Sholom and his family moved west, with the comforting thought that although it was not what he had envisioned, his new occupation was also a community service – providing Jewish communities with a basic staple that met the highest standards of Kashrus – Jewish dietary law.
Initially, Sholom settled his family in S. Paul, MN and made a weekly commute to and from Postville. Despite the difficulty of putting a 3 hour commute between himself and his family, seeing them only over the weekend, the community of S. Paul could provide the quality Jewish education he insisted upon for his young children, and that consideration outweighed the difficulties.
After three years, Sholom took the first tentative steps towards the creation of a local Jewish community in Postville with the opening of the Postville Cheder, an elementary school. A Mikveh and a Minyan having been in place for the commuting Rabbis since the plant opened, all the necessary ingredients for Jewish communal life were now in place, and the community began to blossom.