| OCR Text |
Show I N THE WINTER OF 1980, when the sun struck through a slice of December sky and a brown sparrow stalled long enough to feast upon a peanut- butter- and- rolled- wild- birdseepdi necone-compliments of my seven- year- old- this very same child rushed home at the close of school d r a ~ n g behnd hm a tinsel- matted, star- studded Christmas tree. " It's an orphan!" he yelped. " Can we keep it?" My son's plea to bring a tree indoors might not have been unusual in a house in need of and bereft of Christmas ornamentation, but that was not our house. Ours is a Jewish home with its own won-drous holidays and celebrations, such as the lighting of the Sabbath candles on Friday nights and holi-days; Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year greeted with traditional sweet foods symbolizing the sweet year to come; Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year; the festival of Succot, a thanksgiving for the bounties of our har-vest, when we build- as a symbol of the Israelites' 40- year journey through the wilderness to the promised land- a temporary sukka decorated with greenery, fruits, and vegetables; and more.. . . In a vast state where mezuzahs on doorposts may be few and far between, raising a family and living a Jewish life in Utah's " land of Zion" is lively, ful-filling, self- sustaining, and always challenging. In the 184Os, newcomers to the land west of the Missouri River found a new frontier for adventure, diversity, courage, and experiences that would de-fine more fully the western character that exists today. Having been driven away from western Illinois by the tumultuous force of persecution, Mormons made their flight to Utah driven by a need for reli-gious liberty. Jews came to the West driven by a need for economic opportunity and a sense of per- - - sonal freedom and adventure. A half hourpreviously, if anyone had suggested to me the probability of my undertaking an overland journey to California, even over the emigrant route, I should have replied there was no inducement sufficiently powerful to have tempted me. Yet, in this instance I acted impulsive-ly.. .~ assedm y word to join an exploring party, under command of Colonel Fremont, over hitherto untrodden country, in an elevated region, with full expectation of being exposed to all inclemencies of an arctic winter. - Solomon Nunes Carvalho, on telling his wife Sarah and their two children about his plans to leave civilization Seven years after Mormon pioneers settled in the Salt Lake Valley, Solomon Nunes Carvalho, a Se~ hardicJe w from North Carolina, traded his studio a- p - p oint-ments photographing southern gentry for a differ-ent assignment. He joined Colonel John C. Fremont's ex~ editionto the Far West as the nho- 1 1 tographer who would capture the country's panoramic vistas and inhabitants on daguerreotype plates. The West was a world he had never known be-fore. A devout Jew, Carvalho celebrated Rosh Hashanah on the trail with " horse soup and horse steaks fried in buffalo tallow." A talented artist, he drew his first snowfall in the Rocky Mountains and believed he was standing in the " vestibule of God's holy temple." An adventurer, Carvalho witnessed fifty pack ani-mals tumbling headlong down a snowy mountain. He was forced to sleep out in the open snow with no covering- s but a blanket. He almost drowned in icy waters. He almost lost his way in the snow- cov-ered mountains of southern Utah. Facing death by starvation, Fremont's party pledged a " solemn con-tract" against cannibalism. Carvalho thought often of his children. In his thoughts and in his journal, he talked to his wife, thanlang- her for all that she had done, all that she had given to him, especially for the special teas and medicinal brandy tucked into his traveling bag. When he thought he could no longer put one foot in front of the other, he thought of how to say goodbye. Fortunately, the Fremont party was rescued. Emaciated, frost- bitten, and suffering from dysen-tery, Carvalho found salvation in the little Mormon settlement of Parowan. He survived to become, - - - 1- m most likely, the first Jewish person to find refuge in that some of the young Israelites were drawing nearer to Utah. Moses. We mean it. Carvalho eventually returned to his family in the - Salt Lake Telegraph, October 11, 1864 East. But for the Jewish people who would remain In the years before Utah became a state, there and raise families in dus new frontier, Utah's West was a strong but small Jewish presence in the ter-was beckoning. Although they were isolated and ritory. In the more populated areas of Salt Lake away from their extended families and the religious City and Ogden, visiting rabbis and local savants traditions that shaped their days, Jewish emigrants conducted religious services in private homes. Even found in Utah the opportunity to make their own without a synagogue or temple, the community had decisions: in occupations, in politics, in lifestyles, enough members for a minyan, and they had a and in religious preferences among the differing strong commitment to revive an old faith in the movements of Judaism. new frontier. In 1883 But traveling the long distance to Utah also posed the earlier arrivals in many challenges. How could these early pioneers Utah- primarily Ger-observe dietary laws corlsislent with their faith? man Jews- reated How could one man hold a minyan, a service that B'nai Israel, the city's requires a quorum of 10 men over the age of 13? Reform congregation. In And, once they had raised enough money to settle 1904 the Orthodox con-in this new territory, what could Jewish bachelors