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Virginia, Farms for Jewish Refugees: 19th Century Russians, 20th Century Germans

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Thanks to a participant in the Haberman Institute webinar on Baron Hirsch, whose question about Jewish farming projects in Virginia sparked my interest, and to Albert Sherman for sending me an article on the nineteenth-century Virginia venture, inspiring me to prepare this post.

Thanks also to Robert H. Gillette for providing so much information about the Hyde Park Farm for Jewish refugees in his book the Virginia Plan, William B. Thalhimer and a Rescue From Nazi Germany. and to Michael Caplan for his documentary film Stones from the Soil, which follows his search for the Gross Bressen farm in Germany, where many of the refugees who later settled in Virginia in the 1940s had trained.

Do click on the links below for much much more, and fascinating, information.

Virginia’s First Jews

As related in the Jewish Virtual library, “The Jewish experience in Virginia dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh’s ill-fated Roanoke Colony, then a part of the Virginia territory when Joachim Gaunse, a Prague metallurgist, landed with Raleigh in 1585.”

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home, first restored by Commodore Levy, from National Park Service

A few other Jews trickled in. Among the most notable, Jacob Myer accompanied George Washington in his 1754 expedition across the Allegheny Mountains. Dr. John de Sequeyra, of Williamsburg, was credited by Thomas Jefferson with introducing the custom of eating tomatoes and Commodore Uriah P. Levy of New York  purchased and began the first restoration of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in 1836.

Virginia Seeks Immigrants

After the Civil War had so devastated much of the South, the Commonwealth of Virginia, looking at least in part to replace the free labor of slaves, decided to include increased immigration in its recovery plans.

This 1868 article describes Virginia’s efforts to recruit immigrants at Castle Garden in New York (the forerunner of Ellis Island).

On February 5, 1866 the legislature passed ‘An Act to Incorporate the Virginia Land and Aid Immigration Company….To purchase or lease lands in Virginia, to be resold or relet to immigrants; [and/or]To act as agents for the sale or leasing of lands, in Virginia, to immigrants.

“By May of 1866 the [Company] was advertising in the Richmond Examiner that it was sending a Director abroad to secure tenants and laborers.”1

Waterview Colony for Russian Refugees

From an article describing the life in the Waterview colony from the Baltimore Sun of April 9, 1883. Read the whole article here. (Zoom in)

In the early 1880s when the great wave of Russian Jewish emigrees began, Joseph Friedenwald, a German Jewish Baltimore businessman, bought 783 acres at Waterview in Middlesex County, Virginia, on the banks of the Rappahannock River, where he settled 72 Russian Jewish refugees. They were to raise tobacco, corn, oats, wheat and rye. But the settlement seemed to disband after only two years.2

A Colony That Never Made It

New York Times, August 27, 1908, page 4.

Then in 1908, Rabbi Leonard Levy, Chairman of the Jewish Agriculturalists‘ Aid Society, bought 2000 acres near Richmond, planning to settle Russian Jews as farmers.3 But it seems that never happened.

Hyde Park Farm

The Thalhimer store in Richmond, Virginia. See a video on the history of the 26 stores here.

In 1938, inspired by his earlier visit to Germany where he was horrified by the violent anti-semitism, William Thalhimer, owner of the Thalhimer department store chain, based in Richmond, established a farm for young Jewish refugees on Hyde Park Farm in Burkeville, Va. Listen to Robert H. Gillette discuss the Hyde Park Farm experience at this link.

Gross Bressen to Hyde Park

Gross Bressen students unloading a hay wagon. From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of George Landecker

The approximately 30 young Jews that came to Hyde Park had been students at the Jewish Emigration Training Farm at Gross Breesen on Germany’s then eastern border, a farm that was the property of a wealthy Jewish landowner. The farm was part of a movement to give young Jewish Germans skills they could use after emigrating, or as hoped by some, to change Jewish occupations in the hope that they would be more acceptable to other Germans. Read all about Gross Bressen in this article by Heidi Landecker, the daughter of a Gross Bressen participant who then went to Hyde Park Farm in Virginia.

The Gross Bressen Experience

Curt Bondy

Gross Bressen was led by the forward leading psychologist Curt Bondy4 who was recommended for the post by the famous Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. In the evenings, after the students spent the days learning farming skills, Bondy taught crucial subjects, resilience, mindfulness and the importance of strong characters,

Jewish men captured on Kristnacht, Nov. 9, 1938, line up at Buchenwald’s special camp set up for these mass arrests. photo from U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Life at Gross Bressen was almost idyllic until November 9, 1938, Kristalnacht. On that night the German SS raided the farm and carried off most of the students and Bondy himself to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Buchenwald had yet to become a death camp so after 30 days the group was allowed out with the proviso that they all leave Germany as soon as possible.

