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One Book | One Community 2012 Subject Guide
One Book | One Community 2012 Subject Guide
We invite you to participate in One Book | One Community.
Venture along the Mississippi Delta with One More River,
Mary Glickman’s novel about Jewish life in the American South.
Uncover themes of race, class, identity, and faith using our
Readers' Guide and the information below. Perfect for your
book group or learning more on your own.
“He learned that rough men felt fear, that women could bear pain,
that a body could watch moonbeams dance on the river and
go mad from the sight.” — From One More River
Download the Readers' Guide>
Discussion Questions
- How does Mickey Moe's search for his father's history help him discover who he is and where he came from?
- The power of love helps transform both Bernard Levy and Mickey Moe. Discuss the manner in which it does so.
- Whom did you find to be the most intriguing character in the novel and why? Would you say that the South itself during the time period discussed was a character? Explain.
- In what way did the author illustrate class, racial and ethnic bias as they existed in the South? What was the influence of these biases on the main characters in the novel?
- Mary Glickman depicts both the cruelty of nature and the cruelty of human beings in her novel. How does the cruelty of each impact the main characters in her work?
Learn more about topics in One More River by exploring these resources:
Online Oral Archives about Life in the Jewish South
- Oral History Archive of the College of Charleston:South Carolina Jews Tell Their Stories
- Institute of the Southern Jewish Experience: Southern Jewish Voices
- Shalom, Y'all, a Smile from South's Jews. An archive in South Carolina salutes 300 years of immigrants' history.Chicago Tribune (January 2, 2005)
- Goldring-Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life. A particularly interesting aspect of this website is their Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities. Search the history of Jews living in various southern cities.
- Fatal Flood, a PBS documentary with articles, statistics, and primary resources on the Mississippi Flood of 1927.
- The Southern Jewish Historical Society website includes an extended bibliography section regarding all topics Jewish and Southern.
Videos available in the Asher Library at Spertus
- Delta Jews. New York, NY: Mike DeWitt Productions, 1998.
- From Swastika to Jim Crow. New York, NY: Cinema Guild [distributor], 1999.
Books available in the Asher Library at Spertus
- Aron, Bill. Shalom Y’all: Images of Jewish life in the American South. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002.
- Ferris, Marcie Cohen. Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.
- Oney, Steve. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.
- Philipson, Robert. The Identity Question: Blacks and Jews in Europe and America. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2000.
- Rosengarten, Theodore and Dale Rosengarten, eds. A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, 2002.
- Salzman, Jack. Struggles in the Promised Land: Towards a History of Black-Jewish Relations in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Articles available onsite at the Asher Library at Spertus
- Fermaglich, Kirsten. “More than Plantations and Pastrami: Southern Jewish History Comes of Age.” Southern Jewish History 10 (2007): 229-234.
- Langston, Scott M. “The Bible and Bombings: Southern Rabbis Respond During the Civil Rights Movement." Southern Jewish History 14 (2011): 155-200.
Articles available on EBSCOhost via the Asher Library at Spertus
- Dinnerstein, Leonard. “A Note on Southern Attitudes toward Jews.” Jewish Social Studies 32, no. 1 (January 1970): 43-49.
- Jews and Blacks in America. Moment Magazine 34, no.1 (Jan/Feb 2009): 34-51.
- Puckett , Dan J. “Reporting on the Holocaust: The View from Jim Crow Alabama."Holocaust & Genocide Studies 25, no. 2 (August 2011); 219-251.
- Ruderman, David B. “Greenville Diary.” Jewish Quarterly Review 94, no. 4 (Fall 2004): 643-665.
- Weinstein, Dina. “Letting Justice Roll Down.” B'nai B'rith Magazine 126, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 8-32.
Primary Sources available on EBSCOhost
via the Asher Library at Spertus
- Arbeiter ring urges branches to aid Mississippi flood victims.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 5/5/1927. - Y's are urged to give aid to Mississippi flood sufferers.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 5/9/1927. - I.O.B.B. will cooperate with Red Cross in flood relief.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 4/29/1927. - Jackson Rabbi's home bombed; Synagogue was bombed in September.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency 11/24/1967.
EBSCOhost is an online resource available through the Asher Library
for Spertus students and members.


