Young, Rural, and Jewish
by Mikhal Ben Joseph, UNC Chapel Hill ‘23
Published in The Daily Yonder, August 12 2020
As the only Jew in his elementary school other than his brother, Eli Baldwin had his mom visit class to teach his peers about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. From a young age, Marisa Swanson was instructed to lie about her Jewish faith if anyone in her small town asked. Before it was cool, Abby Craig used Zoom to attend the Jewish youth group that met in a temple three hours away from her home.
About 1 million Jews live in small-town America, according to sociologist Matthew Boxer, Ph.D., of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. One small subsection of them, emerging adults that are now starting or in the midst of college, have a particularly wide array of perspectives on the unique intersection of their religion and geography.
Young rural Jews live on farms in the heat of Mississippi, in small communities in freezing upstate New York, in tiny towns in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada, and everywhere in between. They are Reform, Conservative, converted, and Humanist Jews. Some didn’t know the Jewish prayers until college, while others had virtual Hebrew lessons with their rabbis before the age of 13. Some found friends through MeetJew.com, and others went to Jewish summer camps their entire lives. They are Hispanic, queer, Israeli, partially of another faith, vegetarian, and the children of preachers. Though few and far between, the young Jews of rural America are no monolith.
The tremendous variety in young rural Jews’ lived experience sheds light on the nuances of every small-town’s culture in a way that might not be visible from the surface. There is only one common thread through each story: Like most things in both rural and Jewish culture, it’s complicated.
The following is a collection of stories and statements from young Jewish adults who self-identified as rural on an online forum for college students involved with Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.