Dramatic Podcast Tells How Jews Helped Found Georgia

Lance Toland was enjoying a casual stroll along Oglethorpe Avenue in the heart of Savannah several years ago when he encountered a large granite monument on the median that divides that avenue near Bull Street. What separated it from the many historical markers that crowd the historic city was the bronze menorah plaque that crowned the granite slab and the words on the large stone.

“Original 1733 burial plot allowed by James Edward Oglethorpe to the Savannah Jewish Community.”

On the reverse side of the monument, he found additional brass plaques with he names of 17 Jews who were buried under that busy intersection, which was once the original Jewish cemetery in the Georgia city.

Toland, who lives on the Georgia coast, was stunned by the discovery. He had long been a part of the Jewish community there and he knew they had played a prominent role in the history of the city. but to discover that Jews had been here since the city’s founding was a revelation.

Today, he believes that stroll and his sudden discovery of the monument were not accidental, that it might have been divinely inspired.

“I still am moved by the thought of seeing that monument for the first time, and of having that nudge, if you will, that little tap on the shoulder from above that set me on a path that has led me to tell the story of those early Jews in Savannah.”

The nudge from above has resulted in a 12-part series of podcasts entitled “Flames of Freedom” that debuted last month with Toland as executive producer. They tell the dramatic story of the crucial role Jewish immigrants played in the first months of Savanah’s history.

The series, which unfolds as a historical drama, with original music and solid production values, is performed by a cast of professional actors. It tells the story of how Dr. Samuel Nunez Riberio, who escaped the Portuguese Inquisition in 1726 and came to London with his wife and family.

Seven years later, he joined a voyage to Savannah with 42 other Jews on a rickety old vessel, the William and Sarah, which was almost wrecked several times before arriving in the English colony of Savannah on July 11, 1733. The founder of the colony, James Oglethorpe, who had come just a few months earlier, was battling what is said to have been a yellow fever epidemic. Even though he had been warned not to accept Jewish immigrants, he welcomed the Jewish physician and his fellow Jews as critical allies in his battle against a disease that threatened to wipe out the new settlement almost as soon as it began.

Richard Stone, who wrote the scripts for the podcast series and is its creative director, believes that Nunez’ skill as a physician was quickly recognized by Oglethorpe.

“The Jews were welcomed into the community as partners.” Stone says. “And that’s partly why you know that that monument, it turns out, was erected by the Jewish community in Savannah. It was a symbol of their recognition of Oglethorpe as a friend of the Jews.”

Even though Nunez was a Sephardic Jew and his story plays a major role in the story that unfolds during the podcast, it was an Ashkenazic Jew Benjamin Sheftell who was instrumental in organizing Savanah’s Mikve Israel in 1735, which survives to this day as a prominent gothic revival structure. It’s America’s third oldest Jewish congregation just behind the ones in Newport, R.I., and Charleston, S.C.

The rabbi who served as the synagogue’s leader from 1972 to 1986 and was active in the Southern Jewish Historical Society, wrote a history of the congregation in 1983. He was an informal advisor to the series.

A museum of important Jewish documents and artifacts has been established at the synagogue that welcomes thousands of visitors each year.

In addition to its dramatized history, “Flames of Freedom” features supplementary conversations with Jewish historical scholars and writers from around the world. They discuss the Jewish search for survival and religious freedom in the centuries leading up to the first voyage by settlers from Europe to the Georgia colony.

It is a story of prejudice and discrimination that Toland feels should resonate with audience in America today. He feels it should be a part of every young person’s Jewish education.

“The Jews in Savannah were able to bear arms, be part of the militia,” Toland pointed out. “They were able to own property. They were assigned a cemetery, they could vote and they could be part of governance. That had never happened for 2,000 years. Basically, our series juxtaposes Oglethorpe and a few dozen guys on a boat. It’s an extraordinary history that no one has really looked at under a microscope.”

“Flames of Freedom” can be heard on all major podcast platforms.