When Dave Lerner settled in the small town of Lincolnton, near Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early 1920’s, the prospects for any sustained Jewish future seemed grim. Raised in a shtetl in Poland, Dave had landed up in Lincolnton by some odd fluke, and the Yiddish speaking man and his wife were one of only two Jewish couples for miles around.

The Lerners tried hard to preserve their children’s Jewish identity, driving to Charlotte for kosher poultry, and making sure that both their sons were Bar Mitzvahed. And the neighbors always had cheese sandwiches prepared for the Lerner boys, says Harry, Dave’s eldest and only surviving son. Still, in a town where the social life pretty much revolved around church, being Jewish was best downplayed.

But earlier this month, nearly one hundred years since Dave traveled from his hometown in Eastern Europe for the golden land of opportunity, his great-grandchildren welcomed a brand new Torah scroll to Chabad’s Congregation Ohr Hatorah, in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the culmination of a nine-month long campaign called “A Sefer Torah For a Safer World.”

According to Chabad Rabbi Yossi Groner, the campaign, initiated in the aftermath of September 11th and the onset of the second intifadeh, was aimed at “involving the entire community in a Jewish project that would serve as a new source of positive energy for Charlotte’s Jews.”

The dedication ceremony drew 350 people from across the Jewish spectrum of this now thriving community, one that has literally tripled in size over the last twenty years, for a lively celebration of song, dance, and an exciting children’s program.

For Harry, the ceremony was telling of the transformation that’s taken place here. “The kids were so full of joy,” he says, and their Jewish pride was palpable, an amazing feat in Dixie. As a child, Harry says, he “never felt too comfortable about my Jewishness,” something he attributes to a lack of formal Jewish education. But these children, he says, are being given the means and the wherewithal to feel confident about their Jewish identity.

Thanks to Chabad’s educational system in Charlotte, says Harry, “Jewish children here can say ‘this is what I believe’ and really know what being Jewish means.” That concern for Jewish education, and the future of Jewish life in in this city are what inspired Harry to support the campaign as a tribute to his late brother Samuel, a staunch supporter of Chabad’s efforts here.

When Rabbi Groner arrived here with his wife Maryashie in 1980, Charlotte was “a spiritual wasteland,” says Eric Lerner, Samuel’s son. But over the course of the last two decades the Groners, and the three Chabad couples who have joined them, “revived this city to a monumental degree,” with a full range of Jewish educational, social, and religious programming that include a preschool and day school with over 260 children enrolled, adult education, and holiday programming.

And Chabad’s focus on providing children with the experience of a living Judaism has given the community new promise. According to Eric’s wife Allie, “our generation has been yearning for a deeper connection to Judaism, and our children—through their involvement with Chabad—are giving it to us.”

What would compel a self-proclaimed agnostic “with zero faith in religion or G-d,” who placed the worship of a culture of secular humanism above all else, to have himself circumcised at age 82?

Yochai Gutman was born in Vienna in the early 1920’s, to parents afraid of circumcising their only son. A hardcore chiloni, or secularist, Yochai spent most of his life on a kibbutz in Israel, subscribing to a moral code that espouses “love of man and nature, helping others and honoring the living, not the dead.” G-d, he says, simply wasn’t part of the equation.

But when Gutman recently Began “contemplating the purpose of the world, old age, and creation,” the elderly man found himself confronted with a higher reality. Slowly, eighty years of anti-religious sentiment started to melt away, giving way to the proverbial Jewish spark within.

In a bold step for a man of his age, Gutman chose to bring his Jewish identity home, full circle, with a Brit Milah at 82 years old. He was only seventeen years younger than Abraham had been when he became the first Jew to enter this covenant with G-d.

That was when Gutman turned to Chabad Brit Yosef Yitzchak, a Jerusalem-based organization that arranges circumcisions for adults. For Rabbi Yaron Amit, who runs the organization, it was an atypical request, coming as it did from a fully integrated member of secular Israeli society. “Most of the people who turn to us are recent immigrants who, for various reasons were never circumcised,” he says, and Gutman’s story was a rarity.

According to Gutman, the circumcision served as a springboard for further Jewish involvement, causing him to “reexamine my roots, and gain a better understanding of what being Jewish really means.” It was the culmination of a new development that now has Gutman donning teffilin for morning prayers and fasting on Yom Kippur.

“With my circumcision, I feel like a complete Jew,” says Gutman. “Even if it’s 82 years late.”

Three hundred people gathered last week in Birmingham, Alabama, to witness the final letters being filled into a new Torah scroll—a first for the Yellowhammer State. They came from all stripes of the small but active community of Magic City, to participate in a festive ceremony marking the culmination of a four-month long campaign.

