Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In Greenville, Miss., last month's 13th annual Delta Jewish Open — a combination golf tournament and reunion for Delta Jews — is a major social event.

But amid the celebration, there is also a realization among the several dozen members of Hebrew Union Congregation that this year began without a full-time rabbi. In fact, that leaves only one full-time rabbi in Mississippi.

The struggle of small, isolated Jewish communities is something Macy Hart grew up with. He summed up the Goldring Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life in one sentence: "I've got a dream of trying to find a way to bring services to small and isolated Jewish communities."

The institute, which is the newest inception of that dream, was unveiled for the first time at a black-tie gala in New Orleans in September.

As Rabbi Robert Loewy of Gates of Prayer congregation in Metairie, La., finished Havdallah, the announcement went out, "Shavua Tov [a good week], let the party begin."

Seeing the institute move from the concept stage to the daily reality gave many Southern Jews reason to celebrate. Hart is the institute's president and driving force, and sees it as a unique opportunity to bring the Jewish community together, "to look at where all the Jews are in the United States and attempt to create a common agenda."

He hopes the institute will be replicated throughout the country, since the needs of small communities are mostly the same whether in the South or beyond. "What we hope to do with the 12-state region is create a model" which others will follow and perfect.

The institute will serve Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.

William Goldring, chairman of the Goldring Family Foundation and the Woldenberg Foundation, said they went along with the project "having the confidence in Macy and understanding what the objectives are all about."

He added, "this project continues to touch me like few others we have helped."

Though the institute is new, Hart said "the concept has not changed since the inception" of his work among the Southern Jewish communities.

As part of the only Jewish family in Winona, Miss., he was involved in efforts by the Southern Federation of Temple Youth to persuade parents to build a summer camp in the region. After graduating from the University of Texas in 1970, he became the first director of the Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Miss.

The next year, Vicksburg's Anshe Chesed Temple, which had moved into a smaller building, asked Hart if he wanted the ark from the old building before the building was demolished. That was the beginning of a collection of artifacts rescued from old synagogues throughout the region.

In the 1980s, Hart started working on a place for the Judaica that had piled up at the camp. Thus was the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience born.

When he became camp director, there was no institutional history to guide him or restrict him. "Everything we did was new to us, and that launched the spirit of this community, realizing it could survive and prosper."

The camp also paved the way for a project like this because it "was instrumental in helping the Southern Jewish community develop a sense of backbone, that against all odds they could have a Jewish life and Jewish experiences."

As an example of that determination, the Jacobs Camp manages the unique challenge of filling its beds every summer despite needing to attract fully one-fourth of the Jewish children in its region.

In the last decade, the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience has developed three photo exhibits of Jewish life in the Deep South. Other projects have included cemetery restoration, oral histories, preservation of extinct or near-extinct congregations, and major public exhibits like 1998's "From Alsace to America."

The institute will have several major components in three areas: programs, Judaic services (divided into rabbinical services and Jewish education) and the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience.