{"id":4897,"date":"2022-10-27T22:18:11","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T22:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebaronhirschcommunity.org\/?p=4897"},"modified":"2026-02-14T10:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T15:02:08","slug":"jewish-pioneers-on-the-canadian-prairies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebaronhirschcommunity.org\/es\/jewish-pioneers-on-the-canadian-prairies\/","title":{"rendered":"Agricultores jud\u00edos en las praderas canadienses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Watch the story of Jewish Farmers on the Canadian prairies right here<\/a> on this enlightening video, A New Life on the Land – Jewish Farmers in Canada<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

And please do click on the other links in the text below. They lead to so much fascinating information. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Land <\/a>of<\/a> Hope<\/a><\/em><\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This post on Jewish farmers on the Canadian prairies was inspired by <\/em>Land of Hope<\/em><\/a>, <\/strong>the memoirs of Clara Hoffer. In 1907<\/em> C<\/em>lara’s husband, Israel, co-founded the Sonnenfeld Colony in Saskatchewan<\/em>. Clara had lived previously a little further north with her parents in the Lipton Colony, which was founded by Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association (<\/a>JCA) in 1901.<\/em> Land of Hope<\/a><\/strong><\/em> was sent to me by Mark Gardner whose grandfather Aaron and great-uncle Harry also settled in Sonnenfeld. I am very grateful. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Background<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Louis Rosenberg<\/a>, JCA Western Canada Director, 1916. Courtesy of Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Between 1884 and 1912 thirty-one Jewish farming settlements were formed on the Canadian prairies spread out among three western provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. 1<\/a><\/sup> That is quite a hefty figure. Especially, when we remember that farming was not at all a typical Jewish profession where these settlers came from, Eastern Europe and Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But somehow in Canada, things were different. As the Western Canada Director of Baron Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association,<\/a> Louis Rosenberg <\/a>noted, among all the peoples who settled in Canada, the percentage of those who farmed in Canada is lower than the percentage who farmed in their country of origin. Except for the Jews. By coming to Canada the Jews actually increased the percentage of farmers in their community. 2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in Saskatchewan where most of the Jewish farming colonies were located, Jewish homesteaders were some of the first in the province. They arrived before the Doukhobors, Russians, Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians. “Only the “Mennonites and immigrants from Britain and Iceland,” preceded the Jews.3<\/a><\/sup> In fact, the earliest marked grave in all of the Canadian prairies can be found in the Hirsch Colony cemetery. It belongs to Judah Blank and is dated December 18, 1894. 4<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baron Hirsch Helps Them Out<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Baron Maurice de Hirsch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Baron Hirsch’s<\/a> generosity helped many of these farmers. ( For a thorough discussion of how Baron Hirsch funds came to Canada see Chiel, Arthur (1961) “<\/em>Agricultural Attempts, “The Jews<\/a><\/a>of Manitoba, <\/a>” University of Toronto Press, 1961. ) Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association (JCA)<\/a> only established two of the colonies, Hirsch and Lipton. But there was not one organized Jewish farming community “in the whole of Canada that [did] not benefit … from the assistance of [the JCA].”5<\/a><\/sup> The JCA helped build synagogues, offered the original capital for cooperatives, paid for teachers and rabbis, and gave out loans at half the usual bank rates, over 2000 loans between 1900 and 1923.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spirit of Jewish farm colonies lives on<\/a>, Leader-Post, <\/em>Regina, July 5, 1980, pp. 8-9.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In fact, when the Regina, Saskatchewan Leader-Post published a story in July 1980 on the Jewish Farming Communities, they chose as their lead photo a portrait of the Baron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This post is just an outline of this Canadian prairie story and doesn’t cover all of the settlements. There is so much more to tell and so many wonderful sources. So click on all the links in the text and footnotes and enjoy the richness of this history. Note that in footnote nr. 7 you can find a list of major works on this agricultural adventure.7<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you are looking for information on a particular Jewish Canadian prairie farmer go to the website of the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network<\/a> and put his or her name into the search bar. You could be amazed by what you find. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beginning<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Sir Alexander Galt8<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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The year was 1882 and Sir Alexander Galt<\/a>, Canada’s High Commissioner (Ambassador) in London was looking to help the Canadian government populate the Canadian West. The West had just become part of Canada a dozen years before. A transcontinental railroad, the Canadian Pacific, was being built, and treaties with the indigenous peoples had made the land available for settlers. Interestingly, the Canadians not only sought to build out their nation. They also wanted to settle the West quickly because they feared that pioneers in the United States would seek to extend the border further north. In addition, Galt had plans to build railroads to hook up with the transcontinental to transfer the coal from his newly purchased mines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Click for full report of the Public Meeting at the Mansion House, Feb. 1, 1882<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Galt had just attended a meeting<\/a> at the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of London, to decry the barbaric treatment of Jews in Russia following horrific pogroms and the implementation of drastic anti-semitic measures. The meeting brought together over a hundred of Britain’s greatest political and intellectual leaders. These included Charles Darwin, Poet Robert Browning, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and eighteen members of parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The meeting resulted in the formation of the Mansion House Committee<\/a>. The Committee dedicated much of its first \u00a3108,000 ( $15 million in today’s dollars) to transporting Russian Jews to America “…and thus make of them economically independent individuals upon the soil of a new and free land.” 9<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jews to the Rescue<\/h3>\n\n\n
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John A. Macdonald<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sir Alexander knew that the Canadian Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald<\/a>, was having a hard time fulfilling his pet project – forming a united Canada through the settlement of the freezing and then boiling, prairies of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Immigration was very slow even though the Canadian Government was paying steamship lines $5 ($170 in today’s dollars) for each European immigrant that arrived in Winnipeg or further west. 10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally, the Canadian government had offered private companies three million acres if they brought in settlers. But that project was failing. Only about 1200 had been settled instead of the hundreds of thousands thought needed.11<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Galt looked to the Jews. As he wrote to Macdonald ” From what I learn these Russian Jews are a superior class of people…. I found the American Jews were actively promoting emigration to the United States and I thought what was good for them could not be bad for us…. The Jews are really now so influential in Europe, that there can be no harm in cultivating them….” 12<\/a><\/sup> Galt was successful. He did convince MacDonald to take advantage of the Mansion House funding and open up homesteads to Russian Jews. And so the Jews became some of the first European farmers in Western Canada. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jewish Homesteaders<\/h3>\n\n\n
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These Jewish settlers took advantage of the Canadian homesteading scheme that offered 160 acres to anyone for $10 (approximately $320 in today’s values). Then after three years if they had built a house, seeded 25 acres, and plowed 30 acres they would receive clear title to the land and be offered an additional 160 acres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

