The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County

The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County

Arthur L. Finkle

The Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County opened in 2006. The museum’s mission is to raise public awareness of the County's Jewish heritage, particularly its agricultural contributions. 

The earliest Jewish population can be traced to Isaac Emanuel, a Freehold merchant, was the first Jew to settle in Monmouth County in 1720. During the American Revolution, both the British and Continental sides after the Battle of Monmouth (1778) mentioned ‘Jewtown” in what is now Freehold Township. Local history indicates there were several Jewish tavern and inn keepers.

It presents exhibits, programs and publications that celebrate and preserve the unique history of the Jewish residents of Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Located in an old barn (c1800), once part of the Levi Solomon farm, (donated by Bernard Hochberg), its supporters include The Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County.

Manny Metz, a Freehold farmer for more than four decades, tends his land, circa 1975.

Jill Huber, New Jersey Jewish News Bureau, reported that Jean Klerman of Fair Haven, and Charlotte Kruman of Rumson, co-chaired an exhibit on the book,

Peddler to Suburbanite: The History of the Jews of Monmouth County,

Kruman chaired the Jewish Bicentennial Committee of the Monmouth Jewish

She also donated a copy of a 1778 map depicted ‘Jews Town’ (now part of Colts Neck) as seen in the Battle of Monmouth during the Revolutionary War.

Jean Klerman, a member of the museum’s board of trustees and co-writer of the book, was the “driving force” in creating the exhibit. She recognized the efforts of museum co-president Jeffrey Wolf, the exhibits committee co-chair, and committee members Susan Helfant, Nora Levinson, Marilyn Kass, Michael Berman, Gil Newman, and Karen Wolf.

By 1935, according to Peddler to Suburbanite, Monmouth County ranked among most poultry farmers in the United States. Estimates suggested that Jewish farmers accounted for about 75 percent of New Jersey’s total egg production.

The exhibit featured with photos and text depicting highlights from the lives of Jewish poultry farmers who once helped earn Monmouth County the nickname “egg basket of the nation.” Dioramas show chicken coops and farming implements.

Jeffrey Wolf, museum co-president, and Georgine Eberbright, vice president and exhibits chair, admire a model of a chicken coop — “complete with chicks” — part of an exhibit honoring Jewish farmers on display at the Jewish Heritage Museum of Monmouth County. The two co-chaired the committee working on the exhibit.

 Past Exhibits included:

·       Rev. John Greaul : Christian Zionist

·       Monmouth County Poultry Farming

·       Jersey Homesteads: Experiments in Cooperative Living (Roosevelt, NJ)

·       The Land Was Theirs: The Story of the Jewish Farmers of Monmouth County

·       Dr. Gertrude Wishnick Dubrovsky, who passed away in October 2012, was New Jersey’s foremost historian of the state’s Jewish farming communities.

·       Fun Can Be Work!

·       The Art of Clara Gee Stamaty, Stanley Stamaty, and Mark Alan Stamaty

·       Jewish Experience in Pictures (Photographs Capturing Monmouth County’s Jewish Experience)

·       Marilyn Michaels: Painting and Memories - a Multimedia Exhibit

·       Art exhibition of Marilyn Michaels memorabilia  (theatre, television and recording star)

·       Sheldon Sacks Exhibit (Popular commercial artist)

·       World War II Tribute

·       The Historical Memorabilia of Rabbi Sally J. Priesand, America's First Woman Rabbi. In 1972 Sally Priesand became the first woman ordained as a rabbi from a rabbinical seminary. She served for twenty five years as rabbi of Monmouth Reform Temple..   

·       Textile Exhibit

·       Jacob Landau: Humanist and Visionary

·       Exhibit and commentary on the artist’s work by Dr. David Herrstrom, president of the Landau Institute as well as a musical presentation by David Brahinsky and Friends, Roosevelt, NJ.

