(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

June 25th

(Savannah)

1867

Announcing the founding of the “Savannah Hebrew Collegiate Institute,” along with an appeal for support. Endorsed by Rev. D. C. Lewin (President), B. Phillips (Secretary), A. Epstein, W. Barnet, A. J. Brady, P. Dzialynsky and S. Gerstman. Octavus Cohen is also mentioned in the letter.

No record in OCLC Worldcat - indeed no record of any materials from this Institute appear in OCLC WorldCat.

Instigated by Raphael D’C Lewin, the newly appointed Rabbi of Congregation Mickve Israel, a call for the opening in Savannah of a high school for Jewish boys and an academy for Jewish girls, wherein the students may receive both a Jewish and secular education. “The physical sufferings of our people in the South have been very great, and very few are enabled to do more than provide for the immediate wants of their families. But while this is too painfully the case, we yet feel that the mental and religious training of our children, never more urgent than at the present time [original italicized], should not be neglected.” Opened in November 1867, the school was well received, indeed the Historical Record of Savannah for 1869 reads “of all the educational establishments which grace our Forest City none stands higher or claims more admiration than this noble institution.” Unfortunately however the school did not last very long. See F. D. Lee and J. L. Agnew, Historical Record of the City of Savannah 1869 pp. 156-58; Anton Hieke, Jewish Identity in the Reconstruction South: Ambivalence and Adaptation, p. 280.