News of this scheme was circulated in immigration handbooks sent to Europe by the Canadian government. They reached Eastern European Jews through a translation into Yiddish commissioned by a hopeful travel agent in Romania. 13<\/a><\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jewish settlers <\/a>(from Romania) Samuel and Hanna Schwartz (on right) with daughter Simma and her husband in front of their sod house, Lipton district, ca. 1903. Saskatchewan Archives Board R-B1781<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The hardships the settlers encountered would freeze the gumption out of even the most courageous. 14<\/a><\/sup> They would get off the train and there would often be nothing, no town, no buildings, no trees, just dry prairie and wind, lots of wind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With nighttime temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit (-18 celsius), their first winters spent in precarious shelters or even a hole in the ground must have been horrendous. But, once they had built a proper sod house life must have seemed almost luxurious. Although they still needed ropes tied to both the home and barn so they wouldn’t get lost in the blizzards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misguided Assistance<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Baron Hirsch Institute, Montreal, Biblioth\u00e8que et Archives nationales du Qu\u00e9bec<\/a> “officially opened June 17, 1891, as a ‘Free School for the poor children of the Jewish faith and a home for sheltering distressed immigrants and orphans. ‘ ” 15<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And the help they received wasn’t always exactly what they needed. Those wealthy Jewish Europeans, including Baron Hirsch and his Jewish Colonization Association (JCA)<\/a> as well as the Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society (YMHBS) in Montreal that tried to assist these colonists, managed from afar and had no real understanding of the colonists’ woes and needs.16<\/a><\/sup> The YMHBS readily admitted this fault as early as 1892. ” It is impossible for our Society here at a distance of 1,700 miles from the Colony to overlook in a manner satisfactory to ourselves, what is going on there.” 17<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many colonists quickly left for civilization, forming Jewish communities in Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, and other western centers. But a Jewish farming community was built. This is quite a laudable achievement when we consider that only 31% of these farmers had agricultural experience before they arrived in Canada18<\/a><\/sup> where they farmed on dry prairie in one of the earth’s harshest climates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1911 two thousand, five hundred Jews were homesteading in Western Canada. They farmed a total of 128,000 acres with an aggregate value of $1.4 million ( $42 million in today’s values). 19<\/a><\/sup> And even after the drought and economic depression of the 1930s, there were still 1600 Jews farming on the Canadian prairies. 20<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

