Jewish Minnesota Overview

Minnesota’s Jewish Population*: The 2004 Twin Cities’ Jewish Population Study found 10,900 Jews in St. Paul and 29,100 in Minneapolis, an estimated 1,000 Jews live in outstate towns, chiefly Duluth and Rochester. Jews make up less than 1% of Minnesota’s population, and about 1.7% of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Minnesota’s Jewish History in a Nutshell*: Jews moved to Minnesota from other parts of the United States and from Germany in the 1800s. They settled first in Saint Paul, setting up shop as fur traders, cigar traders, and clothing and dry goods merchants, and building Mount Zion, the first synagogue in the state. Once Jews moved into Minneapolis, they founded Shaarei Tov in 1878, which later became Temple Israel. Jews filtered into market towns around the state, and the population in Duluth and nearby towns surged once iron ore was found nearby. There was a large migration to the state after World War II, and in the 1970s and 1980s from the former Soviet Union.

Famous Minnesota Jews: folk singer Bob Dylan (born Bob Zimmerman), Minnesota’s first Jewish United States Senator Rudy Boschwitz, the late United States Senator Paul Wellstone, former United States Senator Norm Coleman, and current United States Senator Al Franken.

Books about Minnesota’s Jewish Community:

• Bittersweet Berries : Growing Up Jewish in Minnesota
• From Havana to Minneapolis: The Journey of a Cuban-Jewish Girl
• Shanda: The Making and Breaking of a Self-Loathing Jew
• The Jewish Community of North Minneapolis, (MN) (Images of America)
• And Prairie Dogs Werent Kosher: Jewish Women In The Upper Midwest Since 1855
• Jews in Minnesota (People Of Minnesota)
• Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance
• Jews in Minnesota Politics: The Inside Stories

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*Thanks to the Jewish Virtual Library for this information.

(Photo of the original Mount Zion Temple, founded in 1856, shown here in 1875. Located at Tenth Street East and Minnesota Street, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)