The steeple on the building in the right of this photograph, on Hampton Street in Sumter, is that of the Jewish synagogue, next door to the Rabbi's house. There were Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Charleston as early as 1695, and the congregation of Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim was organized there in 1749. Jews moved to the interior of South Carolina as it was developed, and there are records of a Jewish service in Sumter as early as 1801. The gentlemen in front of the synagogue are supervising the building of sidewalks in Sumter around 1920.
Courtesy of the Sumter County Museum Archives.