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Principal Canadian Prairie Jewish Farming Communities with Dates of Founding from John Lehr, Doomed to Failure<\/a>: The Jewish Farm Colony of Hirsch, Saskatchewan, Manitoba History<\/em> 89 (2019).<\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The First Settlement, Moosomin<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Snowy fields of Moosomin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 1882, as soon as Sir Alexander convinced Prime Minister Macdonald to allow Jews to apply for Canadian homesteads, the Mansion Committee sponsored 242 Jewish refugees<\/a> who crossed the Atlantic to form the first Jewish farming colony in Canada. They remained in Winnipeg until 1884 while the Canadian Government held up the homesteading requests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the Canadian press was very sympathetic towards the Jewish plight in Russia, “condemning the indignity and brutality inflicted on ‘a peaceful, intelligent and industrious element of the population ‘ ” 21<\/a><\/sup> not everyone in Canada was totally sure if they wanted them in their back yard. So the government vacillated on whether or not to assign homesteads to Jews.22<\/a><\/sup> But, finally, the Mansion Committee was able to purchase several thousand acres to form the Moosomin ,nicknamed “New Jerusalem” <\/a>colony in southeastern Saskatchewan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they waited 150 of the immigrants took jobs building the Canadian Pacific Railroad. “According to the Calgary Herald, of September 14, 1883, 150 Russian Jews joined the CPR construction crews that built the railway as far west as Medicine Hat. At least one Jewish laborer, possibly more, worked on the line through to Calgary. These Jews worked under a Yiddish-speaking foreman, ate kosher food, kept the Sabbath, and even bought a Torah scroll for worship services. A mobile version of the Winnipeg-based Cheap Cash Store owned by the Repstein brothers, followed the railhead as it moved west.”23<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Short-Lived Effort<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Long-range management of the Moosomin Colony just didn’t work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Not all of the original 242 went on to Saskatchewan but 27 families did<\/a>. Each family received land, cattle, tools, and supplies for three years. And, the colony’s manager was none other than Sir Alexander Galt. But he managed it from London. This might explain, at least partly, why even before the three years were up many of the colonists had abandoned the colony. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Prairie Blizzard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Galt didn’t recognize the pitfalls of long-range management. He blamed the colony’s failure on the “vagabond”<\/a> Jews. From far-off London, he couldn’t see how the blizzards, the unsuccessful crops, and the Mansion Committee’s request for repayment of their loans beat the colonists down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then to add to the woes, in December 1886 “New Jerusalem’s” rabbi suffered frostbite and had to have both his legs amputated. 24<\/a><\/sup>, With the rabbi gone so was Jewish education so many families left the colony. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Abandoned sod house Moosomin, 1890. Courtesy Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But for three years more, the colony continued its struggle through droughts and diets that consisted only of oatmeal, potatoes, and a little bit of milk. That is until the last straw. In September 1889 a massive fire burned tons of hay and fields. This final disaster brought the remaining colonists “to their knees”25<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scottish Crofters (tenant farmers) heading towards their own homesteads on the Canadian prairies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Galt had been wrong to blame the colony’s failure on the Jews. Seven years after the Jews left a group of experienced Scotch farmers tried their hand at cultivating the same land and they also couldn’t make a go of it.26<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The land was just not fertile and the weather was too awful. 27<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For more on the Moosomin Colony read Arthur Chiel’s outline of the history on pages 44-47 of his Jews of Manitoba<\/a> and The New Jerusalem, Jewish Pioneers on the Prairie<\/a>. by. A.J. Arnold <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wapella <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1886 another Londoner, Jewish financier and London representative of the Canadian Pacific Railroad Herman Landau,28<\/a><\/sup> enabled the establishment of the first enduring Jewish farming settlement in Canada. It was the Wapella colony, just 16 miles northwest of the Moosomin settlement. 29<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

