Summary
Sephardic traders were the first Jews to settle in Louisiana, and, despite antisemitic legislation, their community thrived. Over a hundred years later, in the 1830s and ’40s a large number of Jews from Alsace-Lorraine settled in Northern Louisiana.
Since early settlement, some Jews have integrated the Southern culture into their Jewish culture. The film interviews two little old ladies who recently put out a Kosher-Creole cookbook, which shows how observant Jews can whip up Fake Frog’s Legs or Oysters Mock-a-Feller — a twist on the famous New Orleans dish Oysters Rockefeller that replaces the oysters with gefilte fish.
The documentary explores what it means to be Jewish in a community where it’s generally assumed that everyone is Christian. “Lafayette is not New York,” one woman says, “you’re not surrounded by Jews. So you can’t just decide, I’ll be Jewish and just be.” If you want to be Jewish, she explains, you have to be an active Jew. One mother in Southern Louisiana recalls that in order to have her children bar and bat mitzvahed she had to teach them Hebrew herself and then drive them hours away to New Orleans for the ceremony.
Read more about this topic: Pushcarts And Plantations: Jewish Life In Louisiana
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