Current and future programs are found at http://www.jhmomc.org/

 

Farmingdale: Poultry Capital of New Jersey

Farmingdale: Poultry Capital of New Jersey

Arthur L. Finkle

Farmingdale, Monmouth County, six miles from Fort Monmouth, is a study in how Jews could live the dream of achieving spiritual development by working the soil to become the egg capital of the United States in the 1940’s.

Begun in 1919 by the Freidman and the Peskin families (close relatives), recent immigrants from Galicia, and more recently from the slums of New York City, the Farmingdale community became an expression of the individualistic, cooperative, idealistic, hard-working farmer.  [1]

Most had briefly lived in New York City. A major reason for this agricultural undertaking was to escape the severe Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Other reasons included escaping labor exploitation, as they saw in the needle trades in New York, social justice, independence, owning land (new for the Jew) and gaining the farming mores that working the soil will build spirituality.

Since farming was noncompetitive (all benefited from healthy poultry and good growing seasons), the community set up cooperatives (both politically leftist and rightest), finally joining together in forming a general organization of an Egg Cooperative that included the corridor of egg farmers in the Route 130 corridor, initiated by the Jewish Agricultural Society. The ‘coop’ members shared farming knowledge, marketed eggs and poultry and kept up on the latest in the industry.

Farmingdale poultry farming thrived from the 1910 to 1960. Originally living in New York, radicalized with socialism in reaction to their perceived oppression in the garment industry, these ‘farmers’ appeared in Monmouth County, not knowing a thing about farming.

In 1919, two New York City Jewish immigrant families pooled their little money to create poultry farms supported by Jewish Agricultural Society. Led by the pioneering Peskin and Friedman families, both Russians, who settled initially in New York and belonged to the same Landmandshaffen (clubs of Jewish European immigrants from the same area), they desired to live in an area similar to ‘old country.’

The horrible 1918 flu epidemic catalyzed the venture. The early years were tough. The farmers organized the Central Jersey Cooperative organization, in 1920, with the help from the Jewish Agricultural Society for whole area. In 1927, the farmers established the Farmingdale Cooperative and the Poultry Egg

Because of their isolation and individualism, coupled with their bad experiences living in congested New York City, these farmers were secular in their outlook. Wanting to escape urban slums, exploitation in the garment industry and desiring to achieve social injustice and independence, they liked farming and its communal nature.

They also had the support of County Agents and the Jewish Agricultural Society.

Begun in 1919 by the Freidman and the Peskin families (close relatives), recent immigrants from Galicia, and more recently from the slums of New York City, the Farmingdale community became an expression of the individualistic, cooperative, idealistic, hard-working farmer.

A major reason for this strange undertaking was to escape the severe Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Other reasons included escaping labor exploitation as they saw in the needle trades in New York, social justice, independence, owning land (new for the Jew) and gaining the farming mores that working the soil will build spirituality.

Since farming was noncompetitive (all benefitted from healthy poultry and good growing seasons), the community set up cooperatives (both politically leftist and rightest), finally joining together in forming a general organization of an Egg Cooperative that included the corridor of egg farmers in the Route 130 corridor, initiated by the Jewish Agricultural Society. The coop members shared farming knowledge, marketed eggs and poultry and kept up on the latest in the industry.

 Fig. 15 White Leghorn

Initially, it grew produce (potatoes and corn); then animals (pigs and cows). When the Jewish Agricultural Society saw that this community needed a different product, it suggested poultry. Supported by the Jewish Agricultural Society, Farmingdale struck it rich over a period in the poultry and egg business.

Its residents roiled in political revolt against the oppressive conditions in the slums of New York City. This intellectual community even impressed Albert Einstein who found it remarkable that Jews could become successful farmers.[2]

The population of Farmingdale, which land is the base for a dam, had a population in 1919 of 600 but it increased as the Peskin's and the Friedmanns and wooed their relatives, boarding guests, and Jews who wanted a different life that they could control. The Peskins became realtors and marketed their community for its individuality, livelihood and spiritual values.

Although the Friedman's found that they could not make a living and returned to the dry cleaning business in New York, they returned to Farmingdale nine years later.

