Review - American Jewish Archives

Book Reviews 213
Recognizing that the demise of the colonies has been taken by
many historians to indicate the failure of the Jewish farm colony
movement, Eisenberg argues that success or failure is best judged by
looking at the goals of the settlers and sponsors. One of the goals
shared by the ideologists of Am Olam, nonideological settlers, and
sponsors was the "normalization" of Jewish immigrants- the eco-
nomic, social, and cultural adaptation of Jewish immigrants to the
mainstream society. While, as noted, in the earlier years it was be-
lieved by sponsors and settlers that the adaptation would help re-
move anti-Semitism, for the later settlers adaptation was pursued
simply because it was the mainstream of the American way. They re-
alized that the professions, rather than farming, were the route to suc-
cessful integration into the American middle and upper-middles class.
Eisenberg agrees with Uri Herscher that farming actually would rep-
resent an abnormal occupational structure today. She agrees with
Judith Elkin (regarding Argentina) that although the New Jersey
colonies were failures as communal agrarian settlements, they were
highly successful in helping immigrants reach normalization.
Eisenberg's interest in Jewish farmers initially arose because her
husband's family had experience in the Jewish agricultural colonies
in Argentina, and her interest in looking at different immigrant ori-
gins was first aroused because of his family's South Pale back-
ground. She shows a good understanding of the Argentine Jewish
farming colonies through which more than one-fourth of the Argen-
tine-Jewish population entered Argentine society. While her goal is
not to compare Argentina and the United States, her awareness of
comparisons and contrasts adds insight to this book.
Eisenberg ends her book with a position that she has successfully
developed: "The disintegration of the New Jersey colonies occurred
not because Jews were incapable of farming but because they had
successfully joined the American mainstream, which was flowing
away from agriculture. A key goal of both sponsors and colonists-
normalization - had been achieved"(177).
Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920, originally a
doctoral dissertation, is based on analyses of extensive primary and
secondary sources, seventeen interviews conducted by the author,
ten interviews conducted by Richard Brotman, and eighteen inter-
views conducted by the National Museum of American Jewish His-