October 6, 2011
Naomi Zeveloff, M.A. '11, wrote a piece for The Forward, “Echoes of Jewish Back-to-Land Movement Under Utah’s Big Sky,” that has since been translated into Hebrew and Yiddish for publication in Ha'aretz and the Yiddish Forward respectively.
The article’s focus is Clarion, a pioneer Jewish farm settlement in the Utah desert in the early 1900s that was, in Zeveloff’s words, “a bold venture, meant to unshackle the Jewish spirit from the fetid confines of East Coast tenement life.”The realities of desert and colony life infringed on the ideals, and the settlement lasted only five years. But to the colonists’ descendants, 80 of whom came together recently for the settlement’s centennial celebration, memories of life on the farm are permanent.“Even though this story is a domestic one, taking Alexander Stille's class on international politics and journalism last fall prepared me to report and write this story about a long-forgotten Jewish farming settlement in Utah,” Zeveloff said.“In Professor Stille's class we talked at length about placing our reporting into both a philosophical and historical context in order to create a richer, more complex read. Since graduating from the MA program in political journalism, I have sought out opportunities to move beyond “straight” reporting to write about the ideas and theories that underlie breaking news events,” she continued. Zeveloff is completing a one-year editorial fellowship at the Forward this year. She has received an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies award for immigration reporting, and three Colorado Society of Professional Journalists awards for excellence in reporting. She was awarded Best M.A. Thesis at the 2011 Journalism Day graduation celebration.
