At the beginning of the 21st century, the record ofJews in Nashville is impressive. They have been inNashville more than a century and a half. They havesolidly established a past, they vitally maintain a present,and they are confidently generating a future. There are anumber of families that have more than a six-generationpresence in Nashville, and a look at one such family illus-trates how the generations have adapted and persevered.

In the aggregate, their stories have the same plot.First came the settlers from Europe seeking a better life.Then followed family members and friends. A communityformed. Businesses were grounded. Marriages were made.Children became educated then either continued in thebusiness or became professionals and began timely newcareers.

Initially Nashville Jews lived in the downtownarea, then they moved along the West End corridor.Through successive generations they continued movingwest to the West Meade area and now to Bellevue andBrentwood. With eachmove their neighborhoods have be-come less Jewish specific. This observation suggests a highdegree of assimilation. Rallying points have remained theinstitutions – namely the synagogues and the Jewish Com-munity Center.

Through six and, in some cases, as many as sevengenerations there is little evidence of overt anti-Semitism.With the exception of some fringe actions perpetrated byextremists, Jews have experienced a high degree of accept-ance in Nashville. In turn, they have given back to thecommunity far beyond what their small numbers wouldsuggest.

A LEGACY FAMILYA word of advice to newcomers to the Nashville

Jewish community generally goes like this: Don’t say any-thing bad about anybody Jewish. You might be talking to a rel-ative.

After so many generations of Jewish presence inNashville and numerous marriages networked over thesegenerations, this advice should be heeded. Mention some-one and youmight hear, “Oh, he’s my double first cousin,”or “We share the same great-grandmother” or “I am a halfgrand nephew.”As an example, it was nearly impossible to

talk with Harry Blum about any Jew in Nashville andsometimes even about Jews in other Southern cities with-out hearing his inevitable comeback comment, “Well, that’smy cousin.”

Some families have the genealogy down pat andeven archived; others just know they are related. In somecases, divorce or name changes may have tangled the links.Genealogy sleuth Dr. Griffith Haber meticulously trackeddown the Haber family on his father’s side. His findingsreveal an archetypal Jewish family that has been inNashville six generations.

Coursing through those six generations the Haberfamily typifies a pattern of the early Nashville Jewish set-tlers. They emigrated fromGermany in the 1850s. The firstgenerations were merchants who lived downtown. Sub-sequent generations moved out the West End corridor inthe first decades of the twentieth century. Later genera-tions were university-educated and became professionals.They have proudly served in their country’s conflicts.Consistent in their marriages to Jews, they have broughttheir children up in the faith. No doubt their ancestorswould be proud.

Tradition, that tough sinew that ultimately con-nects one Jew to the other and holds Jewish life together, isalive andwell in Nashville. William Clay Isaacs, a seventhgeneration Nashville Jew, was presented for a ritual cir-cumcision in a ceremony performed on May 14, 2008, bymohelDr. Trent Rosenbloom. To celebrate his birth and hisbris (circumcision) family and friends gathered together asis the T..R..A..D..I..T..I..O..N!

26

LEGACIES, CIRCUMSTANCES, PROSPECTS

Clay, Katie, and Scott Isaacs, Dr. Trent Rosenbloom

FIRST GENERATIONIt all began when Ma(r)x Bissinger emigrated from

Bavaria in 1855. He was resident in Nashville just in time toparticipate in the Civil War as a soldier for the Confederacy.Captured and imprisoned, he expediently took the Oath of Al-legiance to be released from prison and to return to Nashville.

Max Bissinger married Pauline Luchs shortly after hisreturn to Nashville. She too came from Germany. Brother Benmarried Pauline’s sister Mina. The two brothers even ownedproperty on South Cherry Street together. Like most of theearly German Jewish settlers in Nashville, Max was a mer-chant. He earned a living purveying first clothes, then gro-ceries, and finally hides, wools and furs. In 1868 he wasnaturalized in Nashville, Tennessee.

SECOND GENERATIONMax and Pauline had four daughters and one son. (The fifth child

and only son Robert Lee Bissinger, born in 1876 already eleven yearsafter the close of the Civil War, had the namesake of General Robert E.Lee suggesting father Max Bissinger’s inalterable loyalty to the Con-federacy.)

