From a Google Image Search – Apple Books

My best friend married a Jewish man who became a good friend to all of us. He was trying to learn Yiddish for a while, so when I saw this book on Amazon called Speaking Yiddish to Chickens by Seth Stern, I decided to read it and to get my friend a copy of the book. I thought it might be humorous or full of lost Yiddish words, but this did not turn out to be the case. That is not to say that it wasn’t fascinating. I did not know that Jewish refugees from Europe after World War II often found life in NYC or other urban places too crowded and, after all their trials, too chaotic. They longed for peace and a way to remake their shattered lives.

The Jewish Agricultural Society (JAS) suggested to some refugees that chicken farming in southern New Jersey was becoming a popular lifestyle choice for refugees. The book is centered around two Grine (Grin-ah) (the category used to describe postwar Jewish refugees) named Nuchim (New-kim) and Bronia (Bron-yah) Green who decide to buy a south Jersey chicken farm in a place called Vineland. These two are the author’s grandparents and he talked with them many times while writing this book. Their daughter, Ruth Green, married a Stern. The author is Ruth’s son.

Both Nuchim and Bronia spent a part of the war in a forest in Germany as underground fighters and to hide from deportation to a concentration camp. When Bronia got to the US she weighed only 80 pounds. Deprivation was a common denominator for Jewish people who survived. They decided to buy a farm with another couple, the Liverants. Both couples had one child, both girls. 

I bought a copy of the book on Audible so I could hear the correct pronunciation of all those Yiddish words that weren’t there, but it was still a good story to listen to. 

As we follow Seth Stern’s grandparents through the years when they pursued chicken farming, and as the children in the community got older, we see the family more involved in a community of people, eventually enjoying trips to a nearby beach, playing cards, and enjoying other social occasions. By this time Bronia and Nuchim have their own farm. 

However, chicken farming is hard work. Chickens can’t get too cold, especially baby chicks. Chickens must be fed every few hours. The eggs must be washed and dried by hand, then candled to make sure they meet government regulations. There were few hours for playing, at least until people started inventing automatic feeders, egg dryers, and ways to candle eggs without handling each one separately. The economic security of chicken farmers was very dependent on the market price for eggs, and this price varied from season to season and year to year. No one was getting rich.

The author interviewed the children (his mother and her contemporaries) asking about what life on the farm was like and about how they were treated in school. They told him that they had been subjected to plenty of antisemitism in public schools. He interviewed the parents to find out how they were dealing with the terrible things that happened to them in the war. Many parents did not want to ever talk about what they had experienced. Others were very vocal about the abuses they endured. 

I’m very glad I read this book. Here is a little corner of American Jewish life that I knew nothing about. There are many more such corners to explore but not all are documented in books. Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is a true nonfiction book with an index and bibliography. Because it focuses on two people related to the author and expands outward from there, it is not overly academic and is very readable.