Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr. and the German Torah Scrolls of B’nai Congregation

May is Jewish American Heritage Month, an annual recognition and celebration of American Jews' achievements and contributions to the United States of America. It is also part of the inspiration behind our May (5/12/2026 at 10:30 AM) meeting of our monthly “World War Tuesday” coffee and conversation series. The other part is, to me, a pretty amazing “small world” story.

As the History Center’s “Outreach Historian,” a good part of what I happily get to do at my job is research local history and write and present about it in a variety of ways. One of those venues is this column. Others are monthly visits to local senior living facilities to talk about local history. One of my favorites is World War Tuesday. Sometimes I research and present a program myself, but I often try to get guest speakers who can offer their own unique perspective on events of the Second World War.

Since I’m always looking for new ideas for topics and speakers for these programs, my Central Library co-worker Larry “Taz” Sanchez, who took Hebrew language classes at the B’nai Zion Congregation in Shreveport, suggested I might ask their rabbi Jana DeBenedetti to speak. Taz told me something I’d not heard before: On display in the congregation’s foyer was an ancient Torah scroll (the sacred scroll containing the five books of Moses) that had been hidden from Nazis during the Holocaust in Germany’s Bavarian region. In 1938, the synagogue in the small town of Bad Neustadt was ordered to be cleared out by the Nazis, who commandeered the building for grain storage. A Christian farmer in the small town hid the Torah under the floor boards of his barn. When the war was over, no Jews remained in the town. The farmer presented the Torah to Jewish Army Chaplain David Lefkowitz, Jr. who had been sent to the Bavarian region to both minister to Jewish American troops as well as preside over the reconsecration of synagogues, including Bad Neustadt’s, which had also been used as an ammunition dump. The farmer requested that Rabbi Lefkowitz bring the ancient Torah back to his home congregation in Shreveport, where it could again be a central part of life of a congregation.

Before contacting Rabbi DeBenedetti, I decided to first do a little research and found some Shreveport newspaper articles that mentioned “the German Scroll”, as well as Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr. who served the congregation from 1940 until his retirement in 1972, and continued to serve as Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 1999. He served as a chaplain for the US Army Air Corps during and just after WWII in Europe in from 1943 until 1946. As I read about Rabbi Lefkowitz and all that he did and saw during his service (in addition to reconsecrating synagogues and serving troops, he helped displaced Jews in Europe, and performed the blessing of remains of the victims at the Dachau concentration camp), I became intensely curious about his story, and wondered if there might still be family members or others who’d remember him or know his story well. And then…one of the articles, by late local historian Eric Brock mentioned by name one of the three children that Rabbi Lefkowitz and his wife Leona raised in Shreveport. I about fell off my chair when I saw the name of his daughter, Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, who was one of my favorite professors years ago when I was in college in Massachusetts!

If you want to learn more about this story, please come to World War Tuesday on May 12, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. with B’nai Zion’s Rabbi Jana DeBenedetti and a virtual visit with Rabbi Lefkowitz’s daughter, Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor Emerita of History and Professor Emerita of American Studies at Smith College. World War Tuesday meets every second Tuesday of the month at 10:30 a.m., so if you can’t make this one, please come to another. Please note: Starting Monday, May 4 the History Center, located inside the Bossier Central Library Complex, will be closed for up to two months while our new exhibits are installed. This means that our exhibit and research area will be closed, but we will continue to hold World War Tuesday and other programs in the Central Complex meeting room.

You can contact us at 318-746-7717 or 318-746-1693 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org The Bossier Parish Libraries Central Complex is located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. For other intriguing facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog at http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr. on Victory in Europe Day. Photo from collection of Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
• Photo of the German Torah Scroll, courtesy Rabbi Jana De Benedetti - B'nai Zion Congregation.

Article By: Pam Carlisle

Larry Freeman and the Jewish Journal

 May is Jewish American Heritage Month, an annual recognition and celebration of American Jews' achievements and contributions to the United States of America. Here’s a fun fact for that month. The second largest Jewish newspaper in the state of Louisiana, the Jewish Journal, was once published in ‘old downtown’ Bossier City, a.k.a. “the East Bank.” A warning though – some of this story is absolutely not fun, due to the world news that the Jewish Journal was diligently and urgently relaying outside Nazi-occupied Europe as the events unfolded, the Nazi persecution of Jews.

