Beth Israel Congregation, Jackson
Near Jackson, Mississippi
Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson is one of the oldest Jewish congregations in Mississippi, organized in eighteen sixty or eighteen sixty-one, on the eve of the Civil War. Jewish merchants had been part of Jackson's commercial life since the antebellum era, arriving from Germany and later Eastern Europe to open dry-goods stores along Capitol Street. The congregation's most dramatic moment came on September eighteenth, nineteen sixty-seven, when a bomb planted by white supremacists destroyed the synagogue building.
The attack was part of a broader wave of bombings targeting Jewish institutions in the South during the civil rights era, carried out by groups who viewed Jewish civil rights supporters as enemies. The congregation rebuilt, and Beth Israel remains active today as a witness both to the long Jewish presence in Mississippi and to the violence that community faced for standing on the wrong side of history in the eyes of those who opposed equal rights.
