“They tell me she is beautiful, my City,  That she is colorful and
 quaint, alone  Among the cities….”
                               Dubose Heyward

   I fell in love with Charleston long before I ever met her, walked her streets and cobbled alleys, marveled at her magnificent houses, and explored her hidden gardens. I loved her long before I came to know this enchanting place firsthand.

   Although born and raised on Manhattan Island, I grew up with wondrous tales of an ancient seaside city between two rivers, and of my family’s life there before, during and after a catastrophic, lost war and it’s tragic aftermath, the violent and corrupt Federal occupation of Charleston which caused members of our branch of the clan to move north to Baltimore in 1873 and on to New York in 1886. From my grandmother, I learned of her mother, born here on St. Philip’s Street, of her grandfather who fought in the Confederate Army, and of her great, grandfather, the first rabbi of Charleston’s Orthodox Jewish congregation in antebellum days. From my Uncle Mel, a major general in the U.S. Marines, whose word was not to be doubted, I learned of my great, great, great grandmother’s brother, who owned a cotton plantation in Abbeville County, taught Hebrew Bible at Erskine College in Due West, and, later, lived on George Street here in the city. Uncle Mel had visited the Abbeville branch of the family, as I was to do, years later.

   I was raised with so many tales of Charleston, I felt that I knew her from my childhood. Although we were in many ways, very much a New York family, we never forgot our Southern roots. For forty years, my mother was an officer of the New York chapter of the “United Daughters of the Confederacy,” the organization of female descendants of those who served in the Confederate armed forces. I remember vividly the chapter meetings held in our living room, and the visiting speakers who told the ladies about various aspects of the war in which their, and my, ancestors had fought. When I was ten years old, I joined the ‘Children of the Confederacy,” where I learned “Dixie,” our "national anthem", and other southern songs, along with the “true history” of the “Glorious Lost Cause.” I memorized the heartbreaking words of  Gen. Robert E. Lee’s General Order 9, his last farewell to the Army of Northern Virginia after the surrender at Appomattox, as well as the comforting words of Confederate President Jefferson Davis: “Defeat, nobly borne, is victory."

   In that same year, I was enrolled in the religious school of the Park Avenue Synagogue, near our home. For me, it was as if I was raised in two faiths, the Jewish and the Confederate. Both told moving and inspiring tales of a small, valiant people, faithful to it’s God, fighting against overwhelming odds for it’s land, identity and traditions. My Jewish education led me to my Bar Mitzvah at thirteen years of age, and on to a life of Jewish faith and practice. My Confederate training led to my promotion at age seventeen, to the “Sons of Confederate Veterans,” the organization of adult male descendants of those who fought for the Confederacy. Eventually, I was elected by my comrades to be commander of the New York Camp of the S.C.V.

   After nearly forty years of introduction to the “Holy City,” I finally visited in 1980. I  might have said with the biblical Job, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ears, but now, at last, I see thee.” I was overwhelmed by the beauty and history all around me. My family's houses and gravesites made me feel that I had come home. I greedily explored the streets and ballast stone alleys, the unique architecture of the houses and the many Greek revival buildings. And the cemeteries. It is said that there are two Charlestons: "the city of the living", and "the city of the dead.” I was awed to discover the same names on the monuments in Magnolia Cemetery that I encountered among the living citizens of Charleston. Two cities indeed, both rich in beauty and heritage, a perfect picture of historic continuity.

   I was deeply moved to discover the last resting places of my own ancestors in B'rith Sholom Cemetery and Coming Street Cemetery, the oldest functioning Jewish graveyard in the country, with stones dating to long before American independence. Coming Street Cemetery contains gravestones of eleven Jewish Charlestonians who fought in the Revolution, twelve who fought in the War of 1812, and twenty-three who fought in the War for the Southern Confederacy. What a treasury of history is found in this peaceful acre of consecrated soil.

  On one of my explorations, I found myself on Church Street, a half block north of White Point Gardens. Trying to take in the overwhelming beauty of the spot, I said to my companion, “I am going to live here.” I made that declaration forty-three years ago, less than fifty yards from where I am writing. I started spending summers here in rented homes South of Broad and finally bought my own home. As in the old folk tales, I have lived "happily ever after" in this incomparably lovely place. Central to that happiness is a wonderful circle of loving friends with whom I share my life. We come together for regular luncheons and holiday dinners, birthday celebrations and musical events. I feel truly blessed.

