Jeffrey J. Poelvoorde

Several years ago, I received a “personal” letter (above) from the Ku Klux Klan of Upstate South Carolina. A colleague of mine in my college’s Religion Department had asked me to conduct a model Seder for Passover for her students and had invited a reporter from the Spartanburg newspaper to cover the event. A week later, the letter arrived. I was not frightened or disturbed (unlike my poor mother in Illinois to whom I made the mistake of reading the letter. “Get out of South Carolina!” she pleaded), but I was unsettled… . Continue Reading »