Jewish Ukrainian agricultural colonies, part 1 of 3 #general
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Mel Comisarow <melcom@...>
A little known subchapter of Eastern European Jewish history is the
19th century establishment of Jewish agricultural colonies in Southeastern Ukraine. In the eighteen forties, with an offer of a 50-year exemption from the military draft and perpetual familial leaseholds on land, severalthousand Litvaks, Lithuanian Jews, were induced to settle on virgin agricultural land in Southeastern Ukraine. German farmers were imported as teachers as these Lithuanian Jews had no agricultural skills. Government aid was promised and perhaps even sometimes delivered to develop these agricultural colonies. With great difficulty these migrant Litvaks established thriving agricultural communities and the population of these Jewish agricultural colonies reached tens of thousands by the turn of the twentieth century. Marriage partners for these Jews were usually migrant Litvaks from surrounding villages. It was fairly common for two differentfamilies to be related in many ways via marriages in different generations, some dating back to Lithuanian residence. Marriages between first and second cousins were common. These Jews were termed "vechni aradotari", renters forever, as their original leaseholds of 40 desyatin (1 desyatin = 1.09 hectares = 10,900 square meters = 2.9 acres) could be neither bought nor sold, but only passed on to succeeding generations. The divisions of land amongst the males in succeeding generations meant that only one or two individual families could survive on the land causing other offspring to migrate to the surrounding towns and cities. Due to the limited economic opportunities, overall political oppression and periodic pogroms (i. e. the usual reasons), starting in the 1890s many of these agricultural Ukrainian Jews migrated to Cyprus, Palestine, Western Europe, Australia and the Americas. One set of 17 Jewish Ukrainian colonies, the "central" colonies of which being 2 to 30 km >from others, was established in 1848, about 80 km/50miles northwest of the city of Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov. My father was born in Grafskoy, one of these colonies, and I would like to exchange information with others who have an interest in these colonies and colonists. I have at least snippets of information about the following colonies/towns [location] and the associated "family names" about which I also have knowledge of contemporary descendants. In the case of ****family names**** delimited by asterisks, I have knowledge of the town of residence but no knowledge of decendants. Novozlatopol/Pervenumer, Jewish Colony No. 1 [E 36o 33', N 47o 49'] GLEZERMAN, KAHGAN/KEGAN, KOVNAT, LEV, LIPSHUTS, SVIRSKY, WISEMAN, USHKATZ/USHER, ZMOOD ****AMANUEL, BELYAEV, BERZIGAL, BROZGOL, BUROV, BUTELKIN, EIDINZON, GODOS, GUREVICH, DRUYAN, IORSH, KABO, KLEINERMAN, KUPESOK, LEVIN, LEKUS, LOTSOV, LYBAN, MABA, MALINOER, MALTS, MARGALIT, MARGOLIN, MEDVED, MITSMAN, OLKHOV, PALITSKI, PENCHUK, PRIPIS, RUTMAN, RUTSHTEIN, SIGAL, FAINVEITS, SHPITSNODEL, SHCHUER, SHCHULKIR, TSIBLYA, TSIRKIN, VORKEL, YANUAR, ZLATOKRILETS, ZOGOT**** Vesselaya/Hoopolov, Jewish Colony No. 2 [N 47o 41', E 36o 36'] MOROZOV/MORRIS, ZABRODSKI/BRODY, **** BAEVSKI, BALONOV, BOLSHINSKI, GLIKIN, GUSHLITS, DON, DRUYAN, IOSLEAS, KIRPIN, KLAGLYA, LITIGIN, LONAREV, MALAMED, MOZNAIM, MOMARKIN, RASKIN, ROSAS, KHLEBNIK, SHAPIRO, ZADOV**** Krasnoselka/Dritnumer, Jewish Colony No. 3 [E 36o 33', N 47o 37'] AMITON, EZERETS, GOLOSOV, KOVNAT, LUBAN, NIEHAUSEN//NEWHOUSE ****ABRAGAMOV, AGUF, ALTGOVZEN, ANA, BROZGOL, BUKMUN, BULSHTEIN, CHARFAS, CHERTKOV, FAINSHTEIN, FELDMAN, FRIDLAND, GORDON, GOKHMAN, GRESKAN, GUREVICH, DEGLIN, IOFIS, LEV, LEVIN, LEGOVA, LIFSHITS, MOSNAIM, OSHIR, REINGEVIRTS, SAPIR, SOLEC, USHATS, TSIMER, VAISMAN**** Mezherich/Fertnumer, Jewish Colony No. 4 [N 47o 37', E 36o 25'] ROTENFELD, TSOPIK Trudoliubovka/Engels, Jewish Colony No. 5 [N 47o 28', E 36o 44'] (destroyed in a Dec 24, 1918 pogrom) NAMAKSHTANSKY/NAMAK, SHLAKHTER, ZIPURSKY ****ABRAMOVICH, BTAT, BER, LEVINS, TOVIS, GIRSH, GOLDSHMID, GOLONSKI, ISTKOVICH, KAGAN, KAZINTSOV, MOL, RABINOVICH, RUBIN, SHECHTER, TSIRULNIKOV, SEIFERS, YOLOVS**** Part 2 will contain names and other Jewish colonies. Part 3 will contain names and nearby German colonies and Ukrainian towns. |
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S.raskin@...