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Jewish Temporary Shelter, London, courtesy of Philip Walker’s Jewish East End of London<\/a> website. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Landau had been supporting The Jews Temporary Shelter <\/a>offering accommodations in London for recently arrived Jewish immigrants. Most wanted to go to America. (Passage from Russia to America was 25% cheaper, $25 vs. $34, or $900 vs. $1225 in today’s values, if you bought a ticket to London and there bought the ticket for the Atlantic journey. 30<\/a><\/sup>. But some ran out of money and couldn’t pay for the cross-Atlantic portion.) Frustrated with the slow-moving bureaucracy at the Mansion Committee, Landau decided to try his own hand at developing a successful Jewish farming community. Succeed he did. In Wapella, Jews continued to farm until the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Landau selected as his first settlers the John Heppner family and six single men, all of whom knew some English and something about farming, and sent them to Canada. 31<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leonoff, C.E. 32<\/a><\/sup> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Then in 1888 Abraham Klenman<\/a> and his son-in-law Solomon Barish arrived in Montreal. But they didn’t plan to stay there. They were looking to farm on rich black soil like the soil they had worked before crossing the Atlantic. In Eastern Europe Klenman had overseen an agricultural estate and Barish had worked in the Dombroveni Jewish agricultural community<\/a> in Bessarabia. Klenman heard of Heppner’s settlement and decided to check it out. Sure enough, there was black soil. Other immigrants followed. Between 1888 and 1907 fifty Jewish families settled in Wapella. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Success<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Life was tough. And the weather didn’t help. In 1901 a terrible frost hit the crop threatening the colony’s survival. But with loans from Baron Hirsch, Wapella stayed on its feet. By 1911, the village of Wapella had a flour mill and a tannery as well as a dentist and even a Sash and Door Factory. 33<\/a><\/sup> Perhaps, as in some Jewish agricultural colonies in the United States, the settlers worked in the factory to augment their agricultural earnings. Then, as of 1916, the colony even had a veterinarian. 34<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n

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The village of Wapella <\/a>1908. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 1922 Wapella had 550 inhabitants and an electric light plant, a hotel, a baker, a butcher, a bank, and in addition to the dentist, a doctor, and even a Board of Trade. 35<\/a><\/sup> Over the years there was attrition but even in 1939 thirteen Jewish families were still farming 3500 acres. Klenman’s younger son Harry farmed there until his death in 1955 and the Barish family farmed at Wapella until 1962. A few Jewish farmers were even farming in the area as late as 1983. 36<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n

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Yechiel Bronfman c. 188937<\/a><\/sup> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But those who left begot many successful business people and professionals. Yechiel Bronfman, for example, arrived in Wapella in 1889 and only stayed a few years. But coming to Canada opened up great opportunities for the Bronfman family. Yechiel’s grandson Edgar Bronfman<\/a>, for example, managed the Seagram Distillery empire, served as president of the World Jewish Congress, and was responsible for getting the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For further information on Wapella, including historical photographs and reports of the colony’s history in the words of its own settlers visit C. E. Leonoff’s Wapella Farm Settlement: a pictorial history<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Hirsch Colony<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Baron Hirsch Funds In Canada ( and the United States) usually assisted individual farmers or communities that were already formed. But the funds were sometimes used to establish new colonies. In fact, the Baron began his activities in Canada with the formation of the Hirsch Colony in Saskatchewan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Go West Young Man<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Museum of Jewish Montreal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was the Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society YMHBS in Montreal, founded by 30 unmarried Jewish men in 1863 and incorporated<\/a>in 1881 <\/a>that brought the Hirsch funding to Canada. They were trying to offer support to the Jewish immigrants arriving in Montreal but had few resources. In 1891 they heard that Baron Hirsch had begun funding immigrant support in the United States. They reached out to the Baron and his Jewish Colonization Association (JCA)<\/a>. They urged the JCA to take advantage of the Canadian Government’s homesteading plan and establish a colonization scheme in western Canada.38<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

