This program originally aired on October 29th, 2024 at 6:30pm Eastern.
Author Jason K. Friedman discusses his book Liberty Street: A Savannah Family, its Golden Boy, and the Civil War with moderator Laura Arnold Leibman.
The inspiration for Liberty Street was uncovered as author Jason K. Friedman was renovating his 1875 townhouse in Savannah, Georgia. The home was registered as the “Solomon Cohen House,” the namesake was discovered to be a lawyer, banker, real estate developer, district attorney, post master general – and a staunch defender of slavery. Family members included familiar names of 19th century Jewry such as Miriam Cohen, Gratz Cohen, and Rebecca Gratz. Further investigation revealed a historical narrative and family saga of the founding members of Charleston’s Jewish congregation.
Gratz Cohen had a strong emotional relationship with his personal valet, an enslaved man named Louis. In 1861 as the American Civil War raged on and began to directly encroach on Cohen’s hometown of Savannah, he enlisted in the Confederate army. The chaos of war enabled Louis to escape enslavement, a loss that Gratz documented in his personal poetry. Additional writings confirm Gratz homosexuality and the complexity of living with that truth as a Jewish man in the 19th century. Gratz would die in the Battle of Bentonville in 1865 at the age of 20.
Topics covered in this program: Southern Jewish history, Jewish soldiers in the Civil War, Jewish slaveowners, queer Jewish history, Lost Cause myth.