On Mon, Apr 5, 1999 at 02:54 PM, melcom@... (Mel Comisarow) wrote:
MY FAMILY raskin CAME FROM one of this colonies. Do you have more information about RASKIN?
-- SALMO RASKIN s.raskin@... Curitiba, Brasil |
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mpipik
Thanks for the Info.
My gf's family had lived in the Grodno region of (now) Belarus. Sometime in the later 1800s (perhaps 1870-1880 or so) the whole lot of them, 7 children at the time, moved to southern Bessarabia in an area that has changed hands any number of times and is now in Ukraine. My grandfather was the youngest and the only one born in Bessarabia in an area that is now part of Ukraine I have been trying to find out the reason they moved to "nowhere" when they did as they were urbanites. There was some violence in the their town, but I don't think that was the main reason. An elderly relative recently told me that they left because of the offer of land. They weren't farmers. I believe my g-g-parents ran a general store in the town, but two of their daughters married brothers from Bendery and moved to Argentina in the late 1800s. I have not been able to find info on land-grants in their area. It will be interesting to see what turns up in these lists. Thanks to those who took on this project. Jessica Schein NYC |
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Matthew Klionsky
Family lore says that one of our KLIONSKY families was involved with an agricultural colony in/near Khershon as of ~1870, and possibly as early as ~1800.
__________ Does anyone know the answer to this question: When a person went to join one of these colonies, was that migration reflected on Revision List records? For one of our KLIONSKY households (Not the one from Khershon), there's a Revision List annotation "transferred to farmers". Could that be a reflection of joining one of the agricultural colonies? If this annotation has some interpretation, please advise! Matthew Klionsky |
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Judy Petersen
Hello,
Apparently a branch of my USVYATSKY family moved to Dzhankoy in Crimea in 1933. Zalman son of Elya and Shayna USVYATSKY (1906-?) moved there from Dubrowna, Belarus with his wife Shosha, his mother in law Sora GINDIN and their daughter Rokha (1931-?). I would love to know if the USVYATSKY surname (or any of its variants such as USVYAT, USVYATSEV or USVYATSOV) shows up on any of your lists. Thank you very much, Judy Petersen Researching: USVYATSKY from Rossasna, Dubrowna, Orsha, Vitebsk (all in Belarus) |
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clucenti@...
My Fidel family reportedly came to the agricultural colony of Ozeran from Kovel circa 1848. The family story is similar to the information you provided. The patriarch of the family had served in the army and was promised the land to farm. He was required to clear the land himself and build his own home. I have been trying to find information about the Fidel, Barr and other families who settled there, but with very little success due to the lack of availability of translated online records. There are several towns with similar names. The one I am looking for was located midway between Rivne/Rovno and Dubno in Volhynia gubernia.
if you have any information about this agricultural colony or any families from this colony, I would be very interested. Sincerely, Cary Pollack Tamarac, Florida |
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Barbara Hemmendinger
I recently read Robert Belenky’s book called “Collective Memories of a Lost Paradise” (2012), in which he describes Jewish agricultural settlements in Ukraine during the 1920s and 1930s. A retired clinical psychologist born in New York City, Belenky returned to the former USSR to research his family history. His father, Max, an immigrant from Russia, worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee as a tractor team leader during the post revolutionary times in the USSR when Jewish people were encouraged to settle agricultural colonies. The book, published by Maddogerel Publications, consists of interviews with still-living Ukrainian people, who recalled those experiences. Separately, I am seeking information about Naftali SHULMAN (and his family), born ~1905 in Choiniki, Belarus, and at one point living in Simferopol and also Yevpatoria (both in Crimea) whose parents had resettled from Belarus to one of the agricultural colonies, possibly Dzhankoy, in the early 1930s. Thank you. |
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Wendy Kalman
My Berman family was originaly named BURDA and they came from a tiny agricultural colony in founded in 1859 by settlers from Volyn and Podolia as a Jewish agricultural colony in the Tiraspol district of the Kherson province , on the left side of the Sredny Kuyalnik river. It was the last of the Jewish colonies founded in Novorossiya. Today, it has 215 residents and is located in the Shyriaieve Raion Odessa region. I've collected a ltoof info on it but cannto find anthing about my family, especially where vital records for them might have been kept. https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&prev=search&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&sp=nmt4&u=https://web.archive.org/web/20110206190212/http://www.evkol.nm.ru/colony_kherson.htm&usg=ALkJrhitBVmggU21XZeD0_dfepkupyVlCw |
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chair@...
https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine/.
This will have more information on this. -- Chuck Weinstein
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angel kosfiszer
When are you going to publish part 2 and part 3? Thank you very much in advance
-- Angel KosfiszerRichardson, Texas |
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Rodney Eisfelder
Angel,
You ask when parts 2 and 3 of Mel Comisarow's article on Jewish Ukrainian agricultural colonies will be published. Parts 2 and 3 were published one and two days after part one. In other words, they were published more than 20 years ago, and can still be found in the archives of this discussion group. Part 2: https://groups.jewishgen.org/g/main/message/421548 Part 3: https://groups.jewishgen.org/g/main/message/421595 Rodney Eisfelder Melbourne, Australia |
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