This program originally aired at the Center for Jewish History on March 25th, 2025 at 6:30pm Eastern.
Co-Editor Melissa R. Klapper joined us with moderator Zev Eleff to discuss The Civil War Diary of Emma Mordecai, an incredible resource and document that chronicles the daily life of an affluent Jewish Confederate family living on a farm near Richmond, Virginia. The project of editing and publishing the diary in full was first undertaken by Dianne Ashton, professor Emeritus of Philosophy and World Religions at Rowan University, who passed away in January 2022. Melissa R. Klapper was a colleague and friend of Dianne’s who completed the project.
Emma Mordecai was an important figure in the American Jewish community in the antebellum south. She founded the first Jewish Sunday school in Richmond, Virginia (modeled after an institution created by Rebecca Gratz) and wrote her own Jewish textbook. She was born in the United States at a time when the Jewish population in the U.S. was quite small numbering around 150,000, with only around 25,000 living in the American South. Emma’s family members frequently married non-Jews and raised children outside of the Jewish tradition.
Emma begam writing her diary in April 1864 upon leaving Richmond, VA for her sister-in-law, Rosina’s farm, and wrote until May of 1865. In 1886 she re-wrote the diary copying it from the original which had fallen into disrepair. Throughout the war, Emma was a very observant Jew in a non-Jewish household and would leave the farm to be with her Richmond family for the holidays. The diary served as her Jewish object, and would only write in it while she was living in a non-Jewish household.
The Mordecai family hired and purchased enslaved people. Emma personally owned and hired out enslaved persons at her residence in Richmond, VA, as did her sister-in-law Rosina. Both women saw themselves as “benevolent slave owners” and had racist attitudes towards the Black population. The Southern United States operated in a binary of white and black, and in this period the Mordecai family was seen as and enjoyed the privileges of being white.
The complex history that this diary shows us, is the reality of the imperfect people ripe with contradictions that make up our nations past.
Topics covered in this program: Civil War, Confederate Army, enslaved persons, Jewish southern life, teaching, wartime farming, medical history, 19th century housekeeping, botany, hobbies and tasks that were gendered as feminine, journaling, writing.