The fourth daughter Frances, born in 1875, married JuliusHaber(er). Haber came from Germany, sojourned a while in Chicago,where he was naturalized, then came to Nashville. He lived andworked with Max Bissinger. Ultimately he was a merchant in metals,hides, fur and wool..

THIRD GENERATIONDaughter Frances and her husband Julius Haber had four

children: Fernand, Arnold, Horace, and Polly.Fernand lived his early life downtown in the home of his

grandfather Max Bissinger on Summer Street (now Fifth Avenue).Eventually his family joined the westward movement along theWest End artery and established residence on Chesterfield. Againtypifying the Jewish pattern of the time, Fernand later chose a resi-dence on Richland Avenue.

In 1918 Fernand was inducted into World War I where heserved for a year.

Fernand started out working in the Bissinger family busi-ness then established a used car business of his own. He was also apartner in an auto parts business with Sol Ginsberg.

Family blood literally thickened when FernandmarriedMadeline Lusky, a country-come-to-city young ladyfrom Huntingdon, Tennessee. Her father, so typical of small town Jews scattered throughout the Southeast at thattime, had begun as a peddler inWest Tennessee then established a dry goods store. The Huntingdon newspaper ad-vertised quite literally his store as the “Jew Store.” Marrying into the Haber family, Madelyn brought to the Haberheritage the names Lusky, Kornman and Starr.

THE HABER FAMILY1

Max Bissinger

Madelyn Lusky-Haber

Fernand Haber

Frances HaberJulius Haber

Pauline Bissinger

FOURTH GENERATIONFernand and Madelyn Haberhad one child, son Murray. Mur-ray had a classic Jewish ReformNashville upbringing. He lived inthe West End area and attendedpublic schools. When it cametime, he like other Jewish youngpeople who wanted to go to col-lege, went to nearby Vanderbilt asthe most convenient and accept-ing option. Given the silent quo-tas on Jewish enrollment in so

many major universities at the time, his choices were few. Like so many of hisyoung Nashville Jewish contemporaries, Murray went into the military at age 21to fight in World War II and was sent to the European theater. After the war, healso went into the auto parts business. His marriage to Shirley Ann Burke pro-duced three children.

FIFTH GENERATIONMurray and Shirley

had two sons, Griffith andJay. Griffith attended PurdueUniversity and became a vet-erinarian. He married SherryKolker from St. Louis.

SIXTH GENERATIONGriffith and Sherry

have two children, Erica andMatthew. Erica lives in NewYork and is an attorney.An educator at University School, Matthew continues an unbroken link in thefamily presence in Nashville.

Of interest is a front page ad which appeared in the Huntingdon Democraton October 30, 1891, where Lusky & Kornman ran the “Jew Store.”

Courtesy of Grif Haber

Murray Haber Shirley Burke Haber

Erica Haber Matthew Haber

Grif Haber Sherry Kolker Haber

Nashville’s Jewish past may not always be so ob-vious. Much has fallen to the wrecking ball or simply beenobscured by the passage of time. Edith Schulman discov-ered that when she began researching her family history.She traced all four families of her grandparents. Her re-search was greatly aided by a chance discovery in 2003.Her family had lived at 218 Carden, a street off West End.Although she married Nashvillian Charles Schulman in1954 and no longer lived in Nashville, she had establishedan acquaintance with the current owners of the house onCarden. When that owner added on to the house, a box ofphotos and letters was found. In that box was an un-opened letter from 60 years before.2

Edith’s husband, Charles Schulman, the son ofSamuel and Flora Schulman grew up in theMurphy Roadarea. Samuel, his father, was amerchant who had a generalstore in the Eighth Avenue area. Charles went to CohnHigh School, where there were only a handful of Jewishstudents. To be involved with other Jewish youth, getdowntown to the YMHAor for religious services, he had toride the streetcar as a youth. He remembers those tracksbeing taken up to supply steel during WW II.3

When one walks along Church Street, who wouldnow know that Jewish owned department stores, milliner-ies, dress stores, and bookstores lined both sides of thestreet? Who would know that the magnificent Vine StreetTemple, where the entrance to the library-parking garagecurrently is, was the most exotic building in the city? Whocan imagine a synagogue behind the State Capitol, whentoday there is criticism about Christmas trees and meno-rahs on the Capitol grounds? Who would have thoughtthe Orthodox synagogue was next door to the famedRyman Auditorium?

