Of Mardi Gras, Britney Spears and 6 Other Things About Jewish Louisiana
Down Under: In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed more than 7 torah scrolls of the Congregation Beth Israel in New Orleans. Image by Getty Images
1) Louisiana is home to 10,675 Jews, which is 0.2% of the state’s total population.
2) The first king of New Orleans’ popular Rex Carnival Mardi Gras parade in 1872 was Louis Solomon, a local businessman.
3) Judah Benjamin was a U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1853 to 1861. After that, he became the Attorney General and subsequently the Secretary of War for the Confederacy.
4) Congregation Beth Israel was at one time in the sixties the largest Orthodox synagogue in the south, but after Hurricane Katrina (which destroyed more than 7 torah scrolls and 3,000 prayer books), more than half of the synagogue’s 9,500 members left.
5) Sylan, Leon, and J. Isaac Friedman, all from the same family, served in the Louisiana House of Representatives and the State Senate from the 1920’s through the 1950’s.
6) In 1903, the small town of Kaplan was named after local business leader Abrom Kaplan. As of the 2010 census, the town’s population is 4,600. It is located south of Lafayette and immersed in the Cajun culture of Vermilion Parish.
7) Lou Pearlman, who constructed the famous boy bands of the nineties, such as the Backstreet Boys and N’SYNC (and was convicted of a $300 million ponzi scheme in 2006), was at one time the manager of Britney Spears, who grew up in Kentwood, Louisiana.
8) In 1988, Jewish songwriter Randy Newman released the album ‘Land of Dreams,’ which detailed his experiences growing up in New Orleans.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
