Since the earliest records, the city’s Jewish residents have played an active role in politics and local business, said College of Charleston historian Dale Rosengarten.
Rosengarten said Meyer Jacobs, a member of Beaufort’s Volunteer Army, became the city’s first Jewish mayor in 1831. After the population of Jews in Beaufort quadrupled between 1869 and 1919, the majority of storefronts along Bay Street were owned by Jewish families, she said.
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