The Jewish community of Fargo, N.D., dates back as far as 1880, when a man by the name of Alex Stern arrived and provided the town with its first clothing store. Since then, the Jewish population has continued to grow and feed their talents and ambitions to a hungry city. One of these men, a prominent lawyer and political activist named Harry Lashkowitz, helped solidify the community and gave North Dakota new insight on the Jewish people.

Hebrew

       Shtrom, landt, fun berger-keyt,
                 Mit frayhayt-klang

Translation:

          From every mountain side
                 Let freedom ring
                
                     Lyrics from My Country ‘Tis of Thee

     The history of Jewish settlement in Fargo dates back to the late 19th century. The first immigrants to arrive into the area, though few in number, made a great impact. They were middle and upperclass German-Jews who were well-educated and from more sophisticated backgrounds than their non-Jewish neighbors. The majority of the Jewish immigrants came to America to escape the persecution and oppression they were faced with in their homelands of Russia and Eastern Europe. Many other Jewish immigrants came to Fargo after facing the discouragement of unsuccessful farm colonies in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Hebrew

       Artza alinu
    K’var charashnu vegam zaranu
                    Aval od lo katzamu

Translation:

          We have gone up to our land
        There we have ploughed and sown
                   But we still have not reaped.
                                                        —unknown
 
    From The History of Jewish Immigration

     Hebrew:
             “Azoyfil lider hob ikh gehert
               Nor ale hobn mir deresn
               Nor eyn lid iz mir geblibn
          En ekkh ken im nisht fargesn”

     Translation:

               “I’ve heard so many songs
               But I’ve tired of them all.
          One song alone has stayed with me
               And I can’t forget it”

     — By Bella Gottesman

     Harry Lashkowitz was born in 1889 in the city of Kamentz-Podolsk, in the southern Ukraine. At the age of 6, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, Isadore and Bessie. The Lashkowitz family spent nine years in New York City before moving to Fargo, where Isadore owned a modest butcher shop. After finishing high school, Lashkowitz returned to New York City, where he attended the City College of New York. He then went on to graduate from the New York University School of Law in Brooklyn. Thereafter, Lashkowitz returned to Fargo and began his own private law practice. While running his practice, he taught commercial law at the North Dakota Agricultural College until 1917, when he married Etta Levitz and started a family. They had four children: Hershel, Loraine, Jane, and Shelley. The youngest of the four, Shelley, who now lives in Colorado, remembers his childhood in Fargo as “far from the prejudice of the bigger cities.”