News Brief

A recent discussion in the press as to whether Jews in South Carolina were ever subjected to disabilities, led Miss Mattie Covington to publish in the newspaper, “Columbia State,” her findings on the historical facts. She writes:

“I went to the historical reference books accessible and read again with pleasure, the honorable record of the Jewish people in the Southern states and especially in the state of South Carolina.

“It is on record that as early as 1654 Jews came to America and that before the end of the 17th century there were individual Jews in all the Southern colonies.

“The Northern colonies were not liberal and when South Carolina was settled, in 1690, with Loche’s constitution, in which the Jews were specifically mentioned as the rule of government, these people, in common with the persecuted of other peoples, went there to find homes for themselves. The toleration of South Carolina attracted them, as did its commercial advantages, and South Carolina was the only colony in which the Jews never suffered civil or religious disabilities.

“It is said of these early Jewish immigrants that they came mostly from England, having been driven out of Spain and Portugal by the Inquisition. They were people of splendid traditions, ‘whose ancestors had banqueted with sovereigns and held the purse-strings of kings,’ and socially, they mingled with the best people of the province.

“Patriotism is an essential doctrine of Judaism. Although for thousands of years, they have retained their religious identity and given the world an example of the conserving power of a great ideal, the Jews have always, politically, adhered to the country of their birth or adoption. In every war of our country the Jew has furnished more than his share of men and given liberally of his substance.

“In South Caarolina, as early as 1695, a Jew acted as interpreter for Governor Archdale. A Jew of Charleston held a commission in the Cherokee war of 1760-1761.

“One of the most trusted leaders of the Revolution in South Carolina was Francis Salvador, a member of the first and second Provincial Congress, eminent in debate, as well as in the work of important committees. With Colonel Pinckney he formed a special committee to verify the engrossed copy of the new constitution, when it was laid before the congress, in March, 1776. He was a member of the first general assembly and died in August of the same year of wounds received in battle with the Indian allies of the British, while riding with Maj. Andrew Williamson.

“It was the Confederate war, however, that furnished the best example of Jewish patriotism. Doctor Elzas, in his History of the Jews in South Carolina, tells us that “practically every man was at his post of duty. Young boys and old men left their homes to do their duty in the field and many were the families whose every male member went to war.” A Charleston Jew gave the largest money contribution to the cause of the Confederacy and the first contribution to the appeal of the surgeon-general came from Jewish women of Charleston. The father of Bernard Baruch was a surgeon in the Coniederate army, captured by the Federals and imprisoned in Fort McHenry, at Baltimore, until the close of the war. Time and space would fail me to tell of the young Jewish manhood in the World War, or of the Jews in other states than South Carolina, and in other lines of work.

“The Jewish people have a shining record in the history of our state and I am glad that it is recorded there that they never suffered persecution at our hands.”