Language:
English
Pages:
243 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Year of publication:
1996
Keywords:
Jüdin
;
USA
Abstract:
"[My parents] got tired of eating potatoes, and prairie dogs weren't kosher." - Isadore Pitts, son of Jewish immigrants to South Dakota, about 1913 Linking the personal and the historical, Linda Mack Schloff integrates oral accounts, diaries, letters, and autobiographies with original research and interpretation to present the little-known story of the Jewish experience in America's heartland. And Prairie Dogs Weren't Kosher uses the voices of four generations of Jewish women who settled in Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, and Wisconsin to show how they transported and transformed their cultural and religious life in a region inhabited by few Jews. As the wives of fur traders and homesteaders, storekeepers and professionals, they were the key link in creating Jewish homes and helping their families fit in - often under harsh conditions. But in the process of becoming Jewish Americans, they also carved out new roles for themselves as jobholders, synagogue-builders, and social activists.
