Review - American Jewish Archives

Book Reviews 209
Eisenberg, Ellen.
Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920.
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995.218 pages.
This book is mostly about five Jewish farm colonies in southern
New Jersey. Alliance, the first Jewish farm colony in the United
States, was founded on May 9, 1882, with 43 families. Four other
colonies followed. Two of them, Carmel and Rosenhayn, were also
founded in 1882, Carrnel with 17 families and Rosenhayn with 6 or 7
families. Within a decade, Alliance expanded to form Norma and
Brotrnanville. By 1908 Alliance had 187 families and a total popula-
tion of nearly 1,000. Carmel had 144 families and a population of
795, and Rosenhayn had 98 families and a total population of 475.
These five colonies were dominated at first by Am Olam contin-
gents and were the largest and longest lasting Jewish agricultural
colonies in the United States.
Before getting into a detailed analysis of these five colonies,
Eisenberg discusses the Jewish background both in Europe and in
the United States. She begins with a chapter on the east European
background of the settlers, contrasting the settlers with other east
European Jewish immigrants. She follows with a chapter on mem-
bers, philosophies, and the experiments of the Am Olam, and she
completes her background material with a chapter on colony spon-
sors. These three chapters together, making up about half of the
book, give a good understanding of the background of the success-
ful and unsuccessful attempts at Jewish farming.
Eisenberg approaches her study with ideas and approaches that
not only add more depth to what has already been known but also
add challenging new information that broadens our perspective.
One of Eisenberg's major contributions is to use the newer histori-
cal approach of looking at immigrant origins. She is concerned
with the process of migration that shifted the center of Jewish popu-
lation from eastern Europe to the United States. While most other
studies emphasize the encounter of the immigrant with the host
country, Eisenberg also is concerned with "the circumstances of life
in the country of origin, and the process of migration that dispro-