Shalom, Y’all revealed the story of the Southern Jewish experience through three distinct mediums: 44 black-and-white photographs, a narrative woven into descriptive captions of the photographs, and stories shared by southern Jews about being Jewish in the South. It presented a multidimensional portrait of contemporary Jewish life in the Deep South as it evolved from the early 1700s. The material was drawn from the book Shalom Y’all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South, photographs by Bill Aron with text by Vicki Reikes Fox.
The exhibition, organized by the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum, was based on an original project by the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in Jackson, Mississippi and was supported by grants from Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and the Betty and Ben Lamensdorf Family.