The Jewish Journal began as a monthly publication in Shreveport in 1937 by Larry Freeman, who was a member of the Agudath Achim congregation of Shreveport, that was "published in the interest of Jewish communities." Freeman had lived in Shreveport for several years but was originally from London, England.

The Jewish Journal was not only important for local news, but for news of Jews around the world. News of the atrocities committed against Jews by the Nazi regime was often slow to make its way to the US, and could be met with disbelief or denial. The tragic truth of 1937, the year the Jewish Journal was founded, is that it was the year the first Nazi concentration camp opened, Buchenwald. But an early managing editor of the Jewish Journal, Adolph Phillipsborn, knew first-hand what the Nazis were capable of. He was a Jewish refugee from Germany who arrived in the US in early 1939, not knowing English. Within two years, he was a writer (with a pen name, “Albert Philp”), editor and a speaker to civic groups such as the Bossier Lions Club, urging them not to do business with Nazi Germany.

The Jewish Journal used the Jewish equivalent of a syndicated news service like the Associated Press or the United Press that was called the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), to gather worldwide news of Judaism and Jewish-related topics. Unlike the UP or AP in late 1939, the JTA was dispatching stories directly from Poland on the rapid intensification of Nazi Germany’s persecution of Polish and other European Jews. Nazis had invaded Poland by September 1st that year; in mid-October, Austrian and Czech Jews were deported to Poland, and by October 28th, the first Jewish ghetto was established in Poland.

In the November 28, 1939, Jewish Telegraphic Agency collection of dispatches, a statement from the Jewish Journal of Shreveport praised JTA reporter Mendel Mozes, who was based in Poland before managing to escape in late 1939, when he had no other choice. The Jewish Journal opined, “If ever a list of American-Jewish journalistic exploits is compiled, high on it must come the name of Mendel Mozes…For his courage and achievements, the Jewish Journal salutes Mendel Mozes, hero of Jewish journalism.”

In September 1945, Larry Freeman purchased the Bossier Tribune, the weekly news publication based out of Bossier City, and its printing shop at 309 Barksdale Blvd., from T.L. Morris for an undisclosed amount. Freeman announced plans to “give Bossier City a complete worthwhile paper, a publication that will devote every effort and influence toward civic, religious, education and industrial upbuilding of the town.” He also announced the Tribune’s commercial printing department would become, “the Twin City Printing Company” and would be expanded. Soon, he was printing the Jewish Journal on his new printing department in Bossier City.

Larry Freeman, along with his wife, Anne Freeman, remained in the local newspaper business for the rest of his life, and also worked to develop and grow downtown Bossier City. He passed away in 1988 at the age of 80. His paper the Bossier Tribune continues as the Bossier Press-Tribune (it merged in the late 1970s with its competitor the Planter Press, and with two north Bossier papers in the 1990’s.) Sadly, the Jewish Journal has not continued, and it is very difficult to come across issues of the paper. Low-quality microfilmed images of two issues from 1941 are available from the Arkansas State Archives in Little Rock, and two issues, from 1944 and 1950, exist in the Eric Brock collection at the Northwest Louisiana Archives at LSU-Shreveport.

If you have any issues of the Jewish Journal, or other documents, stories or photos of religious and community life of Bossier Parish, we would love to add to our History Center’s research collection. Contact us at 318-746-7717 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other intriguing facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok.

Images:

• Photo of Larry Freeman that accompanied the announcement of his acquisition of the Bossier Tribune. Photo from The Shreveport Journal, September 12, 1945.
• Along with such publications as the Bossier Tribune and the Jewish Journal, Larry Freeman published the Barksdale Observer, starting in the late 1940s. Clipping from the August 6, 1961, Bossier Tribune.

Article by: Pam Carlisle

The Purim Ball

 The Purim Ball

May is Jewish-American Heritage Month. An early founder of the local Jewish community is Jacob Bodenheimer, who took advantage of opportunities in the newly-formed frontier parish of Bossier in the 1840s. Jacob had been born in Europe, likely Germany, but the location is not certain and neither is his date of birth, thought to be around 1810. His port of entrance to the United States was unspecified in his naturalization documents, though family lore says it was New Orleans.