Who would know that Jews, who have been inNashville almost from the beginning of settlement, actu-ally came in four distinct periods of settlement?

First came the early pioneers in the 1840s andthereafter, some even before. They represented mainlyWestern European with some Eastern European Jewishbackgrounds. They became the early tradesmen.

From 1880 to the 1920s until immigration was se-verely cut back, there was a surge of Eastern European im-migrants. They came from less sophisticated origins andplied such hands-on businesses as shoe repair and tailor-ing.

In the 1930s until into the 1960s there followed anassorted resettlement. Some came as refugees from Eu-rope; some came as survivors of a Holocaust hell; somestayed as servicemen; and some came as sunbelt seekers.

The latter half of the twentieth century is alsomarked by assorted resettlement but from very differentorigins. There are the Russian refugees; there are the Iran-

ian refugees; there are Israeli businessmen; there areAmer-icanmusicians; there are the children adopted from foreigncountries; and there are the others from elsewhere.

But that was yesterday and this is today. Just asthe buildings are different, so too are Nashville Jews them-selves for two salient reasons.

First, unlike the old Nashville Jews of decadespast, they no longer have to be concerned about provingthemselves asAmericans. They are totally woven in to thetapestry of Nashville life. If anything, they are so Ameri-canized and accepted that they can confidently concentrateon their identity as Jews and explore whatever statementsof religious definition they want.

Second, Nashville’s Jewish community today is atruly heterogeneous group with many diverse elements.Take the sixth generation Nashville Jew; blend him withthe musician fromNewYork, the businessman from Israel,the refugee from Russia, the transplant fromArgentina, theadoptee from China and don’t forget the converted spouse– they all make up the current Nashville Jewish profile.

How unified is such a diverse group?From its very beginnings, the Nashville Jewish

community itself was not without its own built-in mindsets, which grew out of the early struggle in the communityto define Judaic practice in Nashville. Early on those Ger-man Jews with Reform heritage opted for their own reli-gious center, while those moderately orthodox founded amore centrist position which ultimately defined itself asconservative. Those most adherent to the orthodox min-hag of their early years established an orthodox center ofworship. In simple terms, the latter element was knownas the Hungarian Shul, the middle element as the PolishShul, and the Reform Temple was essentially for the Ger-man Jews. How distinct these components in the Jewishcommunity were is summed up in a simple but revealingremembrance made by Margaret Perlen, “I never oncewent inside the Vine Street Temple.”4

The religious divisions were also found in the so-cial sphere. The German Jews had their distinctive Stan-dard Club which ultimately became the tony WoodmontCountry Club, which guardedly excluded Gentile mem-bers as well. It was mainly the conservative and, to a largeextent, the orthodox Jews who congregated at the YoungMen’s-Young Women’s Hebrew Association downtownand the Mayfair Club. So ingrained was the breach thatHarry Blum, a Reform Jew, maintained that his family be-longed to the YoungMen’s ChristianAssociation, which iswhere he learned to swim.

This divisiveness marked life in the Jewish com-munity for more than a century until as one observer re-marked “World War II was the leveling force that began a moreinterconnected Jewish community.”5

At present there is a great deal of interactionwithin the Jewish community fostered by the three per-ceptible elements. The first is, at the heart of the Jewishcommunity, a strong Jewish Federation which equitablyrepresents the entire community. The second is the broadlybased Gordon Jewish Community Center, which offersprogramming and facilities for all and provides a centerpoint for interaction. The third uniting factor is the rabbisthemselves, currently a younger group of non-Nashvil-lians, who interact and provide role models for inter-con-gregational cooperation.

In 2009 there are two reform congregations, oneconservative, and two orthodox. There are also two Hillelcenters at Vanderbilt University. Although they are all sep-arate entities, there is a great deal of networking and co-operation among them.