Members of the Gross Bressen group left for Australia, Palestine, Kenya, England, Argentina and Hyde Park Farm in Virginia. It wasn’t easy to obtain U.S. visas. At that time, those who couldn’t offer proof that they could support themselves were barred entry and those who came with the promise of a job were barred entry as well. So Thalhimer gave each refugee a share in the Hyde Park farm making them self supported investors.

From Idyllic Hyde Park to Spying in Europe

Training for deployment to Europe at Camp Ritchie, National Archives NARA, Wikimedia.

In 1941 Thalhimer had a major heart attack and for financial reasons Hyde Park Farm had to close. Almost all the young men joined the U.S. Army. Because of their native German and their deep understanding of German culture, many became spies for the U.S., many joining the famous Ritchie Boys, a secret U.S intelligence corps. Members interrogated prisoners and performed counter-intelligence duties. Some even convinced German soldiers to surrender.

Other Hyde Park participants went on to work as counselors and farm hands at the Carson College Orphanage near Philadelphia.5 After the War many Hyde Park participants received university educations with funds from the G.I. Bill.

Bondy Publishes First Studies of Concentration Camp Prisoners

Through Thailhimer’s friendship with the president of William and Mary College, Bondy had already become a professor at the College’s Richmond branch, the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI). In 1943 he published some of the first studies on the behavior of prisoners in concentration camps.6. Following WW II Bondy returned to his native Hamburg, Germany where he continued his academic career.4

Hyde Park Alumni

For first hand accounts of the lives of many Gross Bressen alumni following WWII, including those that had been at the Hyde Park Farm, see this article which describes letters written by the alumni. To read the letters themselves, some in German, some in English, click on the original document under Source in the right hand corner of the page and then you can download all the letters.

The documentary film Stones from the Soil includes interviews with many of the Hyde Park alumni describing life at Gross Bressen.

In his second book, Escape to Virginia, From Nazi Germany to Thalhimer’s Farm, Robert Gillette tells us the story of two Hyde Park participants, Eva Jacobsohn Loew and Werner “Tom” Angress from the time they first heard of Gross Bressen through to their lives after WW II. With a Ph.d from U. of California, Berkeley, Werner became a distinguished history professor at SUNY Stony Brook University. Eva became a registered nurse, married another Hyde Park participant, Ernst Loew, and together they ran a dairy farm in Hampton, Connecticut where she served on the school board. Ernst also became a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

From Gillette’s the Virginia Plan, and other sources noted below we can learn about the lives of several other Hyde Park alumni. (Discussed in alphabetical order of surname.)

Spies, Artists, and Agriculturists

Corporal Ernst Cramer, 1943 from the Ritchie Museum

During WW II Ernst Cramer became a member of the U.S. Army’s secret spy corps, the Ritchie Boys. Ernst landed on Omaha Beach three days after D-Day . He interrogated German soldiers and wrote propoganda leaflets that were dropped over Germany. After the war Ernst returned to Germany where he became one of the leaders of the Axel-Springer News Conglomerate, founded in 1946 to reinstate a free press in Germany. For his efforts to support the new German democracy, Ernst was awarded one of Germany’s highest medals, the Federal Cross of Merit with Star and Band

Fallen Dream by Friedel Dzubas, 1958.

Friedel Dzubas became a very important abstract artist and studio mate of the well known artist Helen Frankenthaler. Dzubas’ work is in the collections of the Whitney and Guggenheim museums and many other prestigious institutions. See a video on Dzubas’ life here.

Hans George Hirsch spent the war years in the U.S. Army interpreting for German prisioners and then teaching farm management techniques to convalescing U.S. soldiers. After WW II he received a Ph.d in agriculture from the University of Minnesota and then joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture and eventually the Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service. An interview with Hans Hirsch about his whole life can be heard at this link.

Harvey P. Newman, né Neustadt, also served in the U.S. army during WW. II and then also made a career in the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service. Read more about him at this link to the Center for Jewish History archives.

Soldiers, Journalist, and Dairy Farmers

Isidor Kirshot served in the U.S. Army in Northern Africa during WWII. He then remained in the army for his whole career, retiring as a colonel.

Virginia Holocaust Museum, Richmond, Virginia

George Landecker served in the U.S Army in WWII and then ran a farm in Remsen (Oneida County) New York for the rest of his life. He is featured at the Virginia Holocaust Museum

Marianne Regensburger returned to Germany after graduating on a scholarship from the Quaker institution, Earlham College. Marianne’s niece gives us an overview of her life here.

