Source: Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/09/1867956/traveling-rabbi-serves-tiny-southern.html
As the sun inched below the horizon in the Mississippi River town of Natchez, people arrived alone or in small groups and walked up the steps of Temple B’nai Israel on Shabbat.
Only about a dozen Jewish residents remain in Natchez, a city of about 16,400 best known for its elaborate plantation homes. As younger generations moved away, the congregation hasn’t had its own full-time rabbi since 1976.
With a circuit-riding rabbi visiting on this Friday night, about 80 Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists joined their Jewish neighbors and helped fill the wooden pews of the 105-year-old temple.
Rabbi Marshal Klaven gave people an extra 10 minutes to slip in before the service, joking that under “Jewish Standard Time,” it’s not unusual to run late.
“This is Shabbat. It’s a time of joy. It’s a time to get to know one another,” Klaven said. “So I invite you right now: Go and say hi to somebody you don’t know. Say, ‘Shabbat, shalom,’ which means, ‘The Sabbath, peace.’ ”
Klaven, 31, serves small Jewish communities in 13 states across the South, from Oklahoma to Virginia and from Kentucky to the Florida panhandle.