Today’s Jewish community in Nashville is a totallydifferent community than the one patriarch Isaac Garret-son was instrumental in organizing. Sociologist Shaul Kel-ner, a Vanderbilt professor, studied the Nashville Jewishcommunity in a six-community comparison of the Jewishworkforce. He now lives in Nashville having joined theVanderbilt faculty in conjunction with the Jewish StudiesProgram. Based on his broad academic, social and nowpersonal experience, Kelner concludes, “The trends appar-ent in Jewish life in major metropolitan cities do not apply inNashville.” He notes, in particular, the absence of tensionamong both established andmigrated elements in the com-munity. In the community are the Russian, the Persian, theSouth American, the Israeli, the American Jews from else-where, and those resident for as many as six generationsin Nashville. “It’s a new Southern Jewish community, which isvery diverse, “ he concludes.6

Isaac Garretson might well be proud of hisbrethren. He would, however, be dismayed at the newworld order which impacts Nashville’s Jewish communityas well as the whole world.

Even though an electronic game maker simulatedan action-packed screen game of what happened on Sep-

tember 11, 2001, the average person would never haveimagined the shocking targeted destruction of Americanlandmarks by a group of suicidal airplane hijackers. Coor-dinated air attacks on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,the twin towers in New York City, and a foiled attempt atthe White House, resulting in the crash of a hijacked planeinto a field in Pennsylvania stunned the world. A shockedand bewildered Jewish community in Nashville gatheredtogether that evening for a service at The Temple to sharetheir grief and to show their solidarity.

Through the early years of the new 21st century,the matter of security has becomemore andmore insistentEvents around the country including campus massacres,an attack against Jews in Seattle, gun wielding terrorists,an elderly Jew-hater shooting a guard at the Holocaust Mu-seum in Washington, D. C., and increased anti-Semitismabroad all have led to more stringent security in gatheringplaces for Jews even in Nashville.

The Gordon Jewish Community Center respondedto the need for increased security with a fee onmembers toimprove check-in procedures and monitoring. In 2007,protective poles were placed in front of the Center’s glassdoor to prevent a vehicle from being driven into the build-ing. Key-accessed glass doors were installed to partitionsections of the buildings. A security guard monitors allreaches of the Center campus.

The synagogues, meanwhile, hire security person-nel not only for the high holidays but sometimes even forregular services. Congregation Micah, for instance, regu-larly had a police person on duty for weekend services andreligious school following a massacre in Seattle at theirJewish Community Center.

There is reason for alarm. Just one example illus-trates the need. An Iraqi-born man, who expressed ani-mosity toward Jews and who discussed targeting Jewishinstitutions in Nashville, was arrested in 2004 on federalweapons charges. He told an acquaintance that he was“going jihad against the Jewish community” in Nashville.

Gathering at the Temple following the Events of September 11, 2001,The Observer, September 21, 2001

An outside firm was hired by the Jewish Federation to survey the Nashville Jewish community in the year2002. Yacoubian Research found 7,826 Jews living in Nashville, a significant increase over research done in previ-ous years..

The survey revealed there were 4,022 Jewish households in the Nashville area in the year 2002. It foundthe average annual growth within the Jewish community to be 3%. A comparison of previous demographic stud-ies confirmed a steady growth.

The Jewish population of Nashville is currently more dispersed. In the 1988 survey over half of all Jew-ish households lived in the 37205 zip code. Today, three fourths of the Jewish population is primarily situated infour zip codes.

The survey found the Jewish population of Nashville to be slightly older than the general population alongwith being better educated, as about two-thirds of Jewish adults have at least one college degree. Not surprisinglyJews were found to have a higher average household income. The estimated median annual income of Nashvillearea Jewish households was at that point in time in 2002 nearly $70,000.

All but about 11% of Nashville area Jews said they own their home. About 50% of all Jews who are em-ployed full-time hold professional positions.

83% of households had at least one member who was a synagogue member. Of those responding, the fol-lowing percentages prevailed:

There was no reckoning of the number of unaffiliated Jews.

Census, Demographic, and Needs Assessment Study Conducted for The Nashville Jewish Community,October 2002, RG 1, Box 14

2002: DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY

SURVEY COMPARISONS

Year 1949 1970 1982 1988 2002Population 2,678 3,663 2,678 5,442 7,826

ZIP CODE DISPERSION

37205 35%37221 22%37215 13%37027 5%Others 25%

The Temple 35%West End Synagogue 24%Sherith Israel 9%Congregation Micah 24%Congregation Beit Tefillah Chabad 1%

Reform 59%Conservative 28%Orthodox 6%