Four Years in the Wilderness: Clarion and Utah's Jewish Heritage
Out a ways from a unpaved road west of Centerville, Utah (about 130 miles south of Salt Lake City), if you have enough time or know what to look for, you can find a couple of lone grave stones standing isolated upon a dusty knoll overlooking the Gunnison Valley. Each of these protected by guardrails, and each has words written in Hebrew and in English. A little ways west of these markers, closer to the road, are the remnants of a town, cement foundations and scattered bricks left over from would-be homes; dreams that died in the desert. It was once called "Clarion," and some call it that still. As a remarked in a newsletter published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in February 1928, "Salt Lake City is of particular interest to Jews since it is, perhaps, the only place in the world where Christians call themselves Jews and Jews are often called "Gentiles."" Zion was a preoccupation of early Mormonism, in which it was an almost abstract concept with