Stanford M. Adelstein: A Jewish Life in South Dakota

As a Jew in South Dakota, Stan Adelstein “has long encountered certain questions like ‘How did you end up there?’ or ‘There are Jews in South Dakota?’” says author Eric Steven Zimmer, who worked with the Rapid City politician in the 442-page Kindle and Audible book at Amazon, complete with a preface by Adelstein himself.

        Adelstein became the face of Judaism in rural America.  At the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology where he sometimes taught, he was frequently called upon to speak to Jewish faculty candidates from the Northeast states who couldn’t comprehend what Jewish life would be like outside their familiar urban enclaves.  How can I practice my religion without the reassuring presence of a synagogue and cultural network? they would ask.  In his travels around America and the world, he would have to show people where South Dakota was on the map.  In Israel with David Ben-Gurion in 1965, the prime minister asked “The Question Is Why?”  It became the central theme of the book.

    Adelstein explained to him “that carving out a life of purpose on the South Dakota plains was his mission as a Jew.”  The book provides a much-needed example of how religion need not by kept private and minimal in one’s larger social and political life.  Adelstein’s story traces his genealogy and career as a successful Rapid City businessman and engineer.  He liked to meet with fellow veterans at the Black Hills Veterans Writing Group, now the South Dakota Military History Forum.  The book often transcends local affairs to illustrate Adelstein’s participation in national history over the decades, but most of all remains a perceptive chronicle of western South Dakota that shouldn’t be forgotten.