Jewels from the Earth: Jewish Agriculturalism on Four Continents
Tuition: $180 | YIVO members: $135**
This is a live, online course held on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 25 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, recordings of class sessions, etc.) will be posted to Google Classroom. Students will be granted access to the class on Google Classroom after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English, and any readings will be in English.
Instructor: Jonathan Dekel-Chen
This three-part course explores mostly unknown chapters of the Jewish past – the striking story of large-scale farming life on four continents. Nearly forgotten in recent decades, organized agricultural settlement was a key part of the modern Jewish experience in the modern world. In fact, Jewish rural life has spanned the globe from the mid-nineteenth century until today. If people have heard anything at all about Jewish farming, their knowledge is usually limited to biblical stories or to the agricultural “miracle” achieved in modern Israel, where large stretches of the Negev Desert have indeed been made to bloom.
But that “miracle” did not grow in isolation. Rather, agricultural development in Israel-Palestine grew from a much larger story that encompassed hundreds of thousands of Jewish farmers on millions of acres spread around the world. We will survey many of these projects from the 1880s until the eve of the Second World War, revealing both successes and failures, together with the large philanthropic campaigns in the Jewish world that made them possible.
To clarify the links across these decades and vast geographic spaces, Professor Dekel-Chen will present some of the ideologies and people behind the agricultural settlement projects that arose during these years from Argentina to Saskatchewan to northern California, and from the prairies of southern Russia to the Kibbutzim and Moshavim in the hills and valleys of the Land of Israel.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Google Classroom.
Questions? Read our 2027 Winter Program FAQ.
Jonathan Dekel-Chen is Rabbi Edward Sandrow Chair in Soviet & East European Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is a member of the History Department and the Department of Jewish History & Contemporary Jewry. His current research and publications deal with transnational philanthropy and advocacy, non-state diplomacy, agrarian history, and migration.
**Become a member today, starting at $54 for one year, and pay the member price for classes! You’ll save on tuition for this course and more on future classes and public programs tickets.