S. Dakota gets a rabbi after years without one

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — South Dakota’s small, tightknit Jewish community has made do without a rabbi for several years, but the state’s status as the only one with no rabbi will change this winter when a family arrives from New York to open a Jewish community center.

Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz and his wife, Mussie, will open a Chabad House in the coming weeks in Sioux Falls that will offer religious education, worship services and other programs. Alperowitz will also travel across the sparsely populated prairie state to reach as many Jews — observant and nonobservant — as possible.

“This is really a great time for us,” said Alperowitz, who previously traveled to South Dakota as a visiting rabbi. “It will be an open home. Our primary goal is to help ensure that there isn’t one Jew in the entire state of South Dakota that feels lonely and disconnected and that every individual feels at home and inspired by our traditions.”

The house will host social and cultural activities for children and adults, including events for women only. Alperowitz will lead Hanukkah activities in the state when the holiday is observed next month.

The first Jews to settle in what is now South Dakota established themselves in Deadwood during the gold rush more than 150 years ago, finding a niche selling hardware, groceries, dry goods and more. By 1920, the state was home to some 1,300 Jews. But that community is estimated to have shrunken to about 400 people. Alperowitz, however, estimates the number is closer to 1,000.

South Dakota’s last rabbi, Stephen Forstein, arrived in the late 1970s after the rabbi at the Sioux Falls synagogue died.

Chabad-Lubavitch, which runs the houses like the one that the Alperowitzes will lead in Sioux Falls, is a movement within Orthodox Judaism. It is active on college campuses and in cities around the globe.