Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère, Daughter of Moisés Ville

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1902-1992

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From the Museum of Moises Ville

With this post, on the writings of Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère, a Jewish Spanish Civil War brigade captain, born in the Baron Hirsch assisted Moises Ville colony in Argentina, thebaronhirschcommunity.org realizes the beginning of a long-held intention: to make this blog trilingual. Our goal is to present information in the languages that became the mother tongues of the descendants of immigrants who received Baron Hirsch’s support, English, Portuguese and Spanish.

And so it is fitting that we start with the story of one of the daughters of the project that started the whole Baron Hirsch initiative, the Moisés Ville colony in Argentina, founded in 1889.

We begin by sharing the link to an article, Identidad, género,y prácticas anarquistas en las memorias de Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère  (Identity, gender and anarchist practices in the memoir of Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère ) by the cultural studies researcher Cynthia Gabbay.  This article analyzes the cultural field or environment of this French-Argentine author, a daughter of Jewish Russian-Ukrainian immigrants who were some of the original settlers in the Moisés Ville farming community in Santa Fé Province in Argentina.  This community, where Micaela was born, founded in 1889, was Baron Hirsch’s first attempt at settling Eastern European Jews as farmers in the New World. Based on this experience, in 1891 he founded the Jewish Colonization Association that spent billions of dollars on similar projects during the succeeding 75 years.

(For those who do not read Spanish, do not fear.  Shortly, we will be posting, in English, another article on Micaela, also by Dr. Gabbay.)

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Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère, hija de Moisés Ville

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1902-1992

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Del Museo de Moises Ville

Con esta publicación, sobre Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère, hija de la colonia agrícola judía de Moisés Ville en Argentina, y veterana de la guerra civil española, comienza a hacerse realidad el proyecto de que thebaronhirschcommunity.org sea un blog trilingüe. Nuestro fin es presentar información en los tres idiomas que llegaron ser las lenguas madres de los descendientes de inmigrantes ayudados por el Barón Hirsch: inglés, portugués y español.

Comenzamos nuestro proyecto trilingüe compartiendo este enlace al artículo, Identidad, género, y prácticas anarquistas en las memorias de Micaela Feldman y Etchebéhère de la investigadora en estudios culturales, Cynthia Gabbay. El artículo analiza el campo intelectual de esta autora franco-argentina, hija de inmigrantes ruso-ucranianos, colonos originales de la comunidad agrícola Moisés Ville en la provincia de Santa Fé, Argentina.

Esta comunidad, donde nació Micaela, fue fundada en 1889. Fue el primer intento del barón Hirsch de establecer a los judíos de Europa del Este como agricultores en el Nuevo Mundo. Basado en esa experiencia, el barón Hirsch fundó la Asociación de Colonización Judía (JCA) que financió otros proyectos similares con mil millones de dólares durante los siguientes 75 años.

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On a Clear April Morning Highlights

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Preface and Chapter 1

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 9781644692981-683x1024.jpg

Academic Studies Press

Series: Jewish Latin American Studies June 2020 | 146 pp.

9781644692981 | $22.95 | Paperback

Available used and new HERE

SUMMARY

On a Clear April Morning, by Marcos Iolovitch, is a lyrical and riveting coming of age story set among early twentieth-century settlers brought to an almost unknown Jewish farming experiment in an isolated corner of Brazil. This autobiographical novel is filled with drama, joy, disasters, romance, and humor. It travels from farms where the crops won’t grow to towns where the Yiddish-speaking protagonist falls in love, befriends sons of German immigrants, studies philosophy with the Jesuits, and becomes an important member of Brazil’s literary world. This first English edition includes elucidating historical notes on the origin of Jewish farming communities in the U.S., Canada and South America by the translator, Merrie Blocker, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer.

About the author and translator

Born in a small Ukrainian village, Marcos Iolovitch was raised in southern Brazil among poor Jewish farmers and peddlers. He became a noted poet and essayist and practiced law. A fighter for social justice, he dedicated his autobiographical novel to “all those who suffer and dream of a better world.”

Merrie Blocker is a former U.S. diplomat who served as Cultural Attaché in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the setting for On a Clear April Morning, as well as in Central Asia, Romania and throughout Latin America.

Translator’s Preface

Marcos Iolovitch, author of On a Clear April Morning, was an avid student of the great philosophers. But he believed that to reach “true wisdom” we need to open our windows and observe the “subtle shades of reality that envelope” us. In this autobiographical novel, in which a young man seeks to find a righteous and fulfilling path, we watch this charming and caring protagonist discover his own wisdom through the realities that envelop him, the realities of Jewish immigrants in southern Brazil during the first decades of the twentieth century.

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Baron De Hirsch Agricultural School

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Woodbine, New Jersey, 1894-1917

The 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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Merrie Blocker, Creator

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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.

On a Clear April Morning

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A Brazilian Jewish Journey

Cover of On a Clear April Morning, A Brazilian Jewish Journey of Immigration

The first literary work to reflect the Brazilian Jewish community has finally been published in English. It is now available.

Read about it here, check out the preface and first chapter here and book the translator, Merrie Blocker, to speak to your group.

On a Clear April Morning, by Marcos Iolovitch, is a lyrical and riveting coming- of-age story. It is set among early 20th Century Jewish settlers brought to an unknown farming experiment in an isolated corner of Brazil.

Drama, joy, disaster, romance, and humor fill this autobiographical novel. The young hero travels from a farm, where the crops wouldn’t grow, to towns where this Yiddish-speaking youngster falls in love, studies philosophy with the Jesuits, and becomes an important member of Brazil’s literary world.

This first English edition includes elucidating historical notes by the translator, Merrie Blocker, a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer. They cover the origin of Jewish farming communities in the U.S., Canada, and South America and the contributions of Jews and other immigrants to the development of an avant-garde intellectual center far off the beaten path.

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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Brazilian Jewish Farmers Tell Their Stories

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Israelitas no Rio Grande do Sul

This post gives a description of the novels and memoirs left to us by early 20th Century Southern Brazilian farmers.  They offer fascinating portrayals of Jewish immigrant life. The post includes visuals, links to more information and a list of references. We also  include how to find both the original and secondary works  in libraries worldwide.
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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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