Appreciating Sol Breibart

As a historian and archivist, I'm sometimes asked how Charleston acquired the sobriquet of "The Holy City."

I've never really found an answer, but I believe it might have something to do with the reverence our city has roused in the hearts and minds of its citizens. Over the years, Charleston historians also have played a worshipful role in enshrining the city in the special niche it occupies in various fields, including religious history. One of our most self-effacing religious historians, Sol Breibart, died Oct. 31.

My first encounter with Breibart was when we both were entering new fields. In 1976, Breibart, a Charleston native and graduate of the College of Charleston and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, took early retirement. He had taught public school for 38 years, mentoring many, including students at Rivers High School, as Charleston belatedly began integration. Looking for something else to do, Breibart turned to his congregation, Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim. He and his beloved wife, Sara, had been members since 1943; there they raised their daughter, Carol, and son Mark. Breibart remembered that historian Thomas J. Tobias had said someone should write a biography of congregation member Penina Moise, the first Jewish American woman to publish a book of poetry.

What started as a duty became a passion, although with his sense of decorum and exactness, Breibart did not like to stray into such emotional fields or vocabularies. Hunting information on Moise, he began searching for archival materials. Thus began Breibart's two greatest contributions to this city: the many articles he published on our Jewish history and the vast Jewish Heritage Collection, housed in Special Collections at the College of Charleston's Addlestone Library, which he was instrumental in founding.

Breibart embarked on his new career as a historian as I entered the archival profession at the South Carolina Historical Society. I witnessed his rigorous self-imposed research regimens; as a tour guide at the synagogue to which we both belonged, I saw Breibart squat on hands and knees to peer up at pews to figure out which had been repaired when columns once supporting balconies were removed. He crawled under buildings, went through attics and bins, disturbing the dust of history and disproving long-held assumptions.

"Getting the details right was enormously important," Breibart's son, Mark, said at his memorial service. "To him, there was a right way and a wrong way. ... Whatever he did ... he always tried to live up to his definition of 'doing it right.' "

He rarely missed the mark. The articles he published were revelations. Letting materials speak for themselves and avoiding the limelight, Solomon Breibart built a temple of knowledge that will outlast us.

I "inherited" many of Breibart's legacies. I helped process some of the rich manuscript collections Breibart saved for posterity. Later, I edited a book of Breibart's articles, made possible by attorney Robert Rosen, one of Breibart's former students, and historian Jack Bass, one of Breibart's fans, of which there are many. All who respect scholarship and integrity and who are fascinated by our past and our city are inheritors of Breibart's largesse.

At his recent memorial service, Dale Rosengarten, curator of the Jewish Heritage Collection, noted that Breibart had requested a single word for his epitaph. Unprompted and in unison, dozens of us supplied the same word aloud: "Teacher." Dale was consoled, she said, that Breibart, who had documented so many lying in the historic Coming Street Cemetery, would now rest among them.

Breibart was born Nov. 8, 1914. Today would have been his 95th birthday. Instead of celebrating that, we can instead remember Breibart for his gifts as we inherit his legacy. I know that Breibart, wanting to do things right, would have found this last thought too sentimental and not at all necessary.

Harlan Greene is college archivist at the College of Charleston's Addlestone Library.

Editor's note: Earlier published versions of this story gave the wrong name in the headline. The Post and Courier regrets the error.