Orthodox Synagogue Visits Selma Reform Temple to Honor MLK
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — More than 100 members of the Orthodox National Synagogue in Washington DC traveled to Selma, Alabama, to visit the historic Reform Temple Mishkan Israel.
The Reform temple in Selma only has seven remaining members, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of the Orthodox National Synagogue said the purpose of the group’s visit was to “educate ourselves about the civil rights movement” in Selma, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked together across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 as a sign of religious solidarity.
The trip was timed to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr, weekend.
Selma politicians joined the Jewish visitors for Shabbat, who ate their Shabbat meals together and danced the hora together, and then walked through the Selma neighborhood and heard about its history.
Selma’s small Jewish community has dwindled to almost nothing in recent years. Temple Mishkan has not had a full-time rabbi in many decades, and the historic building has fallen into disrepair, according to the newspaper.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