Its inhabitants came in four waves. First was the Eastern Europeans who generally had stayed in the slums of New York and had their children school there in their early years. Many of these farmers were radicals.

They built a Community Center, with the help of Jewish Agricultural Society around which they centered their intellectual lives (lefties versus righties); solvers of world problems, renowned speakers and performers, and meeting about their cooperative ventures. There were adherents of Socialism, Their beliefs ranged from capitalism, libertarianism, nihilism, anarchism, Trotskyism, Schactmannism and Communism, among others.

This population and later waves of immigrants did not practice most Jewish rituals or prayer. Nevertheless, their social lives centered on the Jewish holidays, the rites of passage and the never-ending argumentation probably derived from Talmud study of their forbears.

The second wave of inhabitants consisted of mainly intellectuals who wanted to flee the stifles of New York. These idealistic newcomers provided the high intellectual bent of the community.

In the 1930’s, German Jews fled a hostile Germany. Some settled in farm communities. These refugees became a community within a community. Most were more highly educated than their Russian brethren, they were also more conservative.

German Jews did not want to live in New York. They also had a language barrier. But one farmer said that the chicken did not distinguish between German and English. Accordingly, their transition was made easier. [3]

The prosperous years were from 1929 to 1945. Farming techniques plus government price-supports of eggs caused profits to rise more than 100%. One of the unintended benefits of poultry was that it became a ready substitute for meat, rationed during the war. Many farmers retired to Lakewood.

Displaced Persons who arrived after World War 2 formed the fourth wave. Concentration camp survivors who needed a becalming placed in which to heal from their ordeal. Used to backbreaking work, they were good farmers.

Intellectual Farmers

Political arguments became the lifeblood of the community. It served as a social outlet (psychological and emotional support) because there were neither phones nor cars between farms. Yet, in order to adjudicate these political battles, they formed an arbitration bureau at the Community Center, which they called the Beis Din (Rabbinical Court).

Because of  the Farmingdale community’s perfervid and sometimes radical political arguments, many of Farmingdale's inhabitants were under FBI investigation for their radical political views during the paranoid McCarthy era (early 1950's), without cause.

Endnotes

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[1] Gerhard Falk, The German Jews in America: a Minority with a Minority (Lanham, Boulder, NY, Toronto, Plymouth, UK: University Press, Inc., 2014)

[2] Dubrovsky, Gertrude Wishnick, The Land Was Theirs: Jewish Farmers in the Garden State (Judaic Studies Series) by (Feb 28, 1992). (Tuscaloosa : Alabama U. Press).

[3] Diner, Hasia in A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820-1880 (1992).

Rabbi Evan Jaffe of Flemington Jewish Community Center

Community shares Rabbi Evan Jaffe's legacy | Letters

Rabbi Evan Jaffe, shown here in December 2014, is being remembered as a man who cared for people of all faiths.