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Plaque at Hirsch Cemetery.<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Baron Hirsch and the JCA agreed, with Hirsch supplying $40,000 ( $1.2 million today) to fund start-up loans for each family. 39<\/a><\/sup> So the YMHBS secured homesteading plots near the Estevan coal mines in southern Saskatchewan. The land was thought to be fertile and the mines could provide fuel and employment if the income from farming wasn’t sufficient. And there were Jews nearby. A Jewish farmer named Asher Pierce and other Jewish families had settled in Oxbow only 20 miles away. 40<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So on May 2, 1892, ninety- one heads of Jewish families “detrained at Oxbow and founded the Hirsch colony.”41<\/a><\/sup> Each received a loan of $500 ($15,000 in today’s dollars) from the JCA. By the end of 1892, they were settled on 11,040 acres along with 211 horses and 213 heads of cattle. Their families followed once houses were built.42<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not So Easy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 1894 seventy-one more families arrived but by 1897 only 15 families were left at Hirsch. Why? Principally because after three years of almost no crops, the JCA was asking for full repayment of their loans. So many settlers just left.43<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why such poor crops? Well, for one, it turned out the land was arid and only good for grazing. Then, again, the colony’s manager, The Young Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society, was located 2000 miles away in Montreal and had no understanding of the realities on the ground. And many of the colonists had no farming experience nor a sense of what was needed in a harsh rural environment. For example, they used precious lumber to build an outhouse and as a result, they had none to build a real house. <\/p>\n\n\n

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In 1897 the Jewish Colonization Association(JCA)<\/a> sent the director of their agricultural school in Woodbine, New Jersey,<\/a> Prof. H.L. Sabsovich, to see what could be done and he gave a fairly optimistic report<\/a>.44<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same year brought the first good harvest at Hirsch and the managers did try to improve things. They built a community center and a school, set up a temporary synagogue, and hired a shochet (ritual slaughterer for kosher meat). And more settlers came to Hirsch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1905 the JCA officially opened a branch in Canada and took direct control of the Hirsch Colony. One of their first actions was to bring trained farmers to the colony, graduates of the Baron Hirsch Agricultural School in Slobodka Lesna, Galicia, then part of Austro-Hungary. They were to work for farmers at Hirsch for $10 a month($320 in today’s values). But they could make $30-40\/month 45<\/a><\/sup> as laborers for the railroad. So many, repeating the survival technique of the Jewish settlers who had helped build the railroad in the 1880s,46<\/a><\/sup> joined up with the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The CPR was Canada’s largest employer at that time. But some of the Slobodka Lesna students did stay at Hirsch. One of them was Israel Hoffer who founded the Sonnenfeld Colony described below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a Memory<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Canadian Jewish Archives. PC12-JCA-OC4-60<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

