The Jewish Agricultural Colony "Ivanik"

Translated from Yiddish by Esther Newman (#62) and Roberta Newman (#68) Why the colony has the aforementioned name is hard to say. Some claim that it is because the previous owner of the area was named Ivan. Others believe that the aristocrats who owned the region in which Ivanik is situated had the family name Ivanitsnik or Ivanitski. The precise origins of the colony's name are not known -- the aforementioned theories are only the guesses of a few older Ivanik residents with whom I happened to chat about this. Perhaps, somewhere in an archive, lurks specific information about the matter. In any case, we don't have the answer, and I must settle for what I was told by the elderly locals. Ivanik was founded, or, more accurately, sprang into existence, sometime around the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century. This was during the regime of Nicholas I, who wanted to "productivize" Russian Jewry by weaning them away from inn-keeping and other sorts of luft-parnoses [precarious livelihoods]. As in the south and southwestern regions, so were efforts made in our parts to effect this goal, consisting above all in attempts to entice a certain segment of the Jewish population to take up farming. Here, like everywhere else, the scheme attracted the interest of certain community activists and philanthropists, who took the issue of Jewish productivization to heart. The most noteworthy of those concerned was R. Wolf Levin, a distinguished Karlin magnate, son of the well-known R. Shmuel Levin, and the brother of the great philanthropists R. Moyshe Yitskhok and R. Zalmen Levin and of the great and wealthy woman of valor, Khaye Luria. When the aforementioned R. Wolf Levin found out about the Russian government's project to "productivize" the Jewish masses, he went to St. Petersburg to intercede, proposed that he should be authorized to bring the project to fruition, and offered to finance the entire undertaking. And so he purchased a large parcel of land where he settled fifteen families from Lahishin and Pinsk. Most were from Lahishin, which is nearby Ivanik, and where most of the Jewish inhabitants made a living from various luft-parnoses and other unidentified businesses. In spite of the fact that the material conditions of the Jewish population of the cities and towns of the area was terrible and the majority of the broad Jewish masses was not secure even on a day-to-day basis in their insecure occupations, no one wanted to go and settle on the land and be a "peasant". Even the big tax abatements and other privileges which the government granted the Jewish colonists did not help. The only thing that succeeded in moving the aforementioned several Jewish families to leave "God and people" [i.e., civilization] and to settle on the land was the fact that, according to governmental decree, Jews "who settle on the land and take up farming are freed from military service for their entire lives, and also their grown sons, since they are needed for the development of the [colony's] economy." This decree, then, was the decisive stimulus for the founding of Ivanik, and only because of this, did the small group of families settle in Ivanik, in order to be free of the obligation of military service, which at that time lasted a very long time (twenty-five years) and for which Jews generally had no great enthusiasm. As has already been mentioned , the magnate R. Wolf Levin paid for the land and also for the entire inventory of livestock and other equipment which was prepared for the colonists. Despite the fact that when the colonists arrived on the land, they were greeted with a previously prepared inventory of all kinds of essential equipment, and notwithstanding that the human material had been well-chosen (because week and sick people didn't have to be afraid of the draft and "fool Vanya" by going off to play at being colonists), with few exceptions, the economic life of the Jewish colonists was not in the least transformed. All the livelihoods and businesses with which the new colonists had been previously engaged in Lahishin and Pinsk continued on in Ivanik. For the colonists, agriculture was only a cover or shield under which they hid all their old habits, finding themselves, at the same time, in a privileged position of aristocrats, with freedom from taxes and military service. Officially, they were referred to as farmers, and their other occupations were considered side businesses, of the sort engaged in by the majority of the impoverished peasantry in the vicinity. But, in reality, it was the exact opposite, and the old town-businesses took priority over farming. Free from taxes and safe from "khapers" (those who khapt, or grabbed new recruits for military service), most of the male population of the colony was to be found more often in Pinsk where they were engaged in a variety of urban professions. In Ivanik were to be found only the women, who took care of housekeeping and milked the cows. Even the children, as they grew up, went into the city, and later, when Pinsk was industrialized and factories were built, young women from Ivanik played an important role there. Instead of work in the fields, they preferred work in the match and stake factories, which they viewed as more rewarding than Ivanik with its scarce black bread crusts.... Under such circumstances, most of the Jewish fields lay waste in their original condition, and since most of the land was sandy, only an occasional plot of cultivated land was to be seen. In reality, even these were sown by non-Jewish peasants from the nearby village, Posenitsh, who were paid a third of the harvest for doing the work. This situation continued for many years. The second and third generations used to turn to the land as they got older, after they came back from the city, exhausted from long years of hard toil in the factories and other businesses there. The colony offered them security with a poor but satisfying old age, when bread and potatoes seem like enough. This state of affairs lasted until the world war [WWI], which turned the economy upside-down, especially in relation to agriculture, which played such a dominant economic role in the war years. Nevertheless, because Ivanik found itself on the front even before the start of the German occupation, its entire Jewish population was expelled to Pinsk. Later, when the evacuation of a large part of the population of Pinsk to the interior provinces of Poland began, much of Ivanik's population was also dispersed. Only when they saw Poland did the people from Ivanik have the chance to assess the value of their own lost home, where with a little effort you could have bread and barley soup to abundance. Therefore, as soon as people started returning home, the Ivanikers were the first to hurry back to their neglected lots, where each one speedily began to cultivate and sow the fields which were meant to ensure a life free of need. After the war, the agricultural productivity of the Jews of Ivanik vastly improved. Methods of cultivation were updated and improved and new branches of agriculture were established, such as bee-keeping and dairy farming. Thanks to the assistance of ORT and later from the IKA [Jewish Colonization Association], a fruit orchard was established. In later years, the area under cultivation in grain and vegetables was increased. Strawberries was a major crop. In general, the material wealth of the colony increased, thanks to the help given by IKA. Agricultural instructors who visited the colony helped introduce the newest agricultural methods. Improvements in poultry raising were also introduced and some colonists evinced a sharp enthusiasm for this branch of the economy. Generally, however, the psychological condition of the Jewish colonists remained the same. Even after eighty years of the colony's existence, the Jews of Ivanik remained people with city mentalities and city tastes. Even when he pushed the plow, he kept his eyes focused on the city, only seven kilometers away, where commerce still held the number one spot in the economic life of the Ivanik Jew. Except for individual colonists who didn't have enough land and were forced to look for side businesses, most of Ivanik's Jews favored to commerce and odd jobs. If they kept on farming it was because, first of all, there was no place to which to emigrate, and secondly, there was nothing else to engage in there. Therefore, you held onto your bit of land, and you could, at the same time, do a little business or hire out for odd jobs. Only a thin layer of Ivanik's youth remained tightly bound to the land. The majority wandered off to lands overseas, some to the United States, and others to Argentina, France, or Palestine. Those who remained in Ivanik spent almost the entire week in the city, where they practiced various occupations and came back to the village only on Saturday in order to rest a little. Here and there, you might come across a Jewish girl who was interested in agriculture. But most saw their future in the city or in faraway lands to where they hoped, sooner or later, to emigrate. The question remains: how could an agricultural colony keep functioning without the development of young, creative forces? It must be emphasized, that except for a few exceptions, most of the work on Ivanik's fields was done by hired peasants from neighboring villages. The Jewish colonists in Ivanik did not drastically transform themselves, and did not create a new way of life there, but instead, remained stuck, between city and village. They did not put down deep roots there, and unfortunately, did not realize the ideal which the founders of the colony envisioned.