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).