[Smartone]

Is there one? Just curious.

[thewizard16]

There is a population but I don't know how large it is overall. It's enough to support three synagogues and a Hebrew Academy in Little Rock, as well as a few synagogues in Northwest Arkansas, Fort Smith, and a couple in other cities around the state, but beyond that I don't know how many people are Jewish outside the larger areas of the state.

[majoun]

Originally Posted by Smartone

Is there one? Just curious.

Bill Clinton in his autobiography mentioned that when he was growing up in Hot Springs there were synagogues, rare in the South outside of big cities.

I presume there are still some there.

[Robert_J]

Growing up in southest AR, there were a handful. I have no idea where they went to worship though. I found out a few years ago that I'm 1/64 Jewish. We are everywhere.

[rackensack]

Historically, there were small but active Jewish communities in several small towns in the Arkansas delta. Helena in particular had a vibrant Jewish community beginning in the 1840s. By 1909, there were 22 businesses owned by Jews in Helena (in a town with a population of about 9,000). Jewish merchants and businessmen were among the city's most prominent residents and many held significant civic and political positions, including elected positions such as mayor, tax assessor, and school board members. At its peak, in 1927, there were about 400 Jews in Helena.

Today, there are almost none: WeJew.com - Israel and Jewish Videos - The Last Jews Of Helena Arkansas

Even small towns without a Jewish community per se typically had one or two Jewish families; these would typically participate in holiday services at synagogues in larger cities (e.g., Memphis, Little Rock) or one of the towns like Helena that did have a synagogue and a Jewish community, to the extent they were religiously active at all.

The best single online source of information on Jews in Arkansas is the Arkansas overview page in the Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities on the web site of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. That overview page also links to pages about specific towns and cities with notable Jewish populations.

As this site mentions, the only truly growing Jewish community in Arkansas is in Northwest Arkansas, mainly in Fayetteville and Bentonville, which have both seen establishment of new Jewish institutions and construction of new facilities in recent years.

Though now nearly twenty years old and thus not current on the growth of the Jewish community in Northwest Arkansas, the definitive source for information on Jews in Arkansas is Carolyn Gray LeMaster's A Corner of the Tapestry: A History of the Jewish Experience in Arkansas, 1820s-1990s.

Edit: Forgot to add that my alma mater, Hendrix College, recently created the first Jewish Studies program in Arkansas, The Crain-Maling Center of Jewish Culture.

[nmnita]

Fayetteville has a pretty active synagogue and I believe there is a faily active group at the university. Our granddaughter, who's dad is Jewish (or raised Jewish) thought of converrting while she was at the University, I know she met with a rabia a few times. OK, so I didn't spell rabia right, it has slipped my mind.

[RogMar]

Originally Posted by nmnita

Fayetteville has a pretty active synagogue and I believe there is a faily active group at the university. Our granddaughter, who's dad is Jewish (or raised Jewish) thought of converrting while she was at the University, I know she met with a rabia a few times. OK, so I didn't spell rabia right, it has slipped my mind.

We knew what ya meant, Nita. That's all that counts.

[simpleshimon]

There is a jewish outreach center in Little Rock that I heard of

[LocalType]

I think there's a pretty strong community in Fayetteville, that I know of at least.

Actually, just a stone's toss down the road from where I used to live in Fayetteville, there was built a multi-cultural temple by an interfaith effort to purchase the land and break ground. They named it Temple Shalom. Beautiful place, and the story behind how it came to be is truly inspiring. Sits at the corner of Cleveland and Sang Avenue. There's a NYTimes article about the temple at the wiki link below, and this YT video also tells the story:



Temple Shalom of Northwest Arkansas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia