History Department

Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities
Overview >> north carolina >> brevard
Brevard, North Carolina

Brevard, North Carolina was first settled in the early nineteenth century by Scots-Irish immigrants.  Many of these early pioneers were attracted by the rich soil, abundant game, and vast amount of natural resources in the area.  Most of these original settlers became farmers and worked the land.  In 1861, the area’s population was large enough that Transylvania County came into being.  Some of the residents, Alex England, Leander Gash, and Braxton Lankford, jointly donated fifty acres to create a town.  It was called “Brevard” in honor of Ephraim Brevard, a surgeon and colonel in the Revolutionary Army.   Around the turn of the century, a railroad was built through the county, greatly expanding the logging business.  After World War I, a paper manufacturing plant opened up on the edge of the Davidson River, bringing the first modern industry to the county.

Jewish life has been sporadic and minimal in Brevard until recent years.  A small number of Jewish merchants lived in Brevard in the early 20th century, but they did not set down deep roots in Brevard and never formed any kind of Jewish community.  Thus, the story of Brevard’s Jewish community began only a few years ago.

It started when native New Yorker Norman Bossert got tired of traveling an hour each way to attend services in Asheville and wanted to find a group of people with whom he could get together and study Torah.  In the spring of 2001, he and his wife, Shelley, put an advertisement in the Transylvania Times which read: “Are you Jewish? If so, call Norman Bossert.”  Bossert expected just a few responses, but he ended up having nearly sixty phone calls.  Most of the people were from Transylvania County, but some were even from neighboring Henderson County.  Many of the people who called were just curious, but, after about a month, Norman was able to arrange a meeting, thus beginning the Brevard Jewish Community.

Thirteen or fourteen people came to the first meeting and they agreed to meet at someone’s house for Friday night services.  Soon, more calls came and the group realized that a person’s living room would not be big enough.  Father Carl, of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in town, offered the group their social hall on Friday nights and now they meet at, what some of the Jews call, “Sacred Hearts Synagogue.”  As of 2005, the Brevard Jewish Community had about 100 members.

Usually Norman Bossert and Marvin Barg, lead the weekly Friday night services, even on the High Holidays.  The group follows the Reform tradition and uses the Reform prayer book. Sometimes the service has more Hebrew than English, and sometimes it has more English than Hebrew, depending on who shows up for the service. There is no formal religious school, but the community does hold educational classes and invites children to take part.  A few of the families drive their children to religious school in nearby Asheville, North Carolina. In 2007, the Brevard Jewish Community finally raised enough money to buy a Torah, and also constructed an ark for it.  They are in the process of sewing two different mantles for the scroll.  According to the group’s website, they are “a small, hamish community of Jews of different backgrounds meeting Friday nights for Torah study, worship and fellowship in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina.”

While in most other southern states, small town Jewish congregations are either declining or extinct, the Brevard Jewish Community is a remarkable example of small Jewish communities popping up and flourishing in the rural towns of 21st century North Carolina.