The
Blues Club
hops through
the wee hours
of the morning
in downtown
Memphis'
music district.

emphis Situp
A New Song

Not only a treasure chest

of history, Tennessee's belle

of a city shines with a fresh

future and a thriving

Jewish community.

SUSAN R. POLLACK
Special to The Jewish News

B

y day, Stephen
Wachtel is a
mild-mannered
professor of
obstetrics and gynecology
and head of reproductive
genetics at the University
of Tennessee, Memphis.
By night, you'll find
him jamming on Beale
Street, playing his saxo-
phone on stage at the
Center for Southern
Folklore, an eclectic
club/archive/boutique.
The only white and
Jewish member of the
Daddy Mack Blues Band,
he also sits in at times
with Center regular Mose
Vinson, an octogenarian
blues piano legend who is
blind in one eye.
When he's not boogey-
ing on Beale, the white-
haired Wachtel, 61, plays
clarinet in the Kolenu
Klezmer Band, specializ-

11/20

1998

124 Detroit Jewish News

ing in Hassidic folk tunes, "not Jewish
blues," he says with a laugh. The
band, whose name means Our
Voice," entertains primarily in east
Memphis, where the Baron Hirsch
synagogue ranks as the nation's largest
Orthodox congregation, with more
than 900 families.
Memphis, home to some 9,000
Jews overall, also boasts the highest
affiliation rare of any U.S. Jewish
community — "87 percent, maybe
even higher," according to Rabbi
Rafael Grossman of Baron Hirsch. He
credits the city's strong Jewish institu-
tions and tradition, dating back more
than 150 years. And, he adds,
"Memphis is a religious community.
The Christians are mostly devour ...
and when the Orthodox community is
strong and viable, it impacts on the
rest."
Yes, even in Memphis — this "Y'all
come back now" mid-South center of
Bibles, blues and barbecue — Jewish
culture is alive and thriving, a success-
ful mix of lox and grits.
The rest of this Mississippi River
community of 1.1 million is energized
as well. Once down and out following
the 1968 assassination here of Dr.