Dakota Diaspora: Memoirs of a Jewish Homesteader

by Sophie Trupin

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 "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.

Genres: History, Memoir, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1985

Reviews

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written as a series of vignettes, these memoirs are a revelation. In 1904 an enterprising Jewish man sets out from Poland to America, where, instead of settling in a city he pressed on and took up land in North Dakota. He met the hardships of breaking new land and keeping livestock as a challenge, but when his wife and family joined him four years on she was unable to cope with the differences between the new and the old ways. Both worked hard to maintain their Jewish traditions in an alien landscape. Very enlightening and interesting.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this on the recommendation of a creative writing teacher whose father was born to Romanian Jewish homesteaders outside Wing, N.D. in 1908. The baby grew up to be a character in a history I am writing of art in Chicago. Trupin's book is simple and surprisingly beautiful.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a personal recollection of homesteading life in the early 1900's. Written with simplicity, through the eyes of a child. I enjoyed learning more about this families efforts to carve out a life in the new world while retaining their faith and traditions.

[Kara Palley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really needed an editor. Otherwise great.

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir about life on a homestead in North Dakota starting in 1908 and the events that led up to her family's immigration to America.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a Jewish family living in Russia, in a close community. the wife is sheltered and has many people to help her. the husband decided to come to America and start a farm in North Dakota. After 4 years he has enough money to send for his wife and kids. the wife is upset to see the small sod shanty and the fighting starts daily. they never make a go of the farm and he starts a butcher shop in town, not kosher, that upsets his wife. Besides all the usual struggles of the pioneers they have the added burden of trying to keep up with their Jewish tradtions. When the parents are in their 80's they go to live in Israel. It sounds like the life they lead in American is so much worse than what they had until the author points out that their whole extended family was wiped out during WWII.

[Stew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really annoyed that the author left out important biographical details such as the name of her mother, town the left in Russia, etc. But it's still an interesting account of the life of Jewish homesteaders on the prairie.

[Diane Haugen]

I am always interested in the stories of homesteaders in North Dakota. Trupin writes of Wing, North Dakota, which is not far from where my grandfather homesteaded.