gregation Montefiore do to persuade reluctant parents to permit their was established by Rus-daughters to join them in territory that seemed sian and Polish Jews untamed and dangerous? who had fled anti- Semitic persecution and the hor- Several months after Carvalho's leavetaking, rific pogroms of Eastern Europe. young Jewish pioneers like Julius and Fanny Brooks loaded up their possessions and joined companies of wagon teams and freighters coming West. They 1904 " Both my grandfathers were from Eastern traveled on trails that, while dangerous and some- Europe," said Utah- born Gail Bernstein Ciacci. times fatal, were intense with new vistas, new experiences, and hope. Eventually becoming Utah's were peddlers. Isaac Stere% first ~ ~ resid~ ents, tihe ~ fatherh, had tr aded fur pelts with the Indians. Later, he Brooks family threaded opened a grocery store on Ninth South above Third East. Grandpa Joseph Bernstein had been on his way to fmd gold the tapestry of early Jew-when he, like so many others, stopped in Salt Lake City. life and business in As was the way of the times, Jewish people would seek out Lake. daughter other Jewish people for a kosher meal and news. That's married the ' On when thesepeople told mygrandfather that the Gold Rush of another early promi- days were long over. They gave him pencils- or shoe-nent Utah Jewish pioneer laces- and told him to learn English so he could sell his family, the Auerbachs, wares on the corner of First and Main. And that's what he and as more Jewish new- did at first. Over the years, though, he bought a horse and comers arrived to make a living and raise families, wagon and traveled all over the country selling vegetables the Jewish community took root. and fruits. Ifhe went too far, he'd stay with people overnight- but he would always be back home in time for 1864 Shabbes [ the Sabbath]. He always made it home on time. The respectable portion of our Israelite citizens com-menced the celebration of the Atonement at sundown on Sunday and held over till the going down of the same orb. Being without a synagogue, the faithful met in the house of one of our East Temple merchants and commemorated the High Priest entering the holy of holies to make atonement for the sins of the people.. . . We have respect for the reli-gious sentiments of all men, whatever we may think of their interpretations. We should be nothing somy to learn When my father, Abe, was a young boy, he was given a wagon too. And he'd go along. They worked hard and long hours; and they had to, because in those days it took hours to go even a short distance with a horse and buggy. Every-body in the family worked hard- especially the women. Grandma Gussie Bernstein, who not onlyplaced doilies on every piece of furniture in the house but had a reputation for being an excellent cook, kept a fruhm kosher kitchen and took in Jewish boarders. She was an educated Jew who wrote letters in Yiddish to family and fiiends throughout the United States. She was president of the Talmud Torah, a women's club at Congregation Montefiore. And she was a strict, no- nonsense type of woman with her hair pulled back in a tight bun. Whenever we went to her house, we had to behave. With the belief that " agriculture will make la-borers instead of paupers, bread producers instead of bread beggarsy'- and with funds from both the gently the farmers worked, historian Robert Gold- - - berg wrote, " their fate was as uncontrollable as the water, and their circumstances eroding as fast as the soil. " The land took its toll on the women and chil-dren, too. They were away from extended families and friends and separated from their traditional Jewish lifestyle. They were strangers in a strange land. And always the colony wasjn need of money. Simon Bamberger, who later became Utah's only Jewish governor, bought lumber for their homes Jewish Agri- and outbuildings. Salt Lake City Jewish businessmen cultural and Co- like Samuel Newhouse, Henry Cohn, and George lonial Assoc- Auerbach reached out to help with more funds. iation and The Mormon church aided too by buying bonds. Jewish individu- Yet even with this help and more, the land by its als- 14 Rus- very nature could not be bought. One failed season sim- born men, followed another, and within five years, marginal women, and land, lack of water, harsh climate, isolation, and I children left the crowded urban cities of the East. They traveled to a southern desert near Gunnison, Utah, to usher a dream into reality: the creation of the farming community of Clarion. Unaware of Utah farming conditions, the immi-grants sought help from Mormon neighbors, Utah State Agricultural College, and Jewish friends in the East and in Salt Lake. ' Let us make a go of it," en-thused colonist Joseph Furman, ' and you'll see the whole people returning to the land." The families worked steadily, and by the fall of 19 1 2 more fami-lies had moved to Clarion, bringing the population to 68. Hopes were high. Men in Russian workers' caps and peasant blouses could be seen in the fields ev-ery day, building towards their future. But Clarion was a d~ fficulitf not impossible piece of land to cul-tivate. One farmer said that the terrain resembled the sides of a " large saucer." Another said that the " raw earth" was bare of trees. Some of the ground was covered with sagebrush, shadscale, and tall, thin grasses; other patches had no vegetation at all. The farmwork was a communal enterprise, and harvests were shared. But problems never stopped plaguing the colony. The farmers plowed and plant-ed wheat, oats, corn, and alfalfa; they dug irrigation ditches to water the crops, but