Rabbi Evan A. Jaffe

Obituary |  Condolences

Rabbi Evan A. Jaffe, died Wednesday August 12, 2015 at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA, he was 62. Born in Baltimore, MD, son of the late Marvin and Carolyn Moranz Jaffe, he had resided in Flemington since 1987, and formerly resided in New York City. Rabbi Jaffe was a graduate of Columbia University and received his Master's Degree in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary, in New York City. Evan was the Rabbi at the Flemington Jewish Community Center (FJCC) since 1987. At one time, he was a professional ballet dancer in New York for seven years. Active in community activities for nearly 30 years, he was the Chaplain at Hunterdon Developmental Center, in Clinton, NJ and the Greenbrook Regional Center, in Greenbrook NJ. He was the President of the Hunterdon Interfaith Outreach Council, former President of the Women's Crisis Center in Flemington, was an active participant with the Volunteer Guardianship of One-on-One in Hunterdon County and Meals on Wheels of Hunterdon County, and was a volunteer at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, NJ. He was also the founder of the O.P.E.N. Road of Flemington, which facilitates the transportation for the developmentally disabled and the homebound elderly to places of worship. He was also very active in the Matheny School and Hospital in Peapack, NJ. During his tenure at the FJCC, he oversaw the growth of the community center and was selected by The Forward magazine "as one of the 33 most inspirational Rabbi's in the US." Rabbi Jaffe is survived by his wife of 33 years, Phyllis Lerner, two daughters, Atara Jaffe of Vacaville, CA, and Jordana Jaffe of Hoboken, NJ, and a sister, Mindy Jaffe of Honolulu HI. Funeral services will take place Friday, August 14, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. in the Flemington Jewish Community Center, 5 Sergeantsville Road, Flemington, NJ under the joint-direction of Holcombe-Fisher Funeral Home and Wright & Ford Family Funeral Home, Flemington, NJ. Interment will follow in the Flemington Jewish Community Cemetery, Capner Street, Flemington, NJ. As is traditional in the Jewish faith, the Rabbi would not want flowers. Instead, please consider a donation to the Flemington Jewish Community Center, 5 Sergeantsville Road, Flemington NJ 08822, the Hunterdon Interfaith Outreach Council, at the same address, or Volunteer Guardianship One-on-One, 188 Route 31, Flemington, NJ 08822. Holcombe-Fisher Funeral Home 147 Main Street Flemington, NJ 08822 (908) 782-4343

Published in Hunterdon County Democrat from Aug. 15 to Aug. 18, 2015

- See more at: http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/hunterdoncountydemocrat/obituary.aspx?pid=175527280&fhid=8072#sthash.rS51HF2g.dpuf

Community shares Rabbi Evan Jaffe's legacy | Letters

Rabbi Evan Jaffe, shown here in December 2014, is being remembered as a man who cared for people of all faiths.

http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/hunterdoncountydemocrat/obituary.aspx?pid=175527280&fhid=8072#sthash.rS51HF2g.dpuf

By Hunterdon County Democrat 
on August 18, 2015 at 6:15 AM, updated August 18, 2015 at 6:16 AM

To the editor:

Among the hundreds still reeling from the loss of Flemington's Rabbi Evan Jaffe, I am moved to share insight into a fraction of his impact.

After settling in Hunterdon County, I set out to explore my options for the 2006 High Holy Days. Flemington Jewish Community Center appeared a perfect fit with my interfaith marriage and middle-of-the-road religious observance.

It was evident from the outset that Rabbi Jaffe was a spiritual leader who danced to the beat of his own drum; in fact, he had been a professional ballet dancer for several years, an astonishing fact some first learned upon his passing. He was warm, wise, enthusiastic, energetic, innovative in all he embraced, active in the community on so many levels it was as if he was running a race for his life.

The last two years, while dealing with family health issues (my mother's and my own), the rabbi and I had extended conversations and numerous email exchanges about topics as diverse as care facility problems, Asperger's syndrome, humor, and my potential bat mitzvah (which I had never had and for which he offered to tutor me). We laughed together over mistakes we each had found on memorial grave stones as we proofread together the one for my mother after her passing a few months ago. I dare not divulge his repair proposal!

To know this vibrant man was honored recently, and on prior occasions, for his selfless service, especially to those less fortunate, brings solace. Society often waits until someone has passed to recognize such "mitzvot" (colloquial: good deeds).

With his passing Aug. 12, the entire community has suffered an enormous wound. We join his loving family in mourning, as we remember the long arm of his activities. We can look to — and act upon — his legacy to seek healing and inspiration.

Stephanie P. Ledgin

Pittstown

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To the editor:

He ... was a friend of mine.

I am truly humbled and blessed to say that Rabbi Evan Jaffe was a friend of mine. We were members of the same "social justice gang" in Hunterdon County. I met him about 12 years ago when I worked with Family Promise of Hunterdon County, an agency that provides shelter and services to homeless families.

He led the Flemington Jewish Community Center in their support and dedication to Family Promise and homeless families.