In Germany Marianne became a noted journalist. In 1962 she “converted from Judaism to Christianity…, not least because of her experiences with the Quakers in the United States during her emigration. In the final years of her life, she was a committed Christian pacifist who regularly participated in peace demonstrations such as the Easter Marches.”7

Here in 1961, on page 162 of the Journal of Milk & Food Technology, Hyde Park Farm alumnus George Tworoger is listed as a director of the Florida Association of Milk and Food Sanitarians.

Luise Tworoger spent most of her life in Southern Florida. Luise was a teacher and served on the board of Peace Place- A Living Experience.8 Peace Place was a non-profit that fostered the inclusion of human rights and conflict resolution in educational settings.

Luise and her husband George Tworoger, also a Hyde Park participant, owned Expert Dairy Products in Miami. George was a director of the Florida Association of Milk and Food Sanitarians.9

And Even More Hyde Park Alumni

If you would like to learn about other Hyde Park Farm alumni, here is a partial list of the participants.10 Just google their names and out will come their stories.

Lu Alberheim

Hans Bacharach

Rudi Caplan

Rolf Falkenstein

Manfred Gottschalk

Ruth Hadra

Ernst Ludwig Heimann

Ken (Klaus) Herman

Howard Irvin

Herbert Kirchroth

Hermann Kiwi

Trudi Levin

Manfred Lindauer

Walter Mielzinger

Ludwig Rfoshlich

  1. Charles, Joan D. The Russian Colony of Middlesex County…. The Jewish Magazine, April, 2013. [↩]
  2. Ginsberg, Louis. The Jewish Colony at Waterview, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Oct. 1958. pp. 459-462. If you register for a free jstor account you can read this article online at the link under the title in this footnote. [↩]
  3. Home for the Persecuted, The New York Times, August 27, 1908, p. 4 [↩]
  4. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curt_Bondy, To read this wikipedia post in English click on 3 sprachen to the right of Curt Bondy’s name and choose English. [↩] [↩]
  5. Gillette, Robert H. Escape to Virginia, From Nazi Germany to Thalhimer’s Farm. Charleston, S.C. : The History Press, 2015. p. 215. [↩]
  6. Christian Fleck and Albert Muller, Bruno Bettelheim and the Concentration Camps, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences , December, 1998, p. 6. (To see that article which is in English scroll down from the German language title page at the link.) Bondy’s article can be read at this link pp. 453 – 457 [↩]
  7. this is a translation from this German language Wikipedia post. [↩]
  8. See https://thebaronhirschcommunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ConvertTiffToPDF.pdf [↩]
  9. see page 162 at https://www.foodprotection.org/upl/downloads/journal-archive/journal-of-milk-and-food-technology-1961-volume-24-issue-5.pdf [↩]
  10. taken from the Virginia Plan pages 81, 86, 102, 176 and 177. [↩]

Watch or Hear: Baron de Hirsch, the Godfather of Jewish Settlers in the New World

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Presented by Merrie Blocker, creator of the  baronhirschcommunity.org  blog.

Just click on this link :

https://www.habermaninstitute.org/podcast-archive/2026/4/17/baron-de-hirsch-the-godfather-of-jewish-settlers-in-the-new-world

This lecture will take you into the remarkable stories of the Bronfman and Grossinger families, along with hundreds of thousands of other Jewish immigrants, who got their starts thanks to the billions of dollars Baron Maurice de Hirsch dedicated to giving “a portion of my companions in faith the possibility of finding a new existence.”

From the pampas of Argentina to the rolling hills of southern Brazil, across the United States, and onto the windblown prairies of Canada, his generosity opened doors and transformed countless lives.

His philanthropy founded the New World’s second largest Jewish community in Argentina, sparked multibillion dollar fortunes in Brazil, introduced the first bathroom showers and the first farmers’ credit unions to the United States, helped Saskatchewan and Alberta avoid annexation by the United States, and played a key role in the development of the Jewish Catskills.

Merrie Blocker is a retired Foreign Service Officer having served in Latin America, Romania, and Central and Southern Asia, including serving as Director of the U.S. Cultural Center in Buenos Aires and Public Affairs Officer in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

In Argentina and Brazil, Merrie learned of the Jewish agricultural colonies sponsored by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Then while translating On a Clear April Morning, an autographical novel by an immigrant to a Brazilian colony, she began to research the impact throughout the Americas of the Baron’s philanthropy on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants.

