A deeper look: Central Texas' small, vibrant Jewish community
Past Sara Schleede
AUSTIN — In 1907, Joseph Leon Keeper fled his home to escape the backwash of the Kishinev pogrom, an anti-Jewish riot in Moldova that left 49 killed, 500 injured, 600 businesses looted and 700 homes ransacked.
Keeper took a gunkhole to Galveston, where he stumbled upon a jewelry store with a Yiddish sign in its window. He struck up a conversation with the store-owner and soon became involved in the Workmen'due south Circle, a Jewish social justice organization. He was five,575 miles from his home, but Keeper plant a community.
In 2011, his grandson Paul Keeper hired a Yiddish tutor to connect with his lineage.
"My father went to Yiddish school when he was a kid, and when I was young I went to Yiddish schoolhouse likewise," Keeper said. "When I discovered there were Yiddish speakers in Austin who wanted to get together and talk, I dusted off my Yiddish books and started once more."
Austin Shalom claims the current local Jewish population is somewhere betwixt 15,000 and 18,000 individuals — roughly 5 times the U.S. Religion Census' estimate of 3,687 in 1990. The Jewish population has grown significantly in recent years, creating more opportunities for both camaraderie — and antagonism.
Jewish Austin marked by exponential growth
Austin's oldest synagogue, Congregation Beth State of israel (CBI), opened in 1876 on the Sunday between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, two of the most prominent Jewish holidays. At the time, Austin was home to simply 188 Jewish residents, according to CBI'southward website. Today, the reform synagogue hosts 700 families.
Keeper, former CBI president, said the baby nail afterward World State of war II led to an increase in Jewish families beyond the land, including Austin. Every bit a result, CBI opened a new 650-seat congregation near Shoal Creek Boulevard and 38th Street in 1967.
That year, he visited CBI for the start time with his youth group from Houston. Once he moved to Austin, he started attending services regularly and became congregation president in 1999.
"It exponentially got bigger," Keeper said. "Effectually that same time, the 'dot com' affair, and the Dell matter and the Austin City Limits affair all sort of converged at once, and information technology was similar a train wreck with eight or ten trains all converging in the aforementioned spot — in a skilful way."
Keeper said Jewish communities are always lively, and the population surge and Austin's culture have made it even livelier.
Robert Abzug, associate professor of history and Bernard Rapoport Regents Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, lived in California, Boston and New York City earlier moving to Central Texas. He said Austin is unique for its "uncomplicatedly Jewish" community.
"The articulation of identity is much stronger hither, and I think it'south in part that it's an explicitly Christian culture," Abzug said. "Here you lot have to call up, 'Who am I, and how do I define that publicly?'"
Despite the growing population, Austin business organisation owner Scotty Grossbard noticed a lack of Jewish nutrient options in the expanse during his career as a restaurant cook. In March 2018, he quit his job at Magnolia Buffet and opened the nutrient truck Jew Hungry to bring challah staff of life, matzo ball soup and pastrami sandwiches to S Congress Ave.
"Anybody puts a twist on things present," Grossbard said. "I wanted to bring something that I grew up on and that I know other people have grown up on."
Grossbard said he lived off of $40 or $50 a calendar week to get the business organisation off the ground. He said Jew Hungry has become a dearest spot for both Jewish and non-Jewish customers.
"I've been told my latkes are the best latkes they've ever had in the urban center," Grossbard said. "At the same time, I've had people who have never even had a latke or a reuben."
Abzug said Jewish communities have historically struggled financially, only at present Jewish individuals have more or less found success and alloyed into social club. According to 2016 data from the Pew Inquiry Center, 44 percent of Jewish people earn at least $100,000 annually.
"Where one time they weren't considered white or acceptable, now they more or less are," Abzug said.
Students observe faith in higher
UT-Austin advertising junior Molly Ross attended an Orthodox Jewish service for the first time on a whim.
Growing upwards, Ross spent weekends at Temple Isaiah, a reform synagogue in Harrison County, Maryland. When she came to UT-Austin, she continued to attend reform services, which center effectually a more modern form of Judaism with less stringent practices, at Texas Hillel out of habit.
But the vibrancy of the Orthodox services down the hall drew her in, and she said she now attends every week.
"It'south fun to merely sing in Hebrew," Ross said. "It felt more energetic considering at that place are more people in there. The community is very warm and friendly."
For many Jewish students, Ross said living alone for the first time allows them to develop their faith and cultural identity outside of their parents' influence. And although Jewish students business relationship for only six percent of the undergraduate population, UT-Austin has the 16th largest Jewish student population in the state, co-ordinate to Hillel International.
"Ever since then I've never turned dorsum to go to whatever other services," Ross said. "I only enjoyed it so much."
Ross said her connexion to Judaism while growing up was more cultural than religious. She attended Shabbat, or Sabbath, services with her parents each weekend, only she stopped going around age 14. Earlier coming to UT-Austin, she did not participate in more than traditional habits, such equally refraining from using electronics or flipping light switches during Shabbat. At present she said she wants to endeavour.
"I'm not going to get-go completely keeping Shabbat, but there are aspects of it that I want to start thinking nigh in my weekly life," Ross said. "I never realized until coming to UT that I would want to be more religious."