During the following fifty years, low crop prices, and high costs plagued the colony, but it survived. In 1922 Hirsch had 270 inhabitants and a bank, a hardware store, a blacksmith, an oil tank, a veterinarian, and a surgeon.47<\/a><\/sup> In 1929 a formal synagogue was built. In 1932 it was reported that the Hirsch Colony was cultivating “10,000 acres, had 250 horses and 200 heads of cattle and implements valuing more than $33,000 [$650,000 in today’s values]…. [And crops had] reached 70,000 bushels of wheat, 30,000 bushels of oats, 40,000 bushels of barley, and 10,000 bushels of flax.” 48<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there were problems. The loans the JCA offered were sometimes hard to pay back as remembered by a settler<\/a>. Then the 1930s drought and depression depopulated the whole Canadian prairie, with Hirsch among the casualties. By the 1950s only four Jewish families lived in the colony. Half the colony’s acreage was rented out to non-Jewish farmers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a detailed description of the Hirsch colony’s history and a long list of references see Doomed to Failure: The Jewish Farm Colony of Hirsch, Saskatchewan<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a discussion of specific families that lived at Hirsch and for the names of the 50 still-marked graves at the Hirsch Cemetery see Hirsch Community Jewish Cemetery.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pine Lake<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Pine Lake, Alberta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Some Jewish farming colonies in Western Canada were formed just by the settlers themselves. That was the case of the short-lived (1892-96) colony at the isolated Pine Lake in Alberta near Red Deer, halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. Many authors have wondered why the settlers chose such an isolated spot away from any other Jews. But Red Deer was one of the places the Canadian Federal Department of Agriculture was proposing to settle Jews49<\/a><\/sup> so they could have suggested this spot to these settlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The settlers arrived in 1892 led by Rabbi Abraham Blank. They probably shared an ideological goal as they held all their property in common. In correspondence between the agent at Red Deer and the Canadian Commissioner of Dominion Lands, the land agent notes<\/a> “the colony was operated on co-operative, or possibly communist principles, and the settlers were loathed to accept money as individuals.” And they chose to live all together rather than each on their own farm. They never built a real settlement nor had a successful crop. The Rabbi lived in a primitive log cabin but the rest of the settlers lived in dugouts and tiny shacks<\/a>. And they suffered severe poverty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In those years the Canadian Government helped homesteaders, giving them seeds and other supplies. But the settlers at Pine Lake didn’t receive this assistance because they never filed homesteading claims. Perhaps they didn’t because they wanted to live together and part of the requirements for homesteading was that you lived on your land for at least six months a year. Or perhaps they were scared to call attention to themselves, a group of Jewish settlers, due to the anti-semitism coming out of Alberta’s principal city, Calgary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Jan 20 1892 the Calgary Tribune published the editorial “Jewish Immigration.” In the writer’s view, “The Jew, especially the Jew of Eastern Europe, is particularly noted for his inability to adapt himself to any but an urban occupation<\/a>.\u201c And here below are anti-semitic comments from page 4 of The Weekly Albertan<\/em>, July 12, 1893.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In addition, in July 1893 a Calgary Herald editorial <\/a>repeated the traditional view that Jews were unfit to till the soil. “If these people are the only settlers that can be obtained for the northwest, there would even then be no reason to spend money in bringing them here to let them loose on the public, while practical men who can turn the prairies into fruitful fields are being forced away by the petty annoyances to which they are subjected on attempting to come into the country.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help – Starvation Is Upon Us<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Retrieved from Switzer, Jack. “The 1893-95 Pine Lake Jewish Colony – A Dream Dies,”<\/em>50<\/a><\/sup><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But, in desperation in 1894 Rabbi Blank did write to the Dominion Land Agent begging for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the land agent sent the Rabbi’s letter off to his superior the agent didn’t try to ensure a positive response. Instead, he wrote about the Jewish group<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Altogether they are most undesirable immigrants, being miserably poor and knowing absolutely nothing about farming. Then again the white settlers in the locality object strongly to  them as neighbors and are dreading a fur\u00adther incursion<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n

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Read the whole report here<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But the Canadians did forward the letter to the Russo-Jewish Committee (the new name of the Mansion Committee) in London. As a result, the Pine Lake settlers received $400 ($13,000 in today’s dollars) from this British group. 51<\/a><\/sup> But it wasn’t enough. By 1896 all the settlers were gone, some to the Hirsch community and some to the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there is a Jewish Camp<\/a> nea<\/em>r the settlement site. You can find a nice article on Pine Lake with photos here<\/a>. 52<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lipton<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1901 the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) decided to sponsor another Canadian settlement in Saskatchewan. This time they chose land about 150 miles north of Hirsch in Lipton 30 miles from Qu’Appelle. Qu’Appelle was the home of the nearest train station and the first Jewish settler in Northwest Canada, Max Goldstein. Max was a Russian tailor who opened a store in Qu’Appelle in 1877. <\/p>\n\n\n

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The Lipton colony was established in cooperation with the Canadian Ministry of the Interior. So even though the JCA paid for the Lipton settlers’ Atlantic passages and provided them with supplies for the first year, it was a Canadian immigration official who traveled to Romania, another site of anti-semitic horrors,53<\/a><\/sup> to select the first two groups of settlers, totaling 365 souls.54<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like the folks in Pine Hill, the Lipton settlers wanted to live together but they were a little cagier. Since to receive a homestead they had to live on the 160-acre plot, four families would coordinate and live on the corners of their plots. That way they were actually next-door neighbors; at times they even shared a house.55<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first years were tough. The settlers were really isolated. Not only was there no train; there were no roads. Then, immediately upon arrival, the first group was stricken with diphtheria.56<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Help from Much Earlier Settlers<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Saskatchewan Metis women<\/a>, 1890s, like those who helped the Jewish settlers.57<\/a><\/sup> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That they didn’t all die or leave immediately is thought to be due in part to the help they received from the local indigenous people. These were Nehiyawak (Cree) or Metis (descendants of Cree women and European fur traders). 58<\/a><\/sup> As the JCA’s Director of Settlements wrote in 1939, when the first Lipton settlers arrived in 1901, “under the guidance of Indian half-breeds from the nearby Indian Reservations they learned how to erect log houses chinked with clay and roofed with sods, plowed up a few acres each for potatoes and proceeded to put up some hay.” 59<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, the indigenous help wasn’t enough. The land was dry and the growing season was extremely short. The supervisors, appointed by the Canadian government were local non-Jewish farmers who couldn’t speak the same language as the settlers. And they thought the “entire scheme … a costly joke doomed to failure”. 60<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was snow from mid-October to late May. Crops were very disappointing and even selling the little that was produced was a chore. Lipton was 30 miles from the nearest train station, a two-day trip. By the winter of 1903 half of the settlers had left.61<\/a><\/sup>. In this letter<\/a>, we see that the complaints of some of these departing settlers reached the headquarters of the JCA 62<\/a><\/sup> and a new manager, Louis Kahn, was sent out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Train, Kosher Meat, and Folks Who Knew How to Farm<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now, We’re Talking<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

