From college students who risked their lives to register black voters in the ’60s, to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s shoulder–to–shoulder march with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jews played a major role in the civil rights movement. That social justice legacy, as well as the history and culture of southern Jewry, will be the focus of Prozdor’s newest nonformal educational trip this spring.

Arriving on February 17 in Atlanta, the Jewish capital of the South, and departing a week later, students will visit the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, the Temple of Atlanta, the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience, the National Civil Rights Museum and the Holocaust Memorial at Whitwell Middle School in Whitwell, Tennessee.

They’ll also have a chance to socialize with local teens and spend Shabbat in Nashville, hosted by area families, to experience firsthand southern Jewish life in America. On the lighter side, the tour will include stops at the World of Coca–Cola, CNN and the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta; Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama; and Tennessee’s Graceland and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“We hope that, through this trip, our students will gain a better appreciation for the diversity of Jewish life in America,” says Rabbi Yehudah Potok, Academic Director of Prozdor and trip coordinator. “By taking a close look at the civil rights movement, we also hope to help give kids a stronger sense of obligation and action, and remind them that their Jewish heritage gives them a responsibility to the world around them.”

The Civil Rights/Jews of the South Trip is open to all Prozdor students. In conjunction with the trip, Prozdor is offering a class on the southern Jewish experience this fall, taught by Norman Finkelstein P’57, BJEd’61, MAJS’86.

For more information, contact Yehudah Potok at 617-559-8804 or ypotok@hebrewcollege.edu.

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