Remembering Yaazor, Baltimore Jewry’s Lost Agricultural Colony

The concept of Jewish farming may seem like an oxymoron to some people. But for a while in the early to mid 20th century, Jewish farming communities could be found from upstate New York to Northern California and, yes, even here in Baltimore.

These colonies may be long gone, but descendants still recall the tales of those times told to them by their parents and grandparents. In Baltimore, those stories are about the 351-acre Jewish farm colony known as Yaazor, established in the Woodlawn section of Baltimore County between Johnnycake Road and the Patapsco River.

“Yaazor was a way for families to earn a living and make a better life for themselves out of the city,” Sandra Silberman recalled at a recent gathering of descendants of the original founders and residents of Yaazor, which in English means, “He will help.” “They had food, a horse, a cow and a synagogue. They had everything they needed.”

The get-together was organized by Susan Ansel and Debs Weinberg, both of whom have family connections to Yaazor and are members of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland.

Wolf and Toba (Tauba) Singer lived for many years at Yaazor, the Jewish agricultural colony in Baltimore’s Woodlawn area in the early 20th century. (Archive photo)

Around 1903, Rabbi Tobias Goodman established Yaazor as a utopian settlement where Russian-Jewish immigrants could live quiet lives free of the anti-Semitism that had caused them to flee their homeland.

In 1906, an article in The Sun reported that the colony was “an outgrowth of the desire of some Russian immigrants to find a spot where they may live a secluded life in their own peculiar way, free from the rush and bustle of the world and with a freedom of speech which was impossible in Russia.”

Yaazor was a place where a generation grew into adulthood. Cyrile Stein Goren was one of those who recalled many fond memories spent visiting Yaazor. Samuel Ansel told of his parents meeting and marrying at Yaazor.

Silberman remembers her older cousins telling her stories of the wonderful times they enjoyed on the farm. But her own memories are more visceral, as she recalls the awful stench of the outhouse.

“I can’t say it was my favorite place in the world to go,” Silberman said.

At the time The Sun article was published, approximately 20 families lived at Yaazor, each paying $1 a week toward a $15,000 mortgage. When Yaazor was all but abandoned in 1940, the property was sold, fetching just $3,000. By 1968, according to real estate developer Jerry Janofsky — whose great-great-grandfather lived at Yaazor on his family’s chicken farm — the land, then still undeveloped, was sold for $125,000.

That all had changed by 1997, however, when the arrival of sewage and water services enabled the land to be developed, resulting in a worth that skyrocketed to $4 million.

“And it’s now worth much more,” said Janofsky, who joined his cousins to visit the property before it was sold. They came away with bottles, nails, a wheelbarrow and even a late 19th-century block and tackle used to lift bales of hay.

Life at Yaazor was no picnic. In 1975, the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland recorded the reminiscences of Benjamin Rodbell, who lived at Yaazor with his family:

“Buckets of water had to be carried from a well, often a considerable distance from the house. The winters were bleak and extremely cold, and frequently they would be snowed in for days or even weeks at a time. The colonists were, moreover, isolated from urban cultural and social life. …”

(The Jewish Museum of Maryland also has an oral history available that was recorded by Sigmund Kallins, grandson of Yaazor settlers Joseph and Chasya Kallinsky.)

To supplement the meager earnings garnered from selling eggs, produce, poultry and milk, many Yaazor households took in paying guests, especially in the summers when — in an era predating central air conditioning — Baltimore residents looked for a place to escape the sweltering city heat.

“It was the seashore of the Jewish community,” said Silberman.

Though it had its advantages, the Jewish agricultural experiment was short-lived.

“They weren’t farmers,” Silberman said. “There was nobody to help them.”

Yaazor and similar Jewish farming settlements established in the U.S. did receive some assistance from the Jewish Agricultural Society, a New York-based organization founded in 1900 by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. He was a German-Jewish businessman and philanthropist who spent much of his fortune helping Eastern European Jews escape their home countries and resettle in rural towns away from urban tenements.

The society provided new immigrants with loans to purchase land, seeds and equipment, and offered practical advice to settlers who had little or no farming experience. There was even a magazine in Yiddish and English known as The Jewish Farmer.

But Yaazor, like most of the other Jewish farm colonies throughout the U.S., did not survive. As the elder settlers aged and became less able to tend the land, their children wanted no part of farm life. They left to attend colleges, live in urban settings and fit in with those around them.

“Sadly, it wasn’t really the utopia they had hoped for,” said Silberman.

Shown in this undated photo is the Singer-Stein family, who were longtime Yaazor residents. (Archival photo)

But it is a part of Baltimore’s Jewish history that she hopes will long remain in the community’s collective memory.

The descendants of the Yaazor settlers wish to recognize the contributions of Dustin Linz of the Howard County Historical Society, who passed away shortly after their gathering was held.

Carol Sorgen is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.

Top photo: Descendants of the residents of Yaazor recently reunited to discuss the old days at the farming colony. Shown here are (left to right) Jerry Janofsky, Debra Silberman Weinberg, Sandy Silberman, Cyrlie Goren and Neil Goren.