PEOPLE CANNOT CHANGE TRUTH, BUT TRUTH CAN CHANGE PEOPLE.

Not only did thousands of Southern Jews fight in the Confederate army, but hundreds owned slaves, including an ancestor of the Regensteins. This is a paradox that many Jews --- long known for ardent support of the civil rights movement --- find hard to swallow.

"To Mother, it's horrifying," says Regenstein, whose father, Louis Regenstein, was a prominent lawyer who did free legal consulting for predominantly black Clark Atlanta University for years. "My ancestors have been in this country, in the South, since before the American Revolution. We were part of the culture, the country, so naturally, my ancestors fought for their country, and we're very proud of that."

Rosen, who is Jewish, reports in his meticulously documented 378-page book that up to 3,000 Jews donned Confederate gray. The proportion was much higher than in the North, where maybe 8,000 out of 200,000 Jews took up arms, says Mark Greenberg, chief historian for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life....

To read entire text of article click here. (January 2001)

The TEI Comments on Atlanta Journal and Constitution Article Jews in the Confederacy 

The circumstances surrounding the Civil War, and the strange alliances that were developed as a result of it are wounds that exist in Southern society to this very day. More and more information is coming forth, from Jewish sources – detailing the considerable involvement of Jews in the culture of the South – a history that includes slavery and the owning of other human beings.  

Certainly, recent efforts by academic researchers, including Mr. Rosen paint a more complete picture of the true relationship between inhabitants of the pre-Civil War South, a demographic for the most part composed of two types of people – slaves and those who owned slaves.

The fact that Jews owned slaves, while certainly an unpleasant reality for many within the Jewish community...

To read full text of the TEI's thought provoking commentary click here. (January 2001)

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