6 Surprising Facts About Jewish Utah
Unlikely Supporter: Brigham Young donated land to create Salt Lake City’s first Jewish cemetery Image by Charles Roscoe Savage
1. Brigham Young, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, donated land to create the first Jewish cemetery in Salt Lake City.
2. Simon Bamberger became Utah’s fourth governor after he was elected in 1916.
3. In 1934, students at the University of Utah created an anti-fascist group to “defend minority rights in Germany.” In that same year Elbert D. Thomas, senator of Utah and former professor from the University of Utah denounced Hitler.
4. The first Jewish woman to serve in Congress was born in Salt Lake City, to Polish Jewish immigrants. Florence Prag Kahn served from 1925 to 1937.
5. Jewish comedian and actress Roseanne Barr, grew up in Salt Lake City.
6. Mormons ran afoul of Jewish authorities by trying to posthumously baptize Anne Frank in 2012.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
-
Culture What a lion, a rabbi, and a dog taught me about grief
-
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
-
Art How a Lower East Side Jew conquered the multiverse
-
Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal,’ Nathan Fielder fights the removal of his Holocaust fashion episode
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward A Jewish city attorney is going after pro-Palestinian protesters. Her Oct. 7 tweets are making it complicated.
-
Fast Forward Kehlani responds to Cornell concert cancellation: ‘I am not antisemitic’
-
Fast Forward David Horowitz, ’60s radical turned right-wing firebrand and critic of Islam, dies at 86
-
News Pro-Nazi singer sells out Zagreb arena as Croatia’s collaborationist past sheds its taboo
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.