Jacob Bodenheimer (c.1810's-1864)

 He was a traveling peddler of high-end wares and eventually opened a mercantile business in the town of Bellevue, Bossier Parish’s first parish seat. He married Eliza Weil, herself a Jewish European immigrant. The couple raised a family while also operating a hotel in Bellevue. Jacob’s hotel served the needs of attorneys who traveled to do business in the rural parish seat, and the Bodenheimers operated a livery and the stage coach depot, as well. On top of all these ventures, Jacob served briefly as Mayor of Bellevue.

Bodenheimer enthusiastically encouraged Jewish settlement in    the area, praising the region’s virtues in his correspondence with family and friends. Jacob’s niece and nephew, Fanny and Lazarus Bodenheimer, came to Bellevue in 1851. Jacob gave Lazarus his first job, probably as a clerk in the store.

 Jewish worship in private homes in nearby Shreveport began in the 1840s. Though no record shows Jacob owning property or living there, Jacob was noted as a founding member of Shreveport’s Jewish community. For a Jewish service to be held at that time, a quorum of ten men needed to gather to form a minyan, so likely he would have traveled across the river. Some congregations now allow women to make up the minyan.

Jewish residents in Shreveport maintained friendly relations with their non-Jewish neighbors during the Civil War and in the years that followed. The holiday of Purim commemorates the defeat of Haman's plot to massacre the Jews as recorded in the book of Esther. Dates of the festival vary according to Jewish calendar, but it is observed in the spring. In the upcoming year it will be celebrated Monday, March 6, 2023 through Tuesday, March 7, 2023.

Purim is sometimes called Jewish Mardi Gras, or even Halloween, although those descriptions lack the nuances of the holiday’s meaning. Purim’s traditions of drinking, costuming, and farce offer opportunities for challenging the religious system, but in a controlled structure. At the same time, consequences of losing control or behaving “outside the norms” are balanced by customs of giving charity (Tzedakah) and special gifts to friends and neighbors (Mishloach Manot).

An inter-religious Purim Ball in Shreveport was held annually from at least 1872 to 1882. However, a Purim Ball was advertised as early as March 11, 1868 in Shreveport’s South-Western newspaper. At an event hosted by the Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Association, the newspaper reporter stated, “The dance was kept up until the small hours of the morning, when all retired much pleased with the night’s enjoyments.” The writer said hopefully, “May the members of the Association live to give many more such entertainments to their friends.”

In 1872, the Shreveport Times reported that “our amusement loving Israelitish citizens are inaugurating a novelty in Shreveport.” In March 14 of 1872, the paper stated that this ball “will be the grandest affair ever before seen in this community. We have had plenty of balls here before, but a masked ball is something new and it takes like wildfire with our fun-loving community.” The writer also recommended

that as additional incentive to attend, potential revelers and costumers should take a look in the window of P.F.L. Frank’s Jewelry Store to see the two prizes, one for best costumed lady and one for best costume on a gentleman. Newspaper stories about the Purim balls show that to win one of the coveted prizes, a ball-attendee will likely need to be willing to act their part, and not just dress it! In 1875, “Captain Levy,” likely Simon Levy, the partner of Lazarus Bodenheimer and son-in-law of Jacob Bodenheimer, was listed as a judge of the costume contest.

As is Purim tradition, revelry was not the only object of the festivities, but also charity. The Times in March of 1873 reported of the ball, “The proceeds will be devoted to a most commendable object, and Jew and Gentile should be prompt to contribute to it.” The article doesn’t say to what object, but other Shreveport Purim balls have mentioned the money raised went to places such as orphanages, the Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, or a synagogue building project.

The event became a highlight of the Shreveport social calendar for the following decade. In its heyday, the Purim balls and feasts offered the Jewish community a chance to share their culture as well as promote fellowship between different groups. The ball of 1877 featured an opera depicting the Purim story performed by a company from Marshall, Texas, with the king and queen named Ahasuerus and Esther straight out of the story. The 1875 ball was apparently such a delight that the writer in the Shreveport Times of 28 March (with questionable appropriateness) admitted to feeling strangely grateful for the vile villain Haman, as the commemoration his defeat became the source of so much amusement.

It is uncertain why the public Purim Balls came to an end, but in ensuing years, Shreveporters tended to celebrate the holiday privately within the Jewish community and its congregations.

If you have any information, stories, or photos about the Bossier Parish Jewish community or the Bodenheimer family, we would love to add to our History Center’s research collection. Contact us at 318-746-7717 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other intriguing facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and @bplhistorycenter on TikTok,.

Article by: Pam Carlisle