On today's show...
Two centuries ago, Rebecca Clarren's Ashkenazi Jewish family was prohibited from owning land in their Russian homeland.
When they came to America, the promise of "free land" brought them to South Dakota.
Clarren heard stories of her pioneer relatives throughout her childhood, but she never heard any stories about their Lakota neighbors. Once she was struck by that realization, she decided to re-examine her family's story.
The result was her investigative memoir "The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance." The South Dakota Humanities Council selected it as the 2025 One Book South Dakota.
The SDPB studio in Rapid City was Clarren's first stop on her author tour. She sat down with SDPB's Lori Walsh to discuss the monetary leg-up that the land offered her family while the people it was stolen from were denied the same privileges.
