Anshe Chesed Congregation

Vicksburg's Jewish community began in 1841 as the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation of the Men of Mercy under Bernard Yoste, and it incorporated as Anshe Chesed in 1862. Yellow fever shaped it: eleven Jews died in 1871 and forty-six in 1878, among them the first rabbi, Bernhard Gotthelf. In 1929 at least 17 of the city's 36 dry goods stores were Jewish-owned. The congregation reached 200 households in 1925 and shrank afterward. In 2017 it deeded its synagogue and cemetery to the Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vicksburg National Military Park — 0.3 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.
• Old Court House Museum — 1.4 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 2.1 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.

More markers nearby

• Beulah Cemetery — 1.0 mi
• Rosa A. Temple High School — 1.0 mi
• St. Mary's Catholic Church — 1.1 mi
• St. Mary's Catholic School — 1.1 mi