Merrie holds a B.A. in American Studies from Reed College and an MFA in Museum Administration from Syracuse University. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband, architect Ricardo Merlo, and their golden doodle, Rusty. They have three wonderful children and four marvelous grandchildren.

Life on a Toms River Chicken Farm

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The Good, the Bad and the Worse

By Joyce Zelnick Weiss

This story was kindly shared by Joyce Zelnick Weiss. Another story of Growing up on a Chicken Farm in Toms River, by Joyce’s husband Ben Weiss can be found by clicking here.

Toms River, NJ, near the shore just south of Lakewood, 80 miles from Brooklyn

How did a little girl from the big city end up on a chicken farm in the middle of New Jersey?


I will try to tell you my story of living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. In the 1940s Toms River was much further from Brooklyn than it is now. Transportation was not readily available. We would ride on a bus for a few hours while passengers came and went at various stops in New Jersey. For those lucky enough to have a car it was a shorter trip.

BROOKLYN – TOMS RIVER

I was 9 years old when my father, Max, and mother, Bess, decided to move to Toms River. My father was a pharmacist who owned his own store in Brooklyn, N.Y. We lived on the top floor of a two-family house, and Bess’s parents lived downstairs. My parents were immigrants from Ukraine, and it was common to live close to the relatives and friends that one knew from the old country. So my comfort circle of people that I saw all the time were mostly all related to us.

We used to visit my Uncle Philip and Aunt Bertha in Toms River, New Jersey, on their chicken farm which they bought after selling their grocery business in Newark, N.J. Uncle Philip was one of my father’s older brothers, and he was married to Aunt Bertha.

I don’t know how my relatives ended up in Toms River, and I never did find out but, for reasons unknown to me, my parents decided that getting out of the city and moving to the country was a good decision for them and for their children. I don’t recall how long it took for us to pack up and move, but before I knew what was happening, we had moved.

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Baron Hirsch World Wide Genealogical and Historical Archives

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For searching family members in the United States and Canada note:

Online searching is available for Baron Hirsch related genealogical records available through the Center for Jewish History in New York. See this video for instructions. Some complete records are online, and when only a reference to a record is on online you can request the full document from the Center via email at inquiries@cjh.org

SEE A LIST OF WORLDWIDE ARCHIVES BELOW.

Baron Maurice de Hirsch

More Archives

In addition, the genealogical and historical archives described below (alphabetized by city) contain reports and correspondence relating to Baron Hirsch-funded Jewish farming projects and individual immigrants who received aid from the Baron Hirsch charitable organizations. These archives are scattered around the world. Some of the holdings have been uploaded digitally – see the links below – but most are only available on-site.

For texts in French, Spanish and Portuguese I suggest copy-pasting into google translate. It really works.

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The Catskills, Farming the Jewish Alps

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Hospitality and Kosher Chickens

Original Grossinger Farm at Ferndale, Library of Congress, John Margolies, photographer

In 1913, Selig and Malke Grossinger, aided by the Baron Hirsch Fund’s Jewish Agricultural Society (JAS), bought a farm in the Catskills Mountains in Ferndale, New York, 100 miles north of Manhattan. They began to take in paying guests who were fleeing New York City’s heat and humidity each summer. 1

The Grossingers were among the close to two thousand other Jewish immigrant families who bought farms in the foothills of the Catskills mountains in the 1890s or during the first decades of the twentieth century, many with JAS assistance. Like these other farmers, the Grossingers found that the rocky Catskills soil, which had allowed them to buy the land cheaply, did not respond well to crop raising. 

Grossingers Front View, Liberty, NY, Library of Congress, John Margolies, photographer

But summer guests seeking cool air and kosher food were indeed profitable. The Grossingers’ enterprise became extremely profitable, with 150,000 guests each year, served in a property of over 1200 acres that boasted its own airfield and performers as famous as Frank Sinatra and Jerry Lewis. Grossingers was also the first resort in the country to use artificial snow on its ski slopes. And Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher were married at Grossingers.

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  1. Lavender, Abraham, and Steinberg, Clarence, Jewish farmers of the Catskills, In the Catskills, A Century of the Jewish Experience in The Mountains. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. p. 33. [↩]

Nightingale’s Nest, a Catskill Summer Story

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This delightful short story was offered to thebaronhirschcommunity.org by the author’s daughter, Nora Fischer Kisch, and the author’s niece and nephew, Tamra Hope Miller and Jon Meyerson. We are very grateful for their generosity.

