The Rabbis Go South Ep. 1 goes live!

Boston—September 16, 2024—The team of independent podcast producers at Hub & Spoke sends its heartfelt congratulations this week to Gerald Peary and Amy Geller, the documentary filmmaking team who this week launched their first podcast, The Rabbis Go South. You can hear Episode 1 of the show now at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, CastBox, Overcast, PocketCasts, and other platforms.

The Rabbis Go South is a seven-part series telling the little-known story of three decisive days in June, 1964, when 16 rabbis answered the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to join forces with civil rights activists in St. Augustine, Florida. The rabbis were arrested and jailed, in the largest incarceration of rabbis in American history up to that time.

The dramatic series follows the rabbis from a conference in Atlantic City to their ordination by Dr. King in a St. Augustine Black church as "Moses's people." Listeners experience the story through the exciting first-hand accounts of two surviving rabbis, Allen Secher and Jerry Goldstein, now in their late 80s, and Floridian Black activists like James Jackson and Audrey Nell Hamilton.

“At a time of unprecedented divisiveness in America, The Rabbis Go South offers a bit of hope in its story of a Black/Jewish alliance during the Civil Rights movement,” Geller says.

Peary and Geller’s previous work includes celebrated films like The Guys Next Door and The Rabbi Goes West. Their new podcast was made possible through grants from Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Southern Jewish Historical Society, and generous private donors including Louis Black (founder of South by Southwest) and Joyce Saltman.

The Rabbis Go South is the first show launched as part of the Hub & Spoke Expo, our new platform for featuring limited-run podcast series created by independent producers in collaboration with the Hub & Spoke audio collective. We’re proud to offer the Expo as a home for producers both inside and outside the industry who share our vision of curiosity, craft, and above all, a commitment to independence.

Says Peary: “We are honored to find our first attempt at a podcast gets the Hub & Spoke seal of approval and an invitation into the Hub & Spoke biosphere. What a thrill!”

New episodes of The Rabbis Go South will be released every Monday from September 16 to October 28. You can find them at hubspokeaudio.org/rabbis or wherever you get your podcasts.