Exploring Comfort and Discomfort for Arabs and Jews in Kentucky

Abstract

Exploring Comfort and Discomfort for Arabs and Jews in Kentucky Nora Rose Moosnick Introduction Kentucky is not normally a place that comes to mind when talking about Arabs and Jews. But small populations of both communities have made Kentucky home for generations even while Arabs (particularly Muslim Arabs) and Jews remain a entive to a changing sense of danger there and elsewhere. In this article I revisit my work, Arab and Jewish Women of Kentucky: Stories of Accommodation and Audacity,1 to explore how Arabs and Jews gauge danger and safety, comfort and discomfort in contemporary Kentucky. The stories of Arabs and Jews are characterized by success and comfort but not lacking in uneasiness. Kentucky Jews and Arabs (both Christians and Muslims) in the past and currently have coped with comfort and discomfort simultaneously. "Good" stories are often told by Arabs and Jews, who in the early part of the twentieth century changed from roaming peddlers to respected merchants in out of the way places like Kentucky.2 The narratives at once extol the trailblazers' achievements while downplaying any hardships they may have faced, even while insinuating that difficulties might be expected in farflung locales. Success, no doubt, marks the stories of Arabs and Jews in Kentucky. The Kentucky section of the Institute for Southern Jewish Life (ISJL) web site, for example, chronicles endless Jewish accomplishments in the state, such as long-standing Jewish roots in the bourbon industry and contemporary feats such as Jerry Abramson's election as Lieutenant Governor in 2011.3 The Arab-American museum, meanwhile, features Kentucky's own Teresa Isaac, who was mayor of Lexington in 2006. At the time, she was the only Arab-American woman who was mayor of a mid-sized city or larger.4 Accomplishments certainly characterize the Arab and Jewish experience in Kentucky. And such "good" stories of the Arab and Jew can be useful in exposing invisible stories and countering a wider cultural narrative that belittles [End Page 211] Kentucky as a place unfriendly and perhaps even dangerous for "outsiders." It is a narrative so deeply ingrained that sometimes Arabs and Jews perpetuate it. I. J. Schwartz (1885–1971) the famous Yiddish poet, chronicled the years he lived in Lexington, from 1918 to 1929, in his epic poem, Kentucky. Writing in post-Civil War America, Schwartz related that the Jew might find financial success away from the northeast, in the South. But this success might come at the cost of forsaking a Jewish identity or, in rural Kentucky, facing precarious situations, including death.5 The contemporary image of Kentucky is not far removed from the one Schwartz depicted. Since the 2016 presidential election, national commentaries have highlighted racial, cultural, and geographic gaps between voters, transforming voters into political foes and underscoring intolerance between them. Bill Bishop, in his 2008 book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, foresaw the current political landscape marked by increased segregation and greater hostility between political adversaries, with geographic spaces demarcating the rift.6 The rural se ing becomes a scary place for urban dwellers, particularly for minorities, while urban voices alienate and beli le persons from the countryside.7 According to this characterization, rural spaces lack the tolerance of urbane locales. Whole states, particularly Appalachian ones like Kentucky, are regularly construed as rural and intolerant, even as safe havens for the proliferation of hate groups. Not surprisingly, this post-2016 election political climate does not help Kentucky's image as dangerous to "outsiders," but instead entrenches disparaging notions of the state. Kentucky is no doubt white; an estimated 85 percent of its population is white.8 The whiteness of the state's population might contribute to the state not faring well on tolerance scales.9 Tolerance or lack thereof, however, does not necessarily equate with rurality. In the 2010 US Census, only 23 percent of the Kentucky population was classified rural, with more and more of the state's population found in urban hubs.10 A cursory glance at the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate map offers an ambiguous picture; the state boasts eleven reported hate groups, not far ahead of Massachuse s with ten...