Talk about pies in the face

Soupy Sales (alav ha-shalom) "was born Milton Supman on Jan. 8, 1926, in Franklinton, N.C., where his was the only Jewish family in town. His parents, owners of a dry-goods store, sold sheets to the Ku Klux Klan." (WaPo)

Eli Evans, author of the indispensable book on Jews in the South, The Provincials, once told an interviewer:

"Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is the most extensively written about aspect in much of the literature about Jewish life in the South. But the history of Jews in the South lies not in cross burnings, bombing, acts of overt anti-Semitism and violence. It is a story animated by hope, reflected in the indomitable spirit of immigrants who worked for pennies to bring over their families in the faith they could build a life in America. Jews have prospered in the South despite their religious differences and the spasms of violence and demagoguery that mar its history. One of the reasons lies in an emotional and psychological reality at work in the psyche of the Christian community. I call it a 'reverence for Jews' and it has not been deeply explored or understood. To many Southerners, Jews were the chosen people, and had a Biblical dimension to them."