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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶
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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶

Oral Histories

The SFA oral history program documents life stories from the American South. Collecting these stories, we honor the people whose labor defines the region. If you would like to contribute to SFA’s oral history collections, please send your ideas for oral history along with your CV or Resume and a portfolio of prior oral history work to info@southernfoodways.org.

< Back to Oral History project: Faith and Foodways in Alabama

ORAL HISTORY

Rabbi Stephen Slater

Temple Beth-El

Rabbi Stephen Slater, born in 1983, grew up the son of Baptist missionaries in West Africa. He attended Hillsdale College in Michigan where he studied philosophy and met his wife, Bethany. After marrying, the couple moved to Oxford, England, where his wife completed a degree in Jewish Studies. Next they moved to Israel, where Slater obtained his MA at Hebrew University. He completed his rabbinical training at Hebrew College in Boston.

Slater became the rabbi at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham, Alabama in 2018. He and his wife are very active in the Birmingham community. They host weekly Shabbat dinners at their home and encourage spiritual conversation and personal connections over food.

Interviewer:
Michelle Little

Photographer:
Cary Norton

Download Transcript

“

"We're treating our tables as if they were an altar, is actually what we're doing. All of kashrut is on that premise. It's as if the food were being served in the temple.” - Rabbi Stephen Slater

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