Much of the country was hit by severe weather last week, including snow, freezing rain, and frigid temperatures throughout the deep South. Texas was particularly hard hit, with major power outages resulting in water shortages that are ongoing. And Senator Ted Cruz found himself in the middle of a P.R. crisis as he and his family left town for a Cancún vacation. Organized Jewish life first began in Texas in the 1850’s, though the first North American Jew known to have been in Texas was Captain Samuel Noah who commanded a Mexican force against Spain at San Antonio in 1811. The current Jewish population of Texas is over 150,000, particularly centered in the larger cities of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso. One significant event in Texas Jewish history was the Galveston Movement. What was that?

Texas by Noé Alfaro is licensed under CC BY 2.0

A. The Galveston Movement grew out of a regional meeting of Reform Jewish congregations along the Gulf Coast, including temples in Houston, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Biloxi. The Reform movement was struggling with the question of whether to maintain rules of Kashrut following the Trefa Banquet in Cincinnati in 1883. This event was a celebration of the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College and was held at a non-kosher restaurant. The Gulf Coast congregations met and decided to discontinue support of kosher rules and established the Galveston Movement to formalize this change and advocate for it among other southern Reform congregations.

B. The Galveston Movement was an effort by owners of hotels in Miami Beach in the 1950’s to capitalize on their success of bringing Jewish New Yorkers to Florida for Passover package vacations featuring seders and kosher-for-Passover food. The hoteliers hoped to attract Jews from Midwestern cities such as Chicago and St. Louis to spend their Passover vacation in the Texas beach resort town. They contracted with Galveston hotels including the famous Beach Hotel and the historic Hotel Galvez to provide rooms, and they arranged for the kashering of the hotel kitchens. While this Galveston Movement initially met with some success, the idea ultimately did not catch on as it did in Miami Beach and the last hotel to offer a Passover package ended the program in 1963.

C. The Galveston Movement was an effort in the early 20th century to divert European Jewish immigrants to an entry at the Port of Galveston rather than Ellis Island, to lessen the burden of huge immigration to cities on the Eastern Seaboard. Financially supported by philanthropist Jacob Schiff, the Galveston Movement saw more than 10,000 Jewish immigrants arrive in the United States at Galveston, from where they dispersed to other southern, midwestern and western cities.

D. The Galveston Movement was an effort to set up bungalow colonies in Galveston for poor Jewish families to escape to during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1905. Jews from Houston, Austin and even Dallas traveled to Galveston where the less crowded conditions and gulf breeze helped stem the spread of the disease. The effort, funded by wealthy German Jews who had settled in Houston beginning in the 1870’s, was geared toward providing safer housing for the recent Eastern European Jews who had emigrated to cities in Texas.

E. The Galveston Movement was a line dance which became popular at Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in Galveston in the 1980’s. Similar to the Chicken Dance, the Galveston Movement was danced to the Glen Campbell hit song Galveston, with movements replicating sea winds blowing, sea waves crashing, and sea birds flying in the sun. At Galveston.

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