1909 Jewish Farmers Fair

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Jewish_Farmers_of_America_-_ca1909

1909 Exhibition of Jewish Farmers of America, Library of Congress photo

This post includes photos and references on the October 1909 Jewish Federation of Farmers conference and fair in New York City. It was held at the Educational Alliance at the corner of East Broadway and Jefferson.  The most popular of the 225 exhibits were presented by the  Baron Hirsch Agricultural College in Woodbine, New Jersey.  Over 50,000 people visited the exhibit. Speakers included the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, the honorable W.M. Hays. 

The Cornell Agricultural College, one of the most important agricultural schools in the United States, as well as the New Haven Experiment Station, the New Jersey College of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Agricultural College, participated in the exhibition.  In the 1935 History of the Baron de Hirsch Fund,  the author called this participation “true public recognition: American universities taking part in an agricultural exposition organized by Russian Jews.” 1

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  1.   Joseph, Samuel. The History of the Baron Hirsch Fund, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1935. p. 142. [↩]

Why Jews Don’t Farm

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Boy in Woodbine NJ Baron Hirsch Farming Colony c. 1900 from Center for Jewish History

Check out the article from SLATE at the  link below, on why Jews don’t farm. It is written by  a descendent of an immigrant to the Baron Hirsch farming community in Woodbine, New Jersey. It  is fun to read.  But, contrary to his thesis, there were Jewish farming communities in  Ukraine and Bessarabia  and even Siberia.   In fact before the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, Jews were allowed, and often encouraged, to buy land and farm in Russia.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2003/06/why_jews_dont_farm.html

For video interviews  with American Jews who did farm go to

https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/heft-notebook/wexler-oral-history-project-collections/american-jewish

 

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The Baron Hirsch Jewish Farmers Community

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Maurice_de_Hirsch_-_Tableau.jpg This blog is designed to collect and tell the stories of the Jewish farmers that Baron Maurice de Hirsch supported in North and South America and the follow on stories of their descendants worldwide.

The blog proposes to unite many of today’s beneficiaries of the Baron’s generosity, We believe that cooperation and sharing among us could result in many inspiring and amazing ideas and projects.

We hope you will send us your stories and permission to publish them.  Click here to contact us.   And if you have a particular question about this immigration phenomenon, let us know.  We will research the answer and write a post.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the builder of the Vienna-Constantinople Railroad, and his friends, sponsored the settlement of Eastern European Jews in many lands.  Primarily they worked in North and South America. This blog presents written works and visuals depicting the original immigrants. It also relates the achievements of the descendants of these immigrants.  And there are many achievements. Our forebears were courageous and ingenious people as are their grand and great grand children.

MORE ON BARON HIRSCH

At https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Baron+Hirsch&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2  you  can find  over 50 different books on the life and work of Baron Hirsch?

Also check out this short summary of Baron Hirsch’s work with Jewish farmers.

https://reformjudaism.org/blog/2016/10/18/how-connecticuts-jewish-farmers-exemplify-power-philanthropy

And for the whole story read the official history of the Jewish Colonization Agency, An Outstretched Arm.  https://archive.org/stream/cu31924011030396/cu31924011030396_djvu.txt