Get hungry for the annual Savannah Jewish Food Festival Nov. 17.
I’m sitting in a New Orleans coffee shop overhearing a couple ponder over how to drive west to Lafayette. I offer directions, we get to talking and I learn they’re visiting from San Francisco.
“So, where ya been so far?” I ask.
“Through Mississippi,” the man responds, explaining how they’re Jewish and they were surprised to find a tour of Jewish sites through Mississippi, which they took and found fascinating.
“I didn’t know there were Jews in the South,” the wife says.
There’s a moment in most southerner’s lives where people say the darnedest things about your homeland. I’ve heard way more than my share. But no Jews in the South?
I could explain how Jews put Natchez, Mississippi, back in business after the Civil War or that New Orleans has a large and thriving population and why the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience is located there, but let’s get to why you’re here.
The annual Shalom Y’all Jewish Food Festival in Savannah will take place Nov. 17, 2024, at Forsyth Park, one of Savannah’s largest and most visited city parks. The festival is sponsored by Congregation Mickve Israel, founded in Savannah in 1733.
Yes, 1733.
It's the third oldest Jewish congregation in the country.
The festival will include family entertainment, dancing and ethnic Jewish cuisine, such as chicken soup with matzah balls, potato latkes with toppings, blintz, noodle Kugel, corned beef on rye, stuffed cabbage and so much more.
Best of all, it’s free to show up. Only food tickets cost.
This festival is so popular it draws about 10,000 visitors!
Guess there are Jews in the South.
Check out their Facebook page.
Weird, Wacky and Wild South is written by Cheré Dastugue Coen who grew up in New Orleans, a melting pot of a city.
