A century ago, it was commonplace to find Jewish communities in small towns throughout the American Midwest. But since World War II, these communities have dwindled and their synagogues gradually closed. Not so the B’nai Jacob congregation in Ottumwa, Iowa, as Ryan Schuessler writes:
When the temple was founded in 1915, it numbered several hundred people. Today there are just seven members, and they know the inevitable is looming: B’nai Jacob will soon dissolve, joining the list of small-town synagogues that have disappeared, closing a critical chapter of Iowa’s Jewish story. . . .
The decline of Iowa’s small-town synagogues is tied to the decline of small-town Iowa itself. Iowa’s metropolitan areas have grown by more than 60 percent since 1950 and are now home to the majority of Iowa’s population, and the majority of Iowa’s Jews. On the other hand, rural [areas] and smaller towns like Ottumwa—home to the majority of Iowa’s population a century ago—have seen steady decline.
Ottumwa, founded in the mid-1800s, first boomed as a coalmining hub. As the town and region grew, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe arrived as merchants, opening furniture, shoe, and dry-goods stores. Their children and grandchildren went off to college. Few returned, finding better opportunities elsewhere, as small-town Iowa’s economy collapsed.
Read more on Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/24/iowa-small-town-synagogues-ottumwa-judaism?CMP=share_btn_tw