little or no water was forthcoming. As if that were not enough, the winds were harsh, the mosquitos abundant, and the dust storms almost constant. No matter how dili-inexperience sealed Clarion's destiny. Life became difficult, colonist Abe Wreck said; " Many of us no longer had any flour to bake bread.'' By 1 9 1 6 the coloniza-tion of Clarion had ended. But the lega-cy of their work still endures, and the West beckons ever more. 9 T ' - 1939 In 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, and Mich-ael Shaf, now a Salt Lake City pediatrician, was caught in the roundup of the Jews. He will never forget what he lived through. As he speaks, he lives through it again. Weeks after World War I1 began, German tanks and bombers brought Poland to its knees. When they occupied his hometown of Bedzin, the Germans locked hundreds of Jews in-side the synagogue and set it afire, burning them to death. At age 12, Michael watched his grandparents herded into a railcar. A year later, he was picked up in a raid by SS troops and sent into five years of ' forced labor. Michael says that he owes his life to a German civilian engineer. Almost every day, this man- who wore a Nazi Party pin on his lapel- would smuggle food to me. He never looked at me, but every day he would approach me, look around to make sure no one could see him, and drop a sandwich behind the barbed wire fence where 1 was standing. We never exchanged a word. We were never allowed to. I don't know what would have happened to him had he been caught. He took a risk. A great risk. And he did this every day. This man- whose name I didn't even know- saved my life. 1999 Reform congregation Brith Sholem opened its doors in Ogden in 192 1 . Currently, it is Utah's old-est continuously operating congregation. In 1972, the two Salt Lake congregations merged to form Congregation Kol Ami (" All of My People"). Add-ing to Utah's diversity are the Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch synagogue, Bais Menachem, and the re-constructionist movement, Chavurah B'Yachad. Judaism flows not in the shadows of any other religion but in the hearts, minds, lifestyles, ser-vices, and attitudes of its believers. For poet and professor Jacqueline Osherow, living a Jewish life in Utah is an ideal life. " There aren't a thousand of you here, so if you want something done as a Jew, you have to do it. And you have to participate, because if you don't, things won't happen." Raised in a traditionally Conservative home in Philadelphia, as a chlld Osherow did not ride any-where on Saturdays. Nor did she write. She did play Scrabble and kept score by turning the pages of a book: " If you had 40 points and you got anoth-er 20, you'd turn to page 60," she explained. To-day, her children lead a similar life. " The Jewish calendar defines our life. Judaism defines our week. It defines my year. It defines how our children are raised. It defines our plans. And it seems to fit withn my writing." And what has been the impact of Utah upon Judaism? " Living here near the mountains, the canyons, and the national parks, you can see how closely related nature and Judaism really are," Osherow remarked. Utah has made me understand the incredible thrill of living in such a physically beautiful world. And I think it's very likely because I live in Utah that I started going to synagogue every week and getting so involved in the Jewish com-munity. I want my kids to know who they are, and I want them to appreciate and live that life. A Jewish life. In the tapestry of Jewish life in Utah, the many celebrations and holidays remind us of its richness in tradition. The joyful winter celebration of Chan-ukah and its festival of lights that brighten up the Jewish home is an expression that faith in God and a belief in liberty can triumph against tyrannical forces. Then there are the spirited festivities of Purim, which commemorates the deliverance of the Jews of Persia from destruction. The festival of Passover, celebrated as " the reason of our freedom" from slavery. The springtime festival of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Torah to the Jewish people. And more.. . . As for our family, in the winter of 1 980- in keeping with our personal belief in nature and Judaism- the orphan tree was propped up out-doors in a snowbank left of the front- room win-dow. It stood there, elaborately covered with peanut- butter- and- rolled- wild- birdseed pinecones, compliments of Adam. Eileen Hallet Stone is the director of Common Ground Productions. She is also co- author of Missing Stories: An Oral History of Ethnic and Minority Groups in Utah. Utah jews of the American West, film and book, is her current pro-ject. Sources Author's personal interviews with Esther Landa, 1990; Gail Bernstein Ciacci, 1996; Dr. Michael Schafir, 1999; and Jacqueline Osherow, 1999. All interviews held in Salt Lake City. Bertram Wallace Korn, ed., Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the For West, by Solomon Nunes Carvalho ( Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954). Robert Alan Goldberg, Back to the Soil: Thejewish Farmen of Clarion, Utah, and Their World ( Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986). Photos p. 32 Solomon Carvalho p. 33 Auerbach brothers' Main Street store, SLC; B'nai Israel Temple at 249 South 400 East, SLC ( Robert C. McCrea photo) p. 34 House at Clarion; Bert Jensen at Clarion cemetery, 1966 ( Everett Cooley photos) Below: Members of Montefiore congregation; left to right: Francis Slater, Howard Marcus, Marjorie Segal, Harold Grossman, Josephine Clark, Marjorie Newman, Harold Glaser, Robert Schubach. |
