Hello, friends. I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center,

and welcome to We the People, a weekly show of constitutional debate. The National Constitution

Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit, chartered by Congress, to increase awareness and understanding

of the Constitution among the American people.

In celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, I'm pleased to welcome Richard Kreidner,

author of Fear No Farrow, American Jews, The Civil War and the Fight to End Slavery,

and Sherry Raven, author of The Jewish South and American History,

for a conversation about the Jewish experience in the South from the revolutionary era to the Civil War.

This conversation was presented in partnership with our friends at the Whitesman National Museum of American Jewish History.

Enjoy the show.

Welcome. Thank you so much for joining Richard Kreutzner and Sherry Rabin. Sherry, let's start with you. First of all, congratulations on your book. This is the

first comprehensive history of American Jews in the South, and it's an invaluable book and

contribution. You begin with the constitution of the Carolinas, which were written by John Locke, of all people.

They included a degree of civil equality for non-Christians, including Jews, and this prompted some Jewish migration to the

South in the 17th century. Tell us about the Constitution of the Carolinas and that first wave

of Jewish migration to the South. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for this

conversation. So yeah, the fundamental constitutions of

Carolina are a fascinating document written in 1669 before the colonies really established.

It's sort of a blueprint for what the colony is going to look like. And it offers freedom of

worship to the exact line is Jews, heathens, and other dissenters from the purity of the Christian religion, which of course is the Church of England, which is going to be the official church of the colony.

And, you know, of course, this toleration is being extended explicitly in the hopes that it will encourage people to eventually come over to

the Church of England. But it's a form of toleration nonetheless that's notable in this period.

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