Family of Isaac JACOBS and Ruth BASS

Traveling salesman for Jacobs' Hosiery Company; loved Jewish

traditions especially going to shul and praying, fixing things

including prayerbooks at shuls; loved to fix things; weeding,

gardening; felt great love for his Creator; taught children great

respect for parents

Ruth Bass graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1943 with

a Secretarial Science Certificate. She was working for the South

Carolina State Board of Health in Columbia when she met Isaac Jacobs,

a travelling salesman for Jacobs Hosiery Company based out of

Charleston. Bass and Jacobs were married in 1951 and raised six

children in Charleston. The Jacobses were members of the Brith Sholom

Beth Israel (BSBI) Congregation. On August 9, 2007, the Charleston

Jewish community and the Jewish Historical Society lost a dear friend

and colleague. Ruth was tolerant, nonjudgmental, resilient,

intelligent, humble, compassionate, not materialistic, empathetic,

kind, caring, hospitable, wrote Rabbi David J. Radinsky, who knew the

Jacobs family as their rabbi and personal friend for over 37 years.

The best listener in Charleston, BSBI Rabbi Ari Sytner

declared in his eulogy. Born and raised in North, Ruth was the third

of seven children of the only Jewish family in town. Moreover, her

parents were the only foreignborn people in North. Ruth s mother,

Esther, came to America with her family from Poland when she was two

and her father, Nathan, immigrated alone at age sixteen from a

village in Lithuania. Ruth's early Jewish life revolved around family

and Tree of Life Reform Temple in Columbia. In 1951 she married Isaac

Jacobs of Charleston, where the couple raised a family of five

daughters and two sons. As her children became more observant, Rabbi

Radinsky reports, she and Isaac encouraged them and also became more

observant of the Torah laws and traditions. Ruth had a great feeling

for Judaism and truly was a spiritual person. She loved Jewish

history and loved to record it. Dale Rosengarten, curator of the

Jewish Heritage Collection at the College of Charleston, recalls Ruth

as her first assistant. She would arrange interviews and then come

along with her video camera, determined to document peoples lives in

images as well as words. She taught herself how to use a computer and

helped transcribe our oral histories.