NYT: In Wal-Mart's Arkansas Home, Synagogue Signals Growth

[DeepModem Mom]

In Wal-Mart's Home, Synagogue Signals Growth
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: June 20, 2006


(Courtesy of the Winchester Family)
Andrew Winchester, hatless at center, had the first bar mitzvah in the synagogue. Several branches of Judaism are represented at Etz Chaim.

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches. For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display.

Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.

Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).

Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.

It is the Jews of Benton County, however, who have asserted themselves most. Two years ago, they opened the county's first synagogue and, ever since, its roughly 100 members have become eager spokesmen and women for a religion that remains a mystery to most people here....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/business/20synagogue.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. I'm glad to see people doing something to preserve their Jewish identity

rather than sitting around, doing nothing, and wondering why their kids are asking for a "Hanukkah bush".

On edit: I understand what they're saying about living in an environment that is not very Jewish. I've always said that growing up in Colorado Springs was the best thing that could have happened for my Jewish identity.

[Patiod]

2. And they will probably get the public schools in better shape

Where I grew up, the public schools HAD to be good, or the board would hear about it. Nothing like a group of Jewish parents to make sure the local district is turning out elite-college-ready kids



/said as a proud product of excellent public school education received in a predominantly Jewish school district

[tanyev]

3. That must be chapping a few fundie hides. *snort*