Bluefield Princeton, West Virginia Chapter Hadassah Host Jewish Historian, Dr. Deb Weiner

By: Marsha Platnick

The Bluefield Princeton Chapter is very tiny; besides that, several of our members have moved to far-away states but choose to stay affiliated with us and contribute through our chapter. Rather than disband, we have downsized to one glorious event a year and meetings via e-mail or visits during oneg shabbats. This year we combined our Donor event with a temple project to draw in more people and curtail expenses. 

Dr. Deb Weiner, Director of the Baltimore Jewish Museum and author of Coal Mine Jews, drove to Bluefield for the weekend. The temple paid for her bed and breakfast and gasoline and half her small honorarium. Our Hadassah chapter paid half her honorarium out of our administrative fund. Deb reduced her fees for the promise of a foliage weekend visit, planned a year in advance. Deb researched and presented a story of Henrietta Szold's personal life for the saturday night Donor h'ordeuvre party at Doris Sue Kantor's house. The entire congregation was invited.  There were several widowers and bachelors that always attend and donate. All of our events are couple and open events; otherwise there would be no attendance and much smaller contributions.

For the temple's part of the weekend, we organized a drive to the tiny town of Pocahontas, VA. There are no Jewish families living there now. However, in the early 1900s there were 150 Jewish people living there. We visited two cemeteries, a Jewish cemetery and another cemetery where the German Jews, who had assimilated into the comm. unity long before the East European Jews immigrated, chose to be buried. We learned that most of the original businesses were owned by Jewish people, as we saw names like Cohen on plaques on the sidewalk in a deserted ghost town section of

the downtown. The highlight was touring the former synagogue that closed in the 1920's. It is now owned by a huge family that uses it for church services for their extended family. The family has proudly restored the synagogue and kept the ancient prayerbooks. The arc is still there, and it is evident where the mikvah once was. We hope the owners will allow us to meet there one time to hold Sabbath services.   I think Deb had as much fun as we did. After the weekend was over and this happy co-ordinator could breathe a sigh of relief, Deb and I walked on a park trail, reminisced, and

discussed a return visit.