I, Merrie Blocker, am the creator of the baronhirschcommunity.org . Relating and finding stories of Jewish Farmers in the New World, and their descendants worldwide, is the purpose of this site.
I am a retired U.S. foreign service officer. You can find my resume here. My grandfather grew up on a Baron Hirsch- supported chicken farm in northwestern Connecticut, USA. But I only learned that recently when I began to research Baron Hirsch’s support for Jewish farmers throughout the Americas.
I also translated to English the first work to feature the Jewish community in Brazil as subject matter. It is On a Clear April Morning, an autobiographical novel by Marcos Iolovitch. In this novel, he relates growing up as a Ukrainian immigrant to the Quatro Irmãos farming colony in southern Brazil. Quatro Irmãos was one of many colonies supported by Baron Hirsch’s donations.
I hope you will send us your ideas to make this a richer online depository.
English 
Español de Argentina
Merrie,
My Grandfather, Hyman Seplowitz was a cattle dealer in the eastern part of Connecticut, probably around the Colchester/Norwich area, moving to various farms in the eastern area. His children (my father, uncles and aunts) had many chicken farms across the state. My father, Alex and his brother Abe, had two of the most unique chicken coops in the area. Both were supposedly designed after an Amish design: My fathers was octagonal, and my uncles was round. They eliminated the unnecessary steps when you reached the ‘end’, since in both cases the ‘end’ became the ‘beginning’.
In total 6 of the 9 children of Hyman had chicken farms in the state.
I don’t know if Hyman was helped by the Baron Hirsch Society, but thought you might find this of interest.
Sincerely,
Paul Seplowitz
Thanks so much for your message. Would you like to write a post we can put on the site about your family and the farms. If you send me a text and any photos I can make it into a post. Thanks again, Merrie Blocker
Hi Merrie, My name is Gareth Barr and I come from Scotland UK. I’m trying to find out what became of my Great Uncle, Phillip Harwitz. He Came to Scotland with his parents and siblings in 1905. Three of the siblings then emigrated to Baltimore Annie Shulman around 1910 Michael 1912 and Phillip in 1915. I found out that he attended Bucks County National Farm School from about 1916 to 1920sh. After that I cannot find anything about him. I’m not sure if he went into farming or not. I would be very grateful for any help you could give me about him.
Kind Regards
Gareth
Thanks for reaching out. Let me investigate a bit to see if I can find something. Merrie
Gareth, if you’ve not yet done so, consider reaching out to someone at the main Jewish communal organization in Baltimore, namely “The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore.” Its website is https://associated.org/about-us/history-mission/
Also consider reaching out to someone at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Its website is https://jewishmuseummd.org/