Spearheaded by Chabad and the local Jewish community, the dedication of a new Torah scroll was planned to honor a fellow community member.

Last August, Jo Ann Hess-Morrisson, a longtime active member of the Birmingham Jewish community, was diagnosed with a tumor in a Jerusalem hospital.

Morrisson, who made aliyah in ’92 with her husband David, continues to split her time between Birmingham and Jerusalem, and when word of her illness came to Birmingham, everyone felt compelled to help. A new Torah scroll seemed an appropriate gesture, and Morrisson’s husband says the couple was deeply moved to learn of the effort. “This Torah has been a real lift for my wife,” says David, who stood by Jo Anne through a trying year of treatments and surgery.

And the new Torah, intended as a spiritual merit towards Morrisson’s complete recovery, marked a turning point for the Birmingham Jewish community as well.

Lying in the heart of the Deep South, Alabama’s Jewish community traces its origins back two and a half centuries, during which it has challenged the notion that that Jews and Southerners are polar opposites. Here Jewish culture is served up with a southern accent, an experience aptly hailed “Shalom Y’all.”

Birmingham’s own history (the city was founded in the mid to late 1800’s) was supplemented by a thriving Jewish community, which, though less devout than its Christian neighbors, contributed to this Bible Belt city’s religious landscape with their houses of worship and religious institutions. According to Chabad Rabbi Yossi Friedman, this is the only city nationwide where secular Jews have made a priority of marrying within the faith for as many as five, even six generations—a remarkable survival rate anywhere. But even among this community of strongly identifying Jews, religious observance hardly extended beyond Jewish marriages and High Holy Day Services, and integration into Birmingham’s larger community meant Jews were adopting a new way of life and shedding Jewish tradition.

Chabad’s arrival to Birmingham, says Rabbi Yosef Posner, who settled here with wife Frumie in 1987, was inspired by the community’s perseverance and by Chabad’s determination to secure its continuity. But the need for what many perceived to be yet another Jewish faction in this small community of 5,000, with its Reform, Conservative and Orthodox congregations, seemed superfluous to the locals, and the Posners maintained a low profile here for years, with a focus on building strong personal friendships that would slowly dissolve feelings of apprehension and ambivalence towards a Chabad presence in Birmingham.

Mrs. Posner began teaching in the Federation Day School, developing a special rapport with Mrs. Morrisson, the school director, who became a key supporter of Chabad efforts here. According to David Morrisson, his wife’s involvement with Chabad was rooted in a deep concern for the community. “If there would be a lasting traditional Jewish presence in Birmingham, Jo Anne was convinced it could only be Chabad,” he says. So investing in Chabad was really part of a conscientious decision about the future of the community. Without Chabad, says Mr. Morrisson, it would only be a matter of time before a traditional Jewish presence in Birmingham would simply cease to exist at all.

In 1993, the Posners hired another young Chabad couple, Rabbi Yossi and Miriam Friedman to work alongside them in Birmingham, a move that served to jumpstart Chabad’s phenomenal growth here in the last decade. A Gan Israel Day Camp was founded soon after, with seven children in a rented space in a bank building, and by the following summer registration had soared, and the need for a permanent Chabad center became apparent.

A building campaign garnered major support from local donors, including the Morrissons, and at two million dollars, the project, which included demolition and the construction of a 12,500 sq foot building, was completed within a year.

In their latest venture, Chabad began a Chai Tots preschool last September, with seven children enrolled part-time. By the end of the school year, there were fourteen students registered, almost all of them full-time, and thirty children are expected to begin next fall.

Three and a half year old Zander Karkim’s mother, Kim, registered him for Friday classes at Chai, to supplement his full-time education at a secular school. But Kim ran into a problem. Zander seemed to be thriving in the Chai environment, and didn’t really care to be anywhere else. “I started wondering what the point was in trying to make this other thing work out when I had something terrific already available,” says Kim, who soon enrolled Zander full-time at Chai.

Thrilled with the results, Kim points to the bright, cheerful environment and the myriad of activities that encourage children to use all their senses to explore and learn. “The teachers have a real ability to connect with the kids,” says Kim, and they bring the subject matter to life “in a very personal way.”

They may not be from the South, but, in true Chasidic tradition, the Posners and Friedmans exude a genuine warmth and openness that jibes well with the Southern hospitality that has greeted them.

“The most important thing,” says David Morrisson, “is that Chabad is here to stay. People here hadn’t expected that, and are really grateful for the level of commitment Chabad has made to our community.”