Shalom Y'All

September 1, 2002
For those who prefer their latkes deep-fried and who daven with a drawl, there's Shalom Y'All: Images of Jewish Life in the American South. In this thoughtful coffee-table book, Vicki Reikes Fox explores Jewish Southern life, well complemented with intriguing photographs by Bill Aron. The idea for the book emerged out of the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Mississippi, and there's noble history here, as in the photos of kosher restaurants and department stores of days gone by. There's also a sense of deep, living tradition as two unique cultures merge with each other. A Mississippi woman explains the wisdom of Friday night Shabbat services ("kids can come before they go to football games"), and an Arkansas native explains her grandmother's cardinal rule that she would not eat bacon on Saturday. Driving Miss Daisy author Alfred Uhry offers a delightful foreword on growing up Jewish in the Deep South. There is so much warmth and love in this book that it feels like challah fresh from the oven-served with grits, of course.