The first time I saw him, he came to the office to drop off a personal check to help one of the families with a car repair. He had a spring to his step and a sparkle in his eyes, that proclaimed the heart of a joyful giver. He was a community servant extraordinaire - Rabbi by day, social worker by night.

Champion of those deprived of food, deprived of friends and love and mood. Delivering meals, guarding affairs, warming homes, visiting the forgotten. With unlimited energy and capacity to care, he had colossal compassion for anything not fair. He was the eternal optimist and guardian of good.

If you were impoverished - he was your wealth.

His own treasure amassed with each hand that he held. And, always, he had a vision for a better world. Our hearts are breaking, because he is gone, but his gift is forever and the world will improve-each time we tell the story of the Rabbi who cared.

Geleen G. Donovan

Glen Gardner

http://www.nj.com/hunterdon/index.ssf/2015/08/community_talks_about_rabbi_evan_jaffes_legacy_let.html

 

 

 

 

Services Friday for Rabbi Jaffe of Flemington Jewish Community Center

Mike Deak, @MikeDeakMyCJ5:15 p.m. EDT August 13, 2015

Rabbi Jaffe was ‘incredible man with a spirit and soul that were always selfless, always kind’

(Photo: ~Courtesy of The Matheny School)

RARITAN TOWNSHIP – Services will be held Friday for Rabbi Evan Jaffe, the spiritual leader of the Flemington Jewish Community Center, who died on Wednesday at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. He was 62.

Funeral services will be at 1 p.m. in the Flemington Jewish Community Center, 5 Sergeantsville Road, under the joint direction of Holcombe-Fisher Funeral Home and Wright & Ford Family Funeral Home. Interment will follow in the Flemington Jewish Community Cemetery, Capner Street.

“We are so heartbroken to announce this news,” his wife, Phyllis, and daughters Jordana and Atara wrote in his obituary. “He was an incredible man with a spirit and soul that were always selfless, always kind, forever patient, with love for everyone.”

Rabbi Jaffe graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in Religion. He received a Master of Hebrew Letters from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. He was also a professional dancer in the city for seven years.

According to the Flemington Jewish Community’s website, the congregation has grown drastically since Rabbi Jaffe arrived in 1987. He acted as rabbi and cantor, read the Torah, taught Hebrew classes and tutored bar/bat mitzvah students.

Rabbi Jaffe was very active in the Central Jersey community. He was the Jewish chaplain at Hunterdon Medical Center and the Hunterdon County Jail. He was also chaplain for the Hunterdon Developmental Center, where he worked with severely disabled adults and conducted services for them every Wednesday. He was also chaplain at the Green Brook Regional Center in Green Brook.

He also served as president of Hunterdon Interfaith Outreach Council, an interdenominational organization of 30 congregations dedicated to helping nonprofit agencies in the county.

Rabbi Jaffe performed Hanukkah, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur services for students and residents at the Matheny School in Peapack-Gladstone. He also assisted Matheny residents in getting to their places of worship through his Open R.O.A.D. program that sought transportation for disabled individuals to attend religious services.

“We’re all devastated by the news here,” said Sanford Josephson, director of public relations and development at Matheny. “He would come to Matheny several times a year to conduct services during the holidays, and he was always so full of joy and compassion.”

Earlier this year, Rabbi Jaffe was named by The Jewish Daily Forward as one of “America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis.”

“If you want to make a difference in this would, you don’t have to think on a grand,” Rabbi Jaffe once wrote in an op-ed for the Courier News. “You don’t have to donate a million dollars or save a thousand lives. Just a holding of hands, a show of concern and care where and when it is needed, even for a short time, is all that is necessary.”

The family suggests that memorial donations be forwarded to the Flemington Jewish Community Center, the Hunterdon Interfaith Outreach Council or Volunteer Guardianship One-on-One.

Staff Writer Mike Deak: 908-243-6607; mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/hunterdon-county/2015/08/13/services-friday-rabbi-jaffe-flemington-jewish-community-center/31658585/