Program II and Jewish studies sophomore Zach Epstein went to a Yavneh Academy in Dallas, where each school 24-hour interval was split between Jewish and secular education. He said he is pleased to see a wider range of Jewish agreement and involvement at UT-Austin.
"Going to a Jewish school, the majority of the people there have a really deep knowledge and awareness of all of the intricacies of the religion," Epstein said. "Speaking with some people at UT, I become to adjust how I frame things considering non everyone is coming from the same background."
Epstein said he enjoys presenting his Judaism outwardly — he wears a yarmulke on his head each day and observes Shabbat on the weekends. His observance includes not using his phone from Fri evening to Sabbatum night, attending prayer service and eating meals at Texas Hillel or Chabad Firm.
"I really disconnect," Epstein said. "It's incredible considering when I'm not on my phone and don't remember about my phone, I'm 100 percent engaged in what's going on in the moment."
Epstein is the leadership chair for Texas Hillel's executive board and a member of Sigma Blastoff Mu, a historically Jewish fraternity. Epstein said his parents set him upwards in a position to enjoy Judaism from a young age, but he knows everyone's introduction to the religion is unlike.
"At present that they're not hearing from their parents about Judaism so much, you really meet who cares and what they care nearly when information technology's their own decision for the offset time in your life," Epstein said.
Community faces anti-semitism
Jew Hungry owner Scotty Grossbard was snapping pictures of alligators and lounging adjacent to crystal-blue waters in Florida when his food truck was vandalized in the middle of the night Oct. 31.
Grossbard received a call from the bar managing director of 04 Lounge, the bar Jew Hungry parks in front of, at 8:30 a.m. He immediately started to drive home.
When Grossbard arrived at the truck, he was greeted by broken windows, a dismembered flat top grill and an fe cross and gold coins sitting on the driver's side.
"I'm a Jewish human being who owns a Jewish business concern," Grossbard said. "I was broken into and vandalized. They left a cross and quarters. That'south a hate law-breaking. No thing what fashion you expect at it, that's what information technology is."
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Austin was home to one Anti-Jewish hate crime in 2017, and eight occurred in Texas overall. Abzug said it seems as though "at that place has most been a permission given for this type of activity," and he finds it agonizing.
"We're very far from Nazi Germany in the '30s," Abzug said. "Nonetheless, there are certainly echoes that ought to be paid attention to. I'm an optimist plenty to remember that they will exist listened to."
Keeper said he has not experienced much anti-Jewish hostility outside of one incident when he was around ten years sometime. He woke up to fetch the newspaper and constitute the word "JEW" plastered in bumper stickers across the forepart of his house.
"I decided not to tell my mother because I knew she would exist terribly upset," Keeper said. "I peeled them off the front of our house, and I threw them away, and I just kept on."
Keeper knows anti-Jewish incidents have risen recently — the Anti-Defamation League reports a 60 percent increase in anti-semitic incidents in the U.S. from 2016 to 2017. Notwithstanding, he said Austin feels welcoming and safety.
"Austin is such a groovy place considering it's a place that actually values diversity," Keeper said.
Grossbard said he likes to believe Austin is an accepting place, simply even before his food truck was vandalized, hatred institute its manner in through mean comments from strangers at the bar or seemingly innocent jokes from friends.
The estimated cost of Jew Hungry'due south totaled to $2,000. As of Dec. 7, his entrada raised $fourteen,538 on GoFundMe. The truck has been repainted and resumed its usual hours of operation, but Grossbard said he is still looking behind his back more frequently than he used to.
"How long have they been planning this? How long have they been watching me?" Grossbard said. "That still bothers me more than anything."
The same week Jew Hungry was vandalized, a human being armed with an AR-15 and three handguns opened fire on Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, killing eleven and injuring half dozen in the deadliest set on against the Jewish community in the country'southward history.
Although the shooting occurred in Pittsburgh, Austin congregations organized ceremonies to pay their respects. Epstein helped plan a acuity for the UT-Austin community, and over 200 people gathered about the turtle pond on campus to pray and grieve.
"Mourning is an incredibly important theme in Judaism," Epstein said. "I thought helping the UT Jewish community have the opportunity to mourn with their friends in a healthy setting would exist actually beneficial."
Another acuity was held at the Dell Jewish Community Campus, and Keeper said there was not enough infinite in the 600-seat building for all of the attendants.
"At that place were Sikhs and Muslims and Catholics and Episcopalians," Keeper said. "All sorts of folks showed up to bear witness their support. The message was, 'We're all in this together.'"
Keeper said he likes to visit the burial grounds prepare aside by Congregation Beth Israel in due east Austin'due south Oakwood Cemetery to wait at the "stories upon stories and lives upon lives" of past Jewish residents.
"We have a long, proud history, and it has been such a pleasure to be part of information technology," Keeper said.
Sara Schleede is a journalism sophomore at the University of Texas at Austin. You lot can You can follow her on Twitter @saraschleede, view more of her content at saraschleede.wixsite.com/mysite or contact her at saraschleede@utexas.edu.
Source: https://medium.com/@TexLedger/a-deeper-look-central-texas-small-vibrant-jewish-community-962fdf490ac7
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