And Prairie Dogs Weren't Kosher: Jewish Women in the Upper Midwest Since 1855

Linking the personal and the historical, Schloff integrates oral accounts, diaries, letters, and autobiographies with original research and interpretation to shed vital new light on the Jewish experience in America's heartland. The book 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.