Our encore broadcasts continue this week with episode 1,030 of Mountain Stage featuring guest host David Mayfield. Joining us in live-performance are Shenandoah Valley bluegrass band Nothin’ Fancy, 10-time International Bluegrass Music Association Bass Player of the Year Missy Raines & Allegheny, acoustic roots and blues guitarist Rory Block, singer-songwriter and guitarist Ed Snodderly, and multi-instrumentalist folk artist Meredith Moon.
Home » Jewish Food and Music, and the Struggle to Keep a Synagogue in Appalachia Alive
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Jewish Food and Music, and the Struggle to Keep a Synagogue in Appalachia Alive
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The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah began December 6, and continues through December 14th at sundown. In light of Hanukkah, this week’s show features Jewish Appalachians, a group that’s not really talked about a whole lot.
Jewish communities across West Virginia are struggling to keep their traditions alive.
“It is actually kind of scary. I worry because a lot of people my age are moving away for, like, school or jobs and because of that the communities are getting smaller,” said Kirston Kennedy, a young Jewish Appalachian who inspired our show.
She recently sent a message to Inside Appalachia’s host, Jessica Lilly, wondering if we had ever done an episode about Jewish Appalachians. “I thought you may be able to let people know that we are here as well. We are small, but we are here.”
Jews now only make up .1% of West Virginia’s population.
Thanks to Kirston Kennedy’s inspiration, this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia features stories from an award-winning series, “Story of the Jews”, produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting in 2014.
We’ll hear from two West Virginians who survived the Holocaust.
We’ll stop by the Temple Israel in Charleston to break bread for a traditional meal. People in Charleston, West Virginia, recently got a chance to taste some foods that might not have been familiar to them – like noodle Kugel and Matzoh ball soup.
Credit courtesy Joni Deutsch
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Joni Deutsch with her grandfather Stanley Deutsch, the first Jewish person to be elected in the W.Va. state legislature.
This week’s show also features Jewish music. For help with the episode’s soundtrack, Inside Appalachia’s Roxy Todd went to the Temple Israel to speak with Rabbi Jim Cohn. She found out that Rabbi Cohn’s collection of Jewish music is vast and varied.
Credit Scotty White/ Inside Appalachia
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Volunteer serving Matzo ball soup at The Taste of Jewish Cuisine
Music in today’s show was providedBen Townsend,, Rabbi Cohn, Josh Barrett, Mike Pushkin, Maccabeats, and Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn as heard on Mountain Stage. Our Appetite Appalachia music is by the Carolina Sunshine Trio.
As 2025 begins, some states are poised to pass tighter abortion restrictions, building on more than 40 bans enacted since Roe v. Wade was overturned. On the next episode of “Us & Them,” host Trey Kay revisits the fight for reproductive care, talking with a retired Episcopal priest who recalls how liberal clergy helped women navigate the barriers of the pre-Roe era. Now, some of those same clergy are pulling that playbook off the shelf as anti-abortion supporters push for new federal limits.
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This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for A...