The Nightingale’s Nest takes place in 1920 on a Jewish farm in Ulster County NY, in the Catskill mountains, 100 miles northwest of Manhattan. You can read more about Jewish farming in the Catskills and the Baron Hirsch Fund’s support for these efforts right here.

Many Jewish farmers in the Catskills, like the family in The Nightingale’s Nest, rented rooms to summer visitors from crowded New York neighborhoods. These paying guests frequently were on the kuchalayn plan, cooking their own meals, offering the farmers a ready market for their products. Like the Lippman – Miller family, from Belarus, described in this story, these Jewish farmers often obtained financing to purchase these farms from the Baron Hirsch Jewish Agricultural Society.

A Three Arrow gathering in 1940.

In 1936 the author and her mystery writer husband, Bruno Fischer, returned to the idyllic landscapes north of New York City where they became founders of the Three Arrows Cooperative Society , a 125 acre vacation colony based on socialist ideas. Located just south of the Catskills in Putnam Valley, NY , Three Arrows is still active and homes are for sale.

The Catskill’s Nightingale’s Nest

by Ruth Fischer

Nobody cared for animals more than Grandma, if they met her simple specifications of giving milk or eggs. She tolerated a cat for necessary service, but it was only grudgingly given house room.


For as long as I can remember, there was a running battle between my grandmother and grandfather because of his affection for a horse. During the summer when the horse grazed on the open fields and required no greater expenditure than labor, she could overlook his absurd extravagance. But in the winter it was a different story; she would make life miserable for poor Grandpa when the feed bills came in.

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Baron De Hirsch Agricultural School

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Woodbine, New Jersey, 1894-1917

For detailed information on the Woodbine Agricultural Colony one source is WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AGRICULTURE IN THE JEWISH AGRICULTURAL COLONY IN WOODBINE NEW JERSEY by Stephen A. Diamond

The Agricultural school’s archival records are located at the Center for Jewish History, NY, NY. inquiries@cjh.org. and the Philadelphia Jewish Archives scrc@temple.edu

The following article is by Paul Batesel https://www.lostcolleges.com/baron-de-hirsch-agricultural-school

History

From The Jewish Farmer, published by the Baron Hirsch Fund

Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a German financier, created a $2,400,000 fund in 1891 to assist Jewish refugees from Russia and Eastern Europe in achieving economic independence in the United States.  With $37,500 of the fund, the settlers purchased land for the colony of Woodbine in southern New Jersey.  In 1894 the Baron De Hirsch Agricultural School was founded to teach scientific agriculture and to provide young Jewish people with the practical skills to become successful farmers.  It was the first agricultural high school in the nation.

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Jewish Farming Today

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Baron Hirsch’s Work Lives On

Did you know that today there is a renaissance in Jewish farming? For example,  Jewish farms have been sprouting recently in Upstate New York right near many colonies supported by Baron Hirsch.  Read all about it in this article by Leah Koenig that appeared in TABLET magazine

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/75488/farmville

Or follow news of today’s Jewish farmers around the world through the Jewish Farmer Network.

And for more information on today’s Jewish farmers throughout the United States see this article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jewish farms are booming. Now the farmers want to grow their community.

A Jewish Egg Farmers’ Community – Toms River, NJ

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welcome to toms river

courtesy tomsriver.org

This is the story of the Toms River Jewish farmers who made Ocean County, New Jersey an egg-producing capital. It was early spring, 1910. Sam Kaufman, owner of the biggest bar in Brooklyn, was worried about his sick daughters. He knew he had to get them out of the stale New York City air. Perhaps he could buy a farm. But the Catskills, where he first looked, lacked schools and he had five daughters to educate. Then he learned of Toms River, near the sea in central New Jersey.  It was only  75 miles south of where he lived in Brooklyn. NY. Toms River had reasonably priced farmland, a small town atmosphere, only 800 inhabitants.   Most importantly, it had a good high school.

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Connecticut Jewish Farmers

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LisbonCT_AnsheiIsraelSynagogue
Anshei Israel Synagogue in Lisbon, Connecticut, built in 1936

In this post, videos, an interactive map and many references supplement a short history of Jewish farming communities in Connecticut.

Beginning as early as 1891, Baron Hirsch supported the settlement of Jewish farmers in Connecticut. By 1928 there were over 5000 Jewish farm families in the state. The Baron Hirsch Fund and its subsidiary the Jewish Agricultural Society (JAS) sponsored these projects. The projects continued throughout the first half of the 20th Century. They not only helped the Eastern European Jews escaping pogroms in the first part of the century, but after WWII, Holocaust survivors as well.

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