Dakota Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader

Name: Huh! Jews in North Dakota?
Item: Dakota Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader
Rating: 4
Author: Thriftbooks.com User

by Sophie Trupin

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Book Overview

To most Jewish immigrants New York was America. Not many ventured as far as North Dakota at the turn of the century. Sophie Trupin writes of her father and other Jewish farmers who came to the northern plains: "Each was a Moses in his own right, leading his people out of the land of bondage--out of czarist Russia, out of anti-Semitic Poland, out of Romania and Galicia. Each was leading his family to a promised land; only this was no land flowing with milk and honey--no land of olive trees and vineyards."

Dakota Diaspora adds a little-known chapter to the saga of the settlement of America. In a series of vignettes Sophie Tmpin recalls her childhood in "Nordokota," where her father built a sod house and farmed a quarter-section of rocky land before opening a butcher shop in the town of Wing. Against that background plays out the perennial conflict between her father; who had escaped the violent anti-Semitism of his native Russia and found here a man's freedom and dignity, and her mother; who felt "trapped, betrayed and helpless in this desolate land," far from her roots in the Old Country. But out of the struggle to bring in the harvest, survive the blizzards, and maintain a kosher home, a warm family life developed, as well as a sense of community with Jewish neighbors on scattered homesteads.

Format:Paperback

Language:English

ISBN:080329414X

ISBN13:9780803294141

Release Date:November 1988

Publisher:Bison Books

Length:160 Pages

Weight:0.45 lbs.

Dimensions:0.4" x 5.3" x 8.5"

Related Subjects

Ethnic & National History Humanities Jewish State & Local World

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Huh! Jews in North Dakota?

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago

Dakota Diaspora is a lovely book which tells of the author's experiences as a child growing up Jewish on the prairie. From Russia to "Nordakota" Ms. Trupin attempts to understand her parents and their motivations for leaving the "known" for such a great "unknown." She draws mostly upon her own childhood memories, rather than gathering first-hand accounts from her parents. I found the ending somewhat disappointing because we don't find out if the author was able to maintain her Yiddishkeit, which her mother was so concerned that the children would lose without a strong Jewish community. A great book for those looking for a good biography. As a Torah-seeking Kansan, I appreciated reading about a turn-of-the-century Jewish family who departed from the well trodden paths to New York and Chicago in order to live on the land AND maintain a Torah lifestyle.

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Dakota Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader

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