The secret Jewish history of the Jews of North Dakota

Three terror attacks in Israel in past day, shellfish at frat house was prank by Jewish student, new book explores Biden-Bibi bonds, and unique Lower East Side shul is only one like it in Western Hemisphere.

Jewish headstones in an abandoned graveyard in North Dakota. (Courtesy Joyce Greenberg)

By Benyamin Cohen August 31, 2023

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In remote North Dakota, the remnants of a little-known Jewish history

On the eve of the centenary marking the passage of the 1924 Immigration Act — the law that slammed shut the door on “undesirable” foreigners seeking to immigrate to the U.S. — the history of shtetl-born Jews who sought to redeem the land not of Israel, but instead North Dakota, bears telling.

Go west: The great river of East European Jewish immigrants — more than 2 million — flowed into America between the early 1880s and mid-1920s. Though most settled in New York, several thousand found their way to the Great Plains, staking claim to 160 acres with the promise that, after five years of back-breaking labor, the land would become theirs.

Open spaces: These settlers had escaped the densely populated world of the ghetto, marked by shared religious and cultural traditions, for a world free not just of antisemitism, but free of most everything else they had associated with normal life.

Ox, not lox: “Prevented by laws from owning land in Czarist Russia, few Jews had known the life and learned the skills of farming,” writes Rob Zaretsky, a professor of history. “Most were traders or peddlers, wholly dependent on the commerce provided by close-knit communities nestled in urban ghettos or rural villages.”

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2010. (Getty)

Biden decided to ‘smother Netanyahu with love’ during 2021 Gaza conflict, new book claims: Biden told his advisers that he wanted to build some trust with the Israeli leader, knowing from experience that criticism would merely push Netanyahu away. “He was going to hug Bibi tight,” writes journalist Franklin Foer, whose book about the first two years of the Biden presidency comes out next week. Read the story ➤

Distinct from the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions, welcome to the only Romaniote synagogue in the Western Hemisphere: The 96-year-old shul on the Lower East Side is home to the descendants of Jews who settled in Greece after the Spanish Inquisition. “They are a minority within a minority within a minority,” said Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, the museum director at Kehila Kedosha Janina. Read the story ➤

Plus…

Popular misogynistic podcasters are dabbling in antisemitism. Emily Tamkin explains why in a new opinion essay.
A Jewish college professor who teaches on Rosh Hashanah is wondering if he should cancel classes. Alan Dershowitz responds in this Bintel Brief advice column from our archives.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Israeli security personnel cordon off the area the site of an attack Wednesday night in Jerusalem. (Getty)

?? Terror attacks in Israel: An Israeli man was killed and five others were wounded in a truck-ramming attack at a checkpoint Thursday morning. (Times of Israel) … Four IDF soldiers were wounded while inside the occupied West Bank city of Nablus Wednesday night, after being targeted by a large explosive device detonated by Palestinian fighters. (Times of Israel) … An Israeli man was wounded in a stabbing attack Wednesday night at a light rail station in Jerusalem. The assailant was a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, who was shot and killed by police. (Haaretz)

? Longshot Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy backtracked on his proposal to cut American aid to Israel, telling an Israeli newspaper this week that he would only stop sending funds if Israel asked him to. (Algemeiner)

?️ Iran banned a weightlifter for life after he took a photo with an Israeli athlete at an international competition in Poland. Iran forbids its athletes from competing against Israelis, including at the Olympics. (JTA)

? A minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government reportedly wants to deny press credentials to foreign journalists critical of Israel. (Haaretz)

?? Papua New Guinea is expected to open an embassy in Jerusalem next week. At the moment, the U.S., Guatemala, Honduras and Kosovo have embassies in the Israeli capital. (Times of Israel)

✍️ Sefaria, the digital library of Jewish texts with 650,000 monthly users, is launching a new project that will allow anyone to participate in the writing of a Torah. (eJewishPhilanthropy)

? An update to a story we shared yesterday about hundreds of shellfish being tossed onto the property of a Jewish fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley. It now appears it was a prank by a Jewish student. (YnetNews)

Shiva call ➤ Elissa Czuker, a philanthropist who served on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition, died at 53. A prominent member of the Beverly Hills Orthodox community, the mother of nine supported a variety of organizations including the American Society for Yad Vashem, ArtScroll, Israel Bonds and Chabad.

What else we’re reading ➤ Archaeologists find mysterious 2,800-year-old channels near Temple Mount in Jerusalem … Rep. George Santos, the self-described Jew-ish congressman, led a life in Brazil at odds with his GOP politics … How Joyva candy became a staple of Jewish households, mahjong tables and Passover celebrations.

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ON THE CALENDAR

Alan Jay Lerner (inset) and the cast of ‘My Fair Lady’ on Broadway. (Wikimedia)

On this day in history (1918): Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner was born in New York City. Lerner, along with Jewish composer Frederick Loewe, wrote 15 Broadway musicals including My Fair Lady and Brigadoon. An assimilated Jew whose family owned the successful dress shop business, Lerner Stores, Lerner was the Harvard classmate of President John F. Kennedy, who would later champion one of Lerner’s best known musicals, Camelot.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Getty)

Across the globe Wednesday night, people walked outside to see a “Super Blue Moon,” a rare confluence of a “Super Moon” and a “Blue Moon” that won’t happen again until 2037. Here’s a picture of what it looked like rising over Israel.

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Thanks to Rebecca Salzhauer and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

Hope you have a fantastic day.

Benyamin Cohen is news director at the Forward. He is the author of two books, My Jesus Year and The Einstein Effect, and has written for The New York Times and The Washington Post. He lives with his wife in West Virginia with their three dogs, a cat and a flock of chickens known as the Co-Hens.

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