Recently deceased state lawmaker shined a light on South Dakota’s Jewish heritage

Adelstein died Aug. 10 and his memorial service was held Tuesday, Aug. 18. Age and declining health kept him mostly out of the public eye in recent years. His obituary highlights his time in the South Dakota Legislature from 2001 to 2013, where he represented a Rapid City district in both the House of Representatives and then the Senate, doing a job he loved.

I will leave it to others to write about  Adelstein’s legislative legacy. As a newspaper reporter who wrote a lot of religion page stories, I knew him mostly because he was always eager to share his Jewish heritage and traditions with the wider, non-Jewish public. I often picked up my telephone at work to find Stan, or his longtime assistant Kati (followed later by another assistant, also named Katie) on the other end of the line. He invited me to Hanukkah celebrations, Menorah lightings, Passover Seder meals, synagogue events and, once, to a demonstration on how to blow a shofar, the ram’s horn that is part of Jewish High Holy Days rituals. Because of Stan, I also wrote food stories about potato latkes, matzo balls, Jewish chicken soup, and much more.

He knew all about South Dakota’s rich Jewish history. As his son, Daniel, and his granddaughter, Shirley, said in their eulogies, he lived his life in gratitude for the “accident” of being born a Jewish child, free and safe in the United States in the 1930s, when so many others were born into the danger and death of Hitler’s Europe. That gratitude informed a lifetime of public service and philanthropy.

The American Jewish Year Book estimates that there are now about 765 Jewish people in South Dakota. That’s less than one-tenth of one percent of the state’s population. Back in 2013, the year that Adelstein left the South Dakota Legislature, there were about 350 Jews in the state. Precisely because it is the history of such a small faith community, he did not want Jewish life and culture to be forgotten or go unacknowledged among South Dakota’s much, much larger Christian population.

Stan liked to shine light on the things he considered important, including himself. He had a healthy ego and liked attention, but it was often in service to the larger common good. That was the case when he shone a light, literally, on the historic mural artwork that adorns the ceiling of the state House of Representatives. As a freshman legislator, Adelstein wondered why the 1910 Charles Holloway mural, “Peace,” was so hard to see from his desk. His curiosity led to the discovery that the mural wasn’t actually dirty or in need of restoration, but rather that it had never been properly lit. Working with capitol building staff, Adelstein hired an art restorer and donated the price of that fee, along with the costs to purchase and install new floodlights on the artwork, from his own family philanthropy fund.

Like much of Adelstein’s philanthropy, it all happened very quickly. He saw a need, and he met it. Now the mural is seen and enjoyed by anyone who visits the House chambers. It’s amazing what a little light, and a little money, can do for a problem. Stan knew that, and acted on it often to benefit the people and places he cared about. I’m betting his light will shine through those gifts for generations to come.