Written by Becky Gipson

Antisemitism Awareness Week returns to Tulane University from January 26–30, 2026, offering the campus community an essential opportunity to engage with Jewish identity, history, and lived experiences through performances, workshops, site visits, and meaningful dialogue. Organized through the Office of Academic Excellence and Opportunity, this year's programming centers on the theme of "Southern Jewry,” inviting participants to explore how Jewish life, culture, and contributions in the American South provide a vital lens for understanding both historical and contemporary antisemitism. 

Beginning January 12, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library will launch a curated book display on the first floor featuring works that explore Southern Jewish history and culture. The display was curated by Scholarly Engagement librarian Rachel Stein, with graphics by Scholarly Engagement Unit Coordinator Anthony DelRosario.

Seven Works to Explore 

The Howard-Tilton Library book display offers diverse entry points into Southern Jewish experience; from scholarly histories to graphic memoirs, from civil rights documentation to cultural celebrations. Here are seven works we especially recommend engaging with before and during Antisemitism Awareness Week: 

1. Terror in the Night: The Klan's Campaign against the Jews by Jack Nelson 

For those interested in civil rights history, Nelson's investigative account is indispensable. The Los Angeles Times Washington bureau chief, who covered the South during the civil rights era, documents the Ku Klux Klan's 1967-68 bombing campaign against two Mississippi synagogues and a rabbi's home in Jackson and Meridian, including Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, the same synagogue attacked this January again. This work serves as a time capsule to the civil rights movement's heyday, revealing the deadly consequences of solidarity and the courage required to pursue justice in the face of terrorist intimidation. 

2. The Jewish South: An American History by Shari Rabin 

Rabin’s new book—just published in 2025—is the perfect reference for anyone interested in a comprehensive history of southern Jewry.  Grounded in extensive archival research, Rabin traces Jewish experiences and life from the 1669 Carolina colony through the Civil War, the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, and the modern civil rights movement. This nuanced scholarship provides essential historical context for understanding antisemitism's intersections with other forms of systemic oppression and helps readers see the South through the eyes of people whose history predates the United States itself. Available online through the Tulane Libraries here. 

3. Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz: A Graphic Family Memoir of Trauma & Inheritance by Ari Richter 

Richter's debut graphic memoir offers a deeply personal meditation on Holocaust memory and its resonance in contemporary America. Raised in Tampa, Florida, Richter weaves together the haunting narratives of his grandparents' imprisonment in Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz with his own awakening to rising authoritarianism and renewed antisemitism in the U.S. Part travelogue, part memoir, part historical retelling, the work celebrates Jewish cultural resilience while warning of democracy's fragility. For visual learners and those interested in how trauma transmits across generations, this evocatively drawn work offers both harrowing testimony and surprising moments of humor. 

4. Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana by Lawrence Powell 

This powerful biography by Lawrence Powell, Emeritus Professor of History at Tulane, connects Holocaust survival to American Jewish activism in uniquely Southern contexts. Anne Skorecki Levy and her family survived the Warsaw Ghetto liquidation by posing as Aryans, eventually settling in New Orleans's vibrant Jewish community. When neo-Nazi and KKK leader David Duke rose to political prominence in Louisiana, Levy transformed the horrors of her childhood into passionate opposition to his candidacy. Powell's work explores prewar and wartime experiences of Jewish survivors and the lives they built as new Americans and southerners, revealing how these experiences spurred their willingness to bear witness against resurgent hatred. 

Want to learn more?  Video testimonies of Anne Levy and other New Orleans-based Holocaust survivors is available through The Southern Institute. The Institute was founded in 1993 by Powell and Dr. Lance Hill and established at Tulane University.   

You can also find the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism Records at Amistad Research Center. Amistad is located on the 1st floor of Tilton Memorial Hall on Tulane University’s Uptown Campus. 

5. Fight against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights by Clive Webb 

Webb's nuanced study examines why Jewish-Black alliances in the civil rights movement remained largely scattered and individual rather than organized and collective. The book challenges simplistic narratives about Jewish civil rights participation, exploring both resistance and complicity, conviction and apathy. For those attending dialogue sessions during Antisemitism Awareness Week, Webb's work provides crucial historical context for understanding the complex factors that shape solidarity, coalition-building, and moral action in contexts of systemic oppression. 

6. Shalom Y'all (Documentary Film, DVD) 

This documentary follows New Orleans filmmaker Brian Bain on a 4,200-mile road trip through the American South in a vintage Cadillac, uncovering the unique and diverse history of Southern Jews. Bain discusses Jewish civil rights participation with Andrew Young and woos his future wife along the way. For those seeking an accessible, joyful entry point into Southern Jewish culture, this documentary demonstrates that Jewish life in the South is not merely a history of persecution but a living, creative force characterized by humor, adaptation, and cultural innovation. To check out this DVD and a portable DVD-player if you need one, go to Media Services on the 6th floor of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. 

7. Kosher Creole Cookbook by Mildred L. Covert and Sylvia P. Gerson 

Rounding out the display is this delightful testament to cultural synthesis. The authors blend Kosher dietary laws with Creole culinary traditions, combining French, Spanish, African, and American cooking influences with Jewish food practices dating to biblical times. This cookbook demonstrates how Jewish communities have contributed to and been shaped by Southern regional culture, maintaining religious distinctiveness while participating fully in local foodways.  

Engaging with Antisemitism Awareness Week 

These seven works provide rich preparation for the week's programming and ongoing resources for deeper engagement. The book display invites you to approach Antisemitism Awareness Week not as passive observers but as active learners equipped with historical knowledge, cultural appreciation, and critical awareness of how antisemitism has functioned, and continues to function in American society.