from page 55
While the women would write social
letters,
full of details of daily life, the
more children. The family went on
men
sent
mostly business letters with
to found a respected school in
some
personal
details, although less of
Warrenton, and later moved to
those survive. Readers will not
Richmond, Va.
One family member goes on to West encounter the actual letters here, other
than an occasional quote; the book
Point, a very bold move for a Jew in
includes
extensive endnotes.
the early 1800s: another becomes the
She
also
visited the cemeteries —
first Jew admitted to the North
both
Jewish
and gentile — across the
Carolina bar; several are slave owners;
South
where
family members are
one of Jacob's sons is named George
buried. On Jacob's tombstone in the
Washington Mordecai.
A grandson of Jacob's becomes a doc- Richmond Hebrew Cemetery, where
there is a Mordecai section, are the
tor and advocate of free love and utopi-
words
in Hebrew and English, "God
anism; he wrote a book that he hoped
will
redeem
my soul from the power of
would revolutionize social and sexual
the
grave,
for
he will redeem me."
relations. The family has left its name
For
Bingham,
a 38-year old member
on several Southern institutions, and
of a celebrated family
there's a family home in
that includes a long line
North Carolina that's
of newspaper editors
1110111DIECA.1
now a museum.
and publishers, the
Although Jacob held
strenuous ideals of an
onto his Judaism, and
ambitious family rang
educated himself to be
familiar. The author
able to answer the
decided to end her story
many gentiles who
in the 1880s, and didn't
challenged his beliefs,
make efforts to track
some of his children
down contemporary
and grandchildren left
Mordecais, although
Judaism, to Jacob's
some
have approached
great dismay, at a time
her
at
various rea
when Protestant
she has done in connec-
revivals swept the
don with the book's
South.
Emily Bingham gives a
publication.
Bingham explains
textured description of one
She explains that she
that religious identity
of
Americas
oldest
Jewish
wanted
the members of
was a "fluid concept"
families.
the
family
she profiled
in this country at that
to
speak
for
themselves.
time. Americans had
And, as someone whose own family
many choices about identity, and
has received a lot of publicity, she says
religion was only one strand, one
that she knows what its like to have
aspect of what one could be. For the
living
family members written about
Jews, having ties with all sorts of
--
and
she chose not to
people in the broader community
In
the
course of writing the book,
was a new experience.
she
gave
birth to her two children, and
"I know that I'm not coming from a
she says that in many ways the
Jewish background," Bingham says,
Mordecais -- with their steadfastness
noting that she tried to be particularly
and their ability to endure with digni-
sensitive on these issues. "What I saw
ty and strength, in spite of disagree-
was a family that found so many differ-
ments
and obstacles -- have been a
ent resolutions to a conundrum of tran-
model
for her. "This has made me a
sition of class, religion, intellectual life,
much
better
family member," she said.
gender and other identities as well."
The
book's
cover, appropriately, fea-
She adds, "I hope that this opens up
tures a Torah binder, or wimpel, from
the discussion."
Bingham speaks with enthusiasm for Ohio, that dates back to 1869.
Embroidered onto the cloth are an
her research, and she feels lucky to
American
flag and a domestic scene in
have had the opportunity to look at as
a
chandelier-lit
room.
many original documents as she did.
"The
individual
characters and dra-
The Mordecais' handwritten letters
matic
results
of
this
family's aspirations
were written on good paper, with fine
are, as one would expect, unique to the
inks, so they have survived to this day.
Mordecais," she writes, "but the ingre-
Some family members had beautiful
dients that produced those results are
handwriting; some wrote on both sides
woven into the fabric of American fam-
of the paper, and then wrote across in
ilies of their times and our own."
the opposite direction to save paper.
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