Two calls, a text, and three Facebook messages, all in less than a week. That was how I learned about B’rith Shalom, South Dakota’s first Jewish student culture club at South Dakota State University. You see, for years, I had been known as “The Jew.” Growing up in the middle the Sioux Empire, we were something of an anomaly. People never seemed to truly know how to handle me. I was a novelty, a joke, a curiosity. My friends accepted my oddities, but it was still the first thing that was announced when I was introduced. “This is my friend Andy. He’s Jewish” is one of the most common introductions I receive. This truly never bothered me, I was a unique jewel (pun intended) in the desert of white Christian middle class that is Brookings, South Dakota. Most people’s understanding of Jewish culture and traditions began and ended with South Park. I was “Just like Kyle! Oh my God that is so awesome!” for most of my life (sadly this also lead to far too many Cartmanesque reactions of blaming me for everything).
The only time where I felt out of place or uncomfortable was one time when I happened to be hanging out with my friend (he was working at a bookstore at the time), I took the day off work for Rosh Hashanah and visited him at work. While we were talking, three Lutheran pastors happened to come in and overhear our conversation and the reason why I wasn’t at work that day. The next hour turned into a gauntlet of me explaining my knowledge of everything Jewish and why I followed kosher laws / kept holidays / didn’t spend money on Saturdays. I managed to have answers acceptable enough that they left before the preaching started. However I decided I wanted to make sure that should such a situation arrive again, I would be prepared.
So imagine my surprise, after years of being the token Jew, there it was in black and white. A front page article in the student newspaper, The Collegian, A Jewish culture club on campus. There were other Jews in South Dakota! And not only that, there was a club! My friends made sure I saw the paper, one of them who worked at the paper even messaged me the contact info for the president. I emailed and found out when the next meeting was. I was extremely nervous to meet them all, but that was quelled by my excitement. The meeting itself was an interesting one— the club was in its infancy, the president, Tim Hanna, had grand ideas of us eventually building up our membership to the point that we would be able to have a house off campus for student’s families that came for visits. There were seven people at that initial meeting. We had a long way to go before we would be opening a house.
Our first semester was spent trying to get official recognition from the university. We were made a Hillel Chapter early on, but SDSU had stricter regulations and needed longer to approve the club. We didn’t have enough members to have our constitution signed by the required amount of students. In the end, the Muslim club of SDSU stood up for our us and signed us into existence. We only had a few small hurtles to jump through after that. One of those was going in front the Student Association. During said meeting, they went over our constitution, which states that officers must be of Jewish descent, and one of the members of the Student Association asked us how we knew whether is someone was Jewish or not. Our president, without missing a beat, replied “Well, at birth, we are given a card that says ‘official Jew’…” The room silently nodded along, not realizing the joke until they were told so. While the joke was hilarious, it also displayed the level of unfamiliarity that the student body had of the Jewish culture and people. It was after this meeting that Tim approached me and asked me to be the club Executive Officer, which was my first foray into club leadership .
The next semester we had monthly meetings and met for all the major holidays. We even had Eva Kor, a Holocaust survivor, come and speak at the university.
We volunteered to drive her back to her hotel (which was an hour away). That drive was something I will never forget. Getting life advice from someone that has lived through and experienced as much as she has was truly a magical experience. Towards the end of the spring semester, we faced a difficult challenge. Half of our members were graduating or moving onto graduate or Ph.D. programs, including our president. Tim approached me again and asked if I would be willing to take up the torch. I jumped at the chance. I wanted the opportunity to change what people know about how Jews persevere in South Dakota. I could think of no better avenue to pursue that wish then the opportunity this club provided.
This semester, we have begun inviting non-Jewish students to our holiday meals. Recruiting has been our primary mission as our membership fell steeply last year. We have setup stations in our Student Union, as well as reached out to our campus paper again for a follow-up piece. Our journey will be a long one, but I feel we are on the right track.
Andy Engelmann is a student at South Dakota State University.
