\u201cI was tired and needed a break,\u201d Roston told JTA. \u201cI could have looked to go to the next step up. Instead, we\u2019re opting out. I\u2019d sat at many bedsides and been at many funerals, and my husband and I thought: Life\u2019s too short. Let\u2019s create the life we know we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite its name, there\u2019s nothing really Jewish about Whitefish, a place best known for the 6,817-foot ski mountain that carries its name.<\/p>\n
But as Roston\u00a0starts her second year here, she’s finding herself drawn back into Jewish leadership.\u00a0Over the last year, she has organized Jewish\u00a0holiday celebrations and made Shabbat services and potluck dinners a regular monthly event. She’s also\u00a0been instrumental in facilitating a new, unified Jewish community for the roughly 100 known Jewish households in Whitefish and nearby Kalispell, where there long has been a Reform community but only sporadic meet-ups and no synagogue building. On June 30, Kalispell and Whitefish voted to create a new combined community called Glacier Jewish Community-B’nai Shalom.<\/p>\n
Though Roston is positioning herself as the rabbinic leader of this unaffiliated congregation without walls or membership dues, she is not looking to re-create a rabbinic pulpit so much as to become a facilitator of Jewish life in a place that hasn\u2019t seen much of it before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be the non-Chabad Chabad, the non-Orthodox Chabad,\u201d Roston said. \u201cI want to do things that increase people\u2019s own positive Jewish identity, but also expose the larger community to the Jewish people in a positive way. I\u2019ll be the community\u2019s rabbi, but I\u2019ll also open my own shingle so the things the community wouldn\u2019t necessarily want to do or pay for, more outreach-oriented things, I would do on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Roston\u2019s vision, that means organizing not just services and holiday celebrations but also challah-baking workshops at the local bakery, Jewish storytelling at a local coffee shop, a biweekly Torah study class at a Kalispell diner, an Israeli film showcase and even a Jewish music festival.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy rabbinate has always been about making Judaism accessible, about showing people that Judaism isn\u2019t too difficult for anyone,\u201d Roston said. \u201cHere I get to figure out how I can translate the ritual and make it modern and make it meaningful for people who want Judaism in their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Living as a committed Jew in Whitefish is not without its challenges. For one thing, there\u2019s no kosher meat or chicken here. Roston has visitors bring her supplies whenever possible or she splurges on shipments from Grow and Behold, the Brooklyn-based supplier of pasture-raised kosher meat. She is already trying to figure out how to provide proper bagels for her son’s bar mitzvah next year.<\/p>\n
For another, there are almost no Jews. Roston\u2019s kids went from a Solomon Schechter day school in New Jersey to Montana public schools, where her son waited weeks before he felt comfortable enough to disclose his religion to his classmates.<\/p>\n
Though Whitefish is home to the white supremacist Richard B. Spencer<\/a>, president of the National Policy Institute (\u201cdedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world\u201d), Roston says her family hasn\u2019t experienced any anti-Semitism in Montana — just curiosity.<\/p>\n Roston\u2019s husband, Marc, an investment and private equity consultant, has kept his career, and like many professionals who move here spends a lot of time on airplanes and on the phone. When he has an hour or two of downtime between work calls, he\u2019ll often steal away for a quick hike or bike ride or, in winter, skiing at Whitefish Mountain Resort<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI get to ski like other people go to the gym,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There are other differences to living in Montana. Nobody honks \u2013 ever. Roston does recall that Marc was backing up once and a pickup truck gave him a gentle warning beep. The driver then got out of his vehicle to apologize.<\/p>\n Northwest Montana is almost entirely white and Christian, but Roston says her kids experience more political and socioeconomic diversity than they did back East. When her son brought matzah to school on Passover, a few of his friends said they had gotten some boxes of it from the local food bank.<\/p>\n The main things that drew the Rostons to Whitefish were the slow pace of life, friendliness and access to nature. On clear days, the family can see a couple of the 25 glaciers left in the national park from the deck of the new house\u00a0they bought here a year ago. The park is renowned for its emerald lakes, copious bear sightings and Logan Pass, which at 6,646 feet marks the continental divide and is a favorite spot for sledding as late as the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n Roston says it’s all been a welcome break from the pulpit.<\/p>\n \u201cRabbis, ministers, priests \u2013 there\u2019s a point where you\u2019re giving out and you have to make sure you have enough spiritual energy coming in,\u201d Roston said. \u201cI was really drained. In nature I refuel. I feel more connected with God\u2019s power and presence in the world than I did.\u201d<\/p>\n As for her children, Roston says Whitefish has been good for their Jewish identity.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019ve tried to say to myself and my kids is this is more what the larger world is like,\u201d Roston said. \u201cWe talk a lot about what they believe in and if they stand out and how to speak up for Israel and negotiate their identity in the larger, non-Jewish world. I\u2019m happy that\u2019s happening when my husband and I are with them rather than the first time they leave the bubble and go to college.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she sometimes misses the rich Jewish life available on the East Coast, Roston says the move was worth it overall.<\/p>\n \u201cYour Jewish life is what you make it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")