With Kahn, things started to change. In 1904 a shochet (ritual slaughterer )\/Hebrew teacher arrived and three schools were built. Before his arrival, the settlers ate no meat. And by the end of that year, 13,480 acres had been cultivated.63<\/a><\/sup> Then in 1905, a group of Russian Jews arrived. They were from southern Ukraine, where some of them had grown up in Jewish farming colonies. That same year the JCA offered new loans.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lipton Railroad Station, 1907<\/a>. Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Next, in 1906, a wonder arrived, Lipton’s own train station. 64<\/a><\/sup> And the following year a British journalist reported that “the Jewish farmers about Lipton…are doing very well…and raised over 40,000 bushels of grain ….” 65<\/a><\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colony’s situation did improve, but relations with the JCA remained tense. (Louis Kahn only remained at Lipton for two years. ) In 1912 a settler lamented “if the JCA and Baron de Hirsch executives would come to see Lipton with their own eyes, they would gain better understanding of the achievements.”  66<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n

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Tiferes Israel School & Synagogue,<\/a> Lipton, 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Canadian government ran the public schools in Lipton. They were also used as synagogues until the Canadian government prohibited their use for religious purposes in 1935. Education in Judaism was considered essential in Lipton. So Jewish studies were taught for two hours a day after schools closed at 3:30 pm. The teacher was hired with funds subsidized by the JCA. 67<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the Cities Called<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Toba Cohen, Lipton Colony, 1916, Louis Rosenberg fonds. Library and Archives Canada, C-027462<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But life was difficult. Besides the starkness of the environment, there was isolation, and limited educational opportunities for children, which along with price drops and droughts drove quite a few away. Many of them formed the backbone of Jewish communities throughout Western Canada. William Landa, for example, who first arrived in Canada in 1904 as a homesteader in Lipton, is considered to be the first Jewish settler in Saskatoon, now Saskatchewan’s largest city. 68<\/a><\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the original 400 Rumanian colonists left within a few years. In 1911, after the advent of the Russian settlers, there were 80 homesteads, but only 49 in 1917. By 1933 there were 21, by 1941 only 18 and just a few Jewish farmers remained until the late 1960s.69<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today you can still visit the Lipton Jewish Cemetery, active 1901-1951, and see the unique grave houses. Poet Isa Milman has shown<\/a> that these grave houses are evidence of the contacts between the Jewish settlers and their indigenous neighbors. As can be seen in the pictures below, the grave houses the Jews used were a traditional Cree custom. This explains the content of an old newspaper clipping that Millman found in a shed in the Jewish cemetery. The article <\/a>explained that the grave houses were a means ” to preserve loved ones from the ravages of wild animals and spirits<\/em>.” <\/p>\n\n\n

