Most of the Jewish families who settled in Port Gibson in the 1830's-1840's were
Ashkenazi immigrants from Germany and the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.  The
congregation of Temple Gemiluth Chassed was formed in 1859 and the Jewish
Cemetery founded in 1870.  However, the congregation didn't have a permanent
building until the current building was constructed in 1892.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were 50-60 Jewish families in the
area.  However, the community dwindled as the following generations moved on to
larger cities.  The Temple closed in 1986 and the congregation donated their Torah and
aritfacts to the Museum of the Southern Jewish experience in Utica, Mississippi.

The building was about to be demolished and the space turned into a parking lot, when
a local non-Jewish couple purchased it in order to preserve it.  At this point, the
couple's son has taken over responsibility for the building and, if arrangements are
made in advance, he will open it for anyone interested in seeing it.
Temple Gemiluth Chassed
Port Gibson
Mississippi
The pictures on this page were taken by my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter on a
recent trip to Claiborne, Jefferson and Adams Counties.  They visited historic churches,
cemeteries and a synagogue in Port Gibson.  They strolled through the haunting ghost
towns of Rocky Springs and Rodney and visited their ancient cemeteries.

They took photos in cemeteries that author Eudora Welty photographed in the 1930's, when
they had already been abandoned by towns that had all but ceased to be.  And they wondered
at the fragile nature of the monuments we build, believing that they will last forever.

-- Nancy (May, 2019)
Temple Gemiluth Chassed
1891-1892 Victorian Moro-Byzantine Revival.  The architects of Temple Gemiluth
Chassed, which means "gift of the righteous," combined Moorish, Byzantine and
Romanesque styles to produce a building unique in Mississippi.