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A JARC Vacation
Recalls Farming Era
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
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I
t can happen that a mere
social function might
lead to important
recollections and
remarkable activities. This
is the case with one of the
JARC groups that is plann-
ing a vacation in what has
become a nearly-forgotten
Michigan area.
One of the directors of the
JARC Frankel group, Cory
Darnell, decided to take the
group on a trip to South
Haven. That's where the
reminders begin.
Numerous assemblies and
seminars sponsored by the
Zionist Organization of
America were held in South
Haven. B'nai B'rith and
landsmanshaften did much
planning there. Percy
Kaplan, executive director of
the Jewish National Fund
for many years, supervised
organizational and cultural
sessions there.
A June 1957 clipping from
the Detroit News reveals
that an honor was accorded
to Leonard N. Simons in
South Haven. It was at the
fourth annual institute of
human relations of the
Michigan Regional Advisory
Board of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith. It is also interesting
to note that Mr. Simons was
flown to South Haven in
Max Fisher's private plane.
An entire bookshelf is be-
ing assembled on Michigan
farmers by Judy Cantor,
editor of the Michigan Jew-
ish History Magazine.
One of the documents is
about a novel by Ceil Pearl
Schnapic about Jewish
farmers in the Benton Har-
bor area. While in the
beginning of this century
some 400 Jews participated
in Benton Harbor farming
ventures, fewer than a dozen
remained 20 years ago.
The South Haven ac-
tivities later developed into
summer resort aspects.
That's how the area became
important for conventions
and public assemblies. In the
1950s and 1960s there were
resort facilities with kosher
restaurants serving to at-
tract statewide and national
movements for the ad-
vancement of Zionist, ADL
and Jewish social service
needs.
The revival of interest in
South Haven creates special
attention in Jewish farming
activities in Michigan. The
first major pioneering effort
was in the 1880s and 1890s
in Bad Axe. A second was
the Sunrise Colony near
Saginaw in the 1930s.
Only a few apple and other
fruit farms established by
Jews still survive; yet they
enrich the record of Jewish
achievements in our state.
The most sensational
Michigan Jewish farming
experience toward the end of
the last century was in Bad
Axe. A number of prominent
Michigan citizens took an
interest in the back-to-the-
land tasks that managed to
survive. The Bad Axe story
was given prominent space
in the Michigan Jewish His-
tory Magazine in an item
written by Emanuel Ap-
plebaum. He presented us
with the following facts:
In 1891, when the growth
in the area returned and
contained brush and
poplar trees, an ex-
perimental agricultural
colony was established by
Jews. This was but one of
the attempts during the
nineteenth century, by
Jews in the western area of
the United States, to
establish such colonies.
These Jewish "farmers" in
Bad Axe were completely
inexperienced and
untrained.
With one exception who
had come from Germany,
they all had arrived from
Russia in 1888 and had liv-
ed in Bay City, Michigan.
The United States was in
the midst of a depression
when the Palestine Colony,
as it was called, was
begun.
All of the 12 settlers had
been peddlers or itinerants
wandering from farm to
farm and from town to
town. The originator of the
idea of an agricultural set-
tlement was Hyman Lew-
enberg, who had arrived in
the United States in 1880,
and had read of other such
experiments and attempts
by Jews elsewhere to
return to farming . .
From the financial banks
in the area of Bad Axe,
which held title to huge
tracts, twelve adjoining
parcels of land were then-
purchased . . . They hoped
to establish a "new Zion" in
America and so they nam-
ed the colony "Palestine."
However, being inex-
perienced they were failing
miserably in their
undertaking.
A passing Jewish ped-
dler brought the story of
their failure and extreme
hardship to Martin Butzel,
a prominent Detroit mer-
chant who was then presi-
dent of the Beth El Hebrew
Relief Society. He became
quite involved in a number
of attempts to aid the strug-
gling farmers of Bad
Axe . . .
Emanuel Wodic, a
retired, experienced
farmer of 25 years of farm-
ing in the area of Utica,
Michigan, was a member
of Temple Beth El. Martin
Butzel asked him to visit
Bad Axe and report back
on his observations. Upon
his return and his report to
Martin Butzel, a meeting
was called of the Beth El
Relief Society. A fund of
$1,200 was raised to help
the farmers .. .
As a result of Martin
Butzel's correspondence
with the Baron de Hirsch
Fund that had just been
established, the Fund
voted $3,000 to meet the im-
mediate needs of the
Jewish farmers, and Butzel
served as trustee of the
Fund. In September, 1892,
Butzel traveled to Bad Axe
and paid out $2,300 to
cover back payments on
the mortgage on the farms.
Other pressing debts were
then also taken care of.
There is another more sen-
sational chapter in which
some of us became involved
quite intimately in the
1930s.
Sunrise in Michigan was a
larger scale farming under-
taking which merits exten-
sive study. Professor Sidney
Bolkosky gives considera-
tion to the Sunrise colony in
his recent history of Jews in
Michigan. Dr. Bolkosky
presents the following:
Regarding Sunrise colony
in his history of the Jews in
Detroit Dr. Bolkosky presents
the following outline:
Stimulated in part by the
Depression, an eclectic
group of socialist-oriented
Jews actively moved to
"make the world a better
place" in 1933. Members of
the Workmen's Circle, the
Poale Zion, and others of
similar political and
ideological persuasions,
followed Joseph Cohen (a
leading American anar-
chist thinker and former
editor of Die Freie Arbiter
Stimme, a Jewish leftist
newspaper) to found the
,