{"id":1575,"date":"2025-06-14T18:07:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T22:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/?page_id=1575"},"modified":"2025-06-14T18:07:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T22:07:56","slug":"austin-thorndike","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/austin-thorndike\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Thorndike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/AustinThorndike.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/AustinThorndike.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1612\" style=\"width:334px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/AustinThorndike.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/AustinThorndike-225x300.jpeg 225w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><strong>About the narrator:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Austin Thorndike was born and raised in rural Maine and has spent his entire life in the state. Currently a maple producer and logger in Avon, Austin shared his journey of discovering Judaism and the reasons behind his conversion. During the interview, he discussed his active involvement in the Waterville mikvah\u2014serving as the ice harvester and organizer\u2014and provided insights into Jewish life in rural Maine, including how his local community has grown and bonded over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this excerpt from his interview with Jack Weinberg on January 20, 2025 at Colby College, Thorndike describes how his lumberjack skills helped support the community mikvah, leading a collaborative effort to cut and transport two tons of ice with help from Colby students, synagogue members, and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/THORNDIKE_EXCERPT.wav\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Transcript:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a lumberjack by trade, so&nbsp;luckily I have the skillset. Everybody at the synagogue has a skill set and we mesh together like a perfect puzzle.&nbsp;You&#8217;d never think that a chainsaw would come in handy at a synagogue, until you cut ice for a mikvah.&nbsp;I had done it previously.&nbsp;We have cut ice for a bunch of different reasons. So I knew a chainsaw would work perfectly.&nbsp;And I used a pair of log tongs and it just kind of grips the ice. Rabbi [Rachel Isaacs] was there, and she pulled the first piece out, which was awesome. And then the Colby Woodsmen&#8217;s team showed up, and the rugby team came out, and a bunch of members of the synagogue were there.&nbsp;I would cut the ice with the chainsaw, and then I&#8217;d just kind of push it to the center. And they&#8217;d grab it with the tongs, put it on a sled, drag it off the ice, and then I had metal cages on a trailer. And the Colby kids would grab it out of the sled, and stack it in the trailer.&nbsp;So we do all that, we get all the ice harvested. We had to have a certain amount of weight; I think we needed two tons of ice, something like that. And so, we got this trailer loaded up. And my family has a log yard, so we had these drive-on scales.&nbsp;I had weighed before, so I knew what the trailer weighed, and the truck with the metal cages, and then I drove on with the ice blocks.&nbsp;We all would like to dial it in really, really close onwhat we needed for weight. And we ended up going back and filling Rabbi&#8217;s truck up, and then&nbsp;brought it up and schlepped it into the mikvah.&#8221; &#8211; Austin Thorndike<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Austin Thorndike&#8217;s full oral history interview is available through Colby&#8217;s Special Collections &amp; Archives. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the interviewer:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jack Weinberg is a junior at Colby College studying mathematics and economics with a concentration in financial markets. This was his first oral history interview. As the captain of the crew team and someone currently considering a Jewish Studies minor, Jack brings a unique perspective shaped by his upbringing in a conservative Jewish household in New York City. He connected with Austin over their shared experiences with Judaism and found common ground through their unexpected link to logging, a part-time summer job Jack has also done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reflecting on their conversation, Jack shared that he views the opening of the mikvah in Waterville as a sign of a broader shift in Maine\u2019s religious landscape, noting that \u201cseeing a move towards religion\u2014especially one that doesn\u2019t go out and try to convert people\u2014was fascinating.\u201d He was especially struck by the strength of rural Jewish communities, and how their growth has even influenced local school curricula and public displays of solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About the narrator: Austin Thorndike was born and raised in rural Maine and has spent his entire life in the state. Currently a maple producer and logger in Avon, Austin shared his journey of discovering Judaism and the reasons behind his conversion. During the interview, he discussed his active involvement in the Waterville mikvah\u2014serving as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18487,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1575\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}