A government loan of $500,000 to finance establishment of a homestead settlement of 200 Jewish families in Monmouth county, New Jersey, was hailed Saturday night at the opening of the conference called by the Provisional Commission for the Establishment of Jewish Farm Settlements.
The loan is being made by the Federal Subsistence Homesteads Corporation, through which the Subsistence Homesteads Division of the Department of the Interior functions, to a corporation to be organized for the project.
NEEDLE TRADE WORKERS SETTLEMENT
Two hundred families, recruited from the needle trade industries, will be settled on small farms each of which will have at least one acre for gardening. The homesteads are expected to cost about $3,000 each. A cooperative farm, with a dairy herd, a hennery and facilities for providing other foods for the settlement will also be organized. A school for 300 pupils and a community center will be erected on the settlement grounds for which options have already been obtained on 1,253 acres.
Each settler will be required to pay $500 down and the remainder over a twenty-year period.
A modern factory building, designed to serve as a model for other projects will be erected at a total cost of $35,000. The factory will have private support to the extent where homesteaders will be assured of a definite cash income and will operate under the provisions of the NRA. It will maintain contact with the New York market where its products will be disposed of.
WILL CONSUME OWN PRODUCTS
Farm produce will not be put on the market but will supply the settlement with its food supply. The whole project will be a demonstration in decentralized industry and subsistence farming which is expected to go on a self-supporting basis and eventually to be cooperatively owned.
The board of directors of the corporation to be formed will include a representative of the Federal Subsistence Homesteads Corporation; Benjamin Brown, chairman of the Provisional Commission for the Establishment of Jewish Farm Settlements; Morris Feinstone, general secretary of the United Hebrew Trades; Alfred Wallerstein, retired manufacturer; Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, of Central Synagogue, and Elias Lieberman, vice-president of the Workmen’s Circle.
Mr. Brown presided at the opening of the conference, which was addressed by Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky, its honorary chairman; Christian P. Norgord, assistant commissioner, New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, and Dr. Frank Fritts, general counsel of the Subsistence Homesteads Division.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
