By Zachary Dembo
Jews have been in Birmingham for more than 150 years. Over that time period the city and the surrounding communities changed dramatically. What once was there is now mostly not. The early Jewish community members who were most responsible for the robust health of our community during its industrial heyday would have a hard time recognizing the city today.
Most of the grand buildings downtown that once housed Jewish businesses, like the original Jewish Community Center and Pizitz Department Store, were repurposed long ago. And the bustling Jewish neighborhoods of the south side established by the German and Eastern European Jews of a younger Birmingham are gone. But a number of Jewish Birminghamians still remember what the city looked like decades ago. Milton Goldstein is one of them, and he recently took me on a driving tour of old Jewish Birmingham.
Milton has a good sense of humor, talks with a Birmingham twang, and clearly holds this community in high esteem. He was a young adult during integration, and as a University of Alabama student he witnessed the incredible turmoil of the era and even shared a class with Vivian Malone, one of the university’s first two black students.
And as a Vietnam veteran, he’s seen and experienced more than most.
A white Protestant enclave
Our first stop was the city of Mountain Brook. Intended to be an exclusive home to Birminghams’ elite, the meticulously planned project was funded by real estate developer Robert Jemison and an assortment of friendly investors in 1929. After being delayed by the Great Depression, the general plan was put in motion. Winding roads, stone-veneer bridges over babbling brooks, organic lot lines, preserved bluffs, and open spaces filled with trees present a bucolic paradise. A Mount Vernon replica and a mock grist mill all enhance the Colonial American aesthetic.
Although designed and advertised in the 1920s as a white Protestant enclave for Birmingham’s wealthy, by the 1950s it had become home to many of Birmingham’s Jewish community. Although open antisemitism had fallen out of vogue after World War II, prejudice against Jews was alive and well.
According to Scholars Jonathan Sarna and Howard Sachar, Jews in postwar suburban communities across America “maintained equable relations with their Gentile neighbors, even shared activities in neighborhood associations,” but did little socializing.
Jews also had misgivings about socializing with gentile neighbors for fear of antisemitic hostility, as well as their sons and daughters marrying outside of the religion. However, what is clear is that the Mountain Brook neighborhoods of Crestline and Cherokee Bend would become home to the majority of Alabama’s Jewish residents for the next 60 years.
Cruising through Mountain Brook
Milton’s family had moved from the north side of the city to the hilly tree-lined roads of Mountain Brook’s Crestline, where he spent his childhood. It became clear during our drive that many other Jews did, too. Up and down the hilly road we drove past manicured lawns and a variety of architectural styles — buildings that Milton noted had replaced the original ranch-style homes.
Cruising through Richmar, Hillsdale, and Overbrook toward Canterbury United Methodist Church, Milton slowed down slightly to point out the location of former homes of Jewish families — and the baseball fields he once played on that have long since disappeared.
“Over to the right lived the Jaffees and the Abrams family lived over there,” he says. “Here’s where the Laufmans lived. And that was the Grafman home. Ever hear of them?” Milton asked with a knowing grin. Rabbi Grafman became widely known for his leadership at Temple Emanu-El during the civil rights era.
Finally we pull to a full stop and Milton gestured ahead to the homes that once belonged to his family, his father and uncle, and right across the street were the Sokols. “They were my second family,” he says.
Heading further down Overbrook, we came across Mountain Brook Junior High School. Originally a Jefferson county school built in 1956 to accommodate the huge influx of families into the surrounding area, it became part of the Mountain Brook School system that had been created in 1959 to avoid the desegregation efforts affecting Birmingham and the wider county area. But Mountain Brook schools still became a melting pot of Gentile and Jewish children, including Milton and my wife’s uncle, Billy Lischkoff.
‘Gilded ghetto’
As we drove on, Milton highlighted the fact that fewer and fewer Jews lived in these older parts of Crestline when he was living there.
While on the one hand this illustrates the religious diversity of Crestline in the 1950s and ‘60s, it also delineated the ragged edges of one of Birmingham’s “gilded ghettos” — a term used to describe neighborhoods with high concentrations of affluent Jews who live in relative material comfort but were still segregated from the surrounding gentile community. This segregation was the product of Jewish upward mobility crashing into antisemitic and self-imposed barriers.
Curiously, however, Milton — like most of the Jews from that generation of Birminghamians — recall little to no experience with antisemitism, which might be due to prejudicial feelings being aimed more at Black Americans. However, that didn’t exclude Jews from experiencing the violence and destruction of that era. Jewish stores were often the battlegrounds in which the integration fight was fought because, like the edges of the gilded ghetto of Crestline, Jewish businesses were thoroughly mixed in with those of gentiles and served both black and white customers. This was true not just of the big-name Birmingham department stores but businesses of every conceivable type and size. As a result, Jews, both activists and the uninvolved, were often caught in the crossfire and directly targeted.
Boutiques, delis, and restaurants
As we drove into Mountain Brook Village, Milton pointed out that while there would have been few if any African American customers, the mixture of Jewish- and Gentile-owned shops in the village would have looked like a miniature version of Birmingham’s downtown. Jewish-owned boutiques, delis, and restaurants operating next to gentile-owned shops would have served both Jewish and Christian customers.
Circling the village, Milton pointed out the former location of a number of these businesses. The first was Canterbury Shop established in 1948 by Bernard M. Goldstein Sr., a decorated World War II veteran (and no relation to Milton). Like many Jewish-owned stores downtown, the shop sold both men’s and women’s casual clothes in traditional and “moderate styles for school, dating, and leisure.”
Other businesses included Browdy’s, a deli started by Victor Browdy, who had started off peddling sauerkraut downtown before noticing that people preferred eating it with a little bread and meat. The company closed in 2009 after a century of providing classic Ashkenazi cuisine.
Other Jewish shops around the village included Eve’s Leaves, a women’s clothing boutique owned by Leah and Ronald Leaf, and the Buttery, a short-lived “pickles on the table” kosher deli owned by the Zweigs. And if you were in the mood for something sweet, the Baskin-Robbins was owned by the Levins.
I asked Milton where young Jewish folks hung out and he smiled. “Bootsy’s.” Bootsy’s Kitchen After Dark was a coffee shop owned by gentiles that had live entertainment and not-so-kosher po’boy sandwiches.
Although we could have spent another hour driving around Jewish parts of Mountain Brook, it was time to go downtown and check out where the Jews of the city used to live and work.
Stay tuned for part II of Milton’s tour of Jewish Birmingham…
Zachary Dembo is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Southern Jewish history nerd from Baltimore, Maryland — the Birthplace of the Star-Spangled-Banner. His first of many visits to Birmingham began in 2008 and he became a resident in 2019. He is married to Lauren Axelroth, a third-generation Birminghamian.
In recognition of Zach’s historical writing for The J’s blog in 2024, in January he received the LJCC’s L’Dor V’Dor Award “for embodying The J’s core value of empowering others to learn and understand Jewish values, thereby ensuring a vibrant and meaningful Jewish future.”
Also by Zachary Dembo:
- Because we could: The history of Jews in Birmingham
- Of secrets, omissions, and selective memory
- How the ‘German’ Jews got to Birmingham: Part 1
- ‘I understand freedom more than you’: German Jews in Birmingham
Let us know what you know and what you might want to know about Birmingham’s Jewish History by filling out the form below (only name and email are required). Your answers will be kept confidential and we will obtain permission from you before using any information you submit.