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Graves in Lipton Jewish Cemetery, 1916 by Louis Rosenberg. Library and Archives Canada\/C-027591.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Indigenous woman beside graves in Fort Qu\u2019Appelle Cemetery, 1885. B O.B. Buell. Library and Archives Canada\/ PA-118766<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Bender Hamlet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As already noted, the Canadian authorities wanted immigrants to follow North American customs. Each farmer was to live on his land, miles from his neighbor. This requirement was one reason many Jewish immigrants didn’t consider homesteading. They were used to living in villages. In villages, it was easy to form a minion ( the ten men quota needed for religious services to be held) and short distances, in those pre-refrigeration times, allowed for the safe distribution of kosher meat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Count Witte Commercial Academy in Nikolaev By SNCH – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>. Count Witte was the Russian finance minister from 1892-1903 and a keen supporter of pro-Jewish policies. He had a Jewish wife and supported the establishment of Commercial Schools throughout Russia. And Witte was a distant cousin by marriage of a founder of the Jewish village of Fleischmanns<\/a> in the NY Catskill mountains. Read Witte’s memoirs<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Jacob Bender, an immigrant from a prosperous Jewish community in Nikolaev<\/a>, (also spelled Mykolaiv) in today’s southern Ukraine managed to find a way around this problem. Perhaps he used the business education he could have gained at the Count Witte<\/a> Commercial Academy in Nikolaev. (This was a secular school founded by Jewish tradesmen to circumvent quotas for Jewish students. It was the school where the renowned Russian-Jewish writer, Isaac<\/a> Babel<\/a> began his formal education.)<\/p>\n\n\n

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Location of Bender Hamlet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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In February 1902 Bender decided to spend the $10 ($335 in today’s dollars) needed to buy the 160 acres of a homestead in the Inter-lake region of Manitoba, 70 miles north of Winnipeg. He believed he could obtain Canadian government approval to subdivide it into 19 parcels. These he would sell to Russian Jewish families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jewish farmhouses in Bender Hamlet, Manitoba by Louis Rosenberg<\/a>, 1921. Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

At the top of each parcel, a house would be built, effectively constructing a village street. Once the land was bought Bender returned to Russia to recruit purchasers. He stopped off in England where he also found some willing participants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Colony Takes Shape<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These immigrants started arriving in 1903. In July 1904 subdivision permission was granted.70<\/a><\/sup> Not all the families came directly from Europe. A few came out from Winnipeg and one family came from Boston. 71<\/a><\/sup> More families followed and some families left. By 1923 there were 27. 72<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n

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Immigrants arriving at Bender Hamlet. Courtesy of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

All of the original 19 families bought an additional homestead as did the families that followed them. 73<\/a><\/sup>. Some of the new families homesteaded outside the village itself. But all were within fairly close proximity to Bender Hamlet where the synagogue, Hebrew school, and mikveh (ritual bath) were located. Some settled near the village of Narcisse, the site of the area’s railroad station. Narcisse was named in honor of Narcisse Leven<\/a>, the then-president of the Baron Hirsch-funded Jewish Colonization A<\/a>ssociation<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colonists were so keen on building a village that they spent much of their money on the houses, leaving very little for stock and plows. That’s probably why in 1907 Bender contacted the Baron Hirsch Institute in Montreal. 74<\/a><\/sup> According to a former settler, Baron Hirsch did give the Bender Hamlet farmers low-interest loans that they easily repaid. 75<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They Never Quite Made It<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Richtik, J. and Hutch, D. When Jewish Settlers Farmed in Manitoba’s Interlake Area, <\/em>Canadian Geographical Journal, 95(1), 1977, p. 35<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Bender Hamlet limped along; the colonists never cultivated more than 18% of the land they owned. 76<\/a><\/sup> Perhaps they depended on other ways to earn money. For example, after the railroad arrived in 1914, they planned to set up a cheese & creamery co-op<\/a> and ship dairy products to Winnipeg but it burned down before it could open. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Bender Hamlet Historic Marker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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But they were able to sell wood to Winnipeg, and perhaps they shipped eggs to the city as well. I say that because in the years 1914 to 1923 as shown in the chart above, the approximate average percentage of acres farmed grew only 12% each year and as late as 1923 only 19% of the land owned by the settlers was cultivated. On the other hand, in the 1914-1923 period the number of chickens in the settlement grew by an average of 26% each year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then falling prices, crop failures, and suicide all took their toll. By the late 1920s, most of the settlers had left Bender Hamlet and the last family left in 1932. 77<\/a><\/sup>. But let’s put this failure in perspective. The hardships did not just affect the Jews. During the same years, nearby Ukrainian and Scandinavian farmers also left the land. 78<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the area is famous for its natural snake pits as you can see in this video<\/a>. As the New York Times <\/a>explains ” The area… is so attractive to snakes for the same reasons many farmers abandoned it decades ago: Its thin topsoil sits on top of limestone that water has gradually eroded underground….”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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