   Since returning to my ancestral home, I have tried to do my part to contribute to it’s rich cultural life. I served for eighteen years on the Board of the “Spoleto Festival, U.S.A.," the leading and most diverse artistic festival in America. I am a longtime supporter of our excellent Charleston Symphony, and have, for years, been engaged in trying to establish a permanent opera company here, “The Charleston Opera Theater,” founded and led by Harold Meers.  We have presented evenings of opera arias and fine performances of several grand operas. In the Fall, we will present the delightful comic opera, “The Elixir of Love."

    For several years, I have sponsored Charleston performances of little-known, but glorious Handel oratorios. Everyone has heard Handel’s “Messiah," usually performed during the Christmas season. But few know that the composer wrote around a dozen other oratorios on biblical themes. These are choral works, setting the eternal stories of Holy Scripture to the music of George Frideric Handel, for me, the greatest composer of them all. These works have been splendidly performed by "The King’s Counterpoint,” led by David Acres. This company is one of Charleston’s musical treasures. We have offered “Judas Maccabaeus,” “Israel in Egypt,” and “Esther.” Next year we will present “Solomon,” another Handel masterpiece.

   Musical performances at Mepkin Abbey have drawn my support, as well as concerts by the "Robert Taylor Chorale" and other fine musical groups in our city. For me, music is the voice of God, and it is appropriate that that voice be heard in a city we call “holy.”

   I taught for forty-two years in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Montclair State University, chairing the department for twenty-four of those years.
 I saw no reason to really “retire" after my official retirement. For years, I taught as an adjunct professor in the Philosophy Department at the College of Charleston.

   I love theology and religious liturgy in all its varieties. Many years ago, when I first lived here, I undertook the project of visiting every house of worship in the peninsular city. I made it to many but was drawn to St. Steven’s Episcopal Church, St. Johannes Lutheran, and KKBE (Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim, Hebrew for “Holy Congregation House of God,” founded in 1749). I attended and taught classes at these three congregations and at Synagogue Emanuel-El in West Ashley, for twenty-five years, continuing to teach via Zoom, from my home, since Covid struck in April of 2020. It is crucially important to my self-conception as a teacher, that I continue to share with students the knowledge I have accumulated over sixty years of thought and scholarship.

   It may seem strange to some that I, a believing and practicing Jew, attend both Jewish and Christian houses of worship, but I feel comfortable in both. My teaching, lecturing and writing career has been focused on the theological dialogue between Judaism and Christianity, opened by the Second Vatican Council and its epic making re-evaluation of the Catholic Church’s relationship with Judaism in 1965. The Church declared that the ancient Covenant made by God with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, was an eternal one, that Judaism is a valid and living faith today, and that Christians had not replaced the Jews as God's people, but had joined them as worshipers of the true God. Since then, many other churches have issued official statements expressing the same view, and Jewish theologians have responded with papers and books, affirming the ongoing validity of both faiths. I have written that both faiths are true. How can two different religions both be “true?” For the answer, I refer you to my book,” Opening the Covenant: A Jewish Theology of Christianity,” (Oxford University Press, 2008). To understand the full scope of the dialogue, sample the many other books and papers issued by synagogues, churches and theologians of both faiths, in this fascinating and unprecedented, friendly encounter of two closely related religions.

   The history of Jews in this city goes back to 1695 and has been richly documented. My family has been part of that history. Hence, I serve on the board of the” South Carolina Jewish Historical Society” and have been a board member of KKBE and of the Jewish Studies Program at the College of Charleston.

   My devotion to preserving the history and culture of Charleston has led me to involvement in the ongoing fight to preserve the historic statues and monuments which contribute so much to the heritage and beauty of our city. Through membership in the “Fort Sumter Camp" of the “Sons of Confederate Veterans,” the “Palmetto Guard,”  and the “American Heritage Association,” my comrades and I have repeatedly addressed the City Council on this issue, challenged the city in court cases, and, when needed, defended our statues with our bodies to prevent damage to our historic monuments by mobs, threatening to harm them. These monuments to the men and boys, heroes all, who defended this city from destruction in the Revolutionary and Confederate Wars must be preserved. In this most historic of American cities, let it be said that in Charleston, we know how to honor our dead.

   Every morning, I look out my windows and see the Battery, White Point Gardens, and the sailboats gliding by on the Ashley River  (as every Charlestonian knows, one of the two tributaries of the Atlantic Ocean), and I feel I have come home, that I have  found what Quakers call “peace at the center.” That center, of course, is Charleston.