The Jewish Colony (Judenplan) and its Mennonite Agriculturalists

Both Jews and Mennonites in Russia were dependent on separation, distinct external appearance, unique dialect, inner group cohesion, international familial networks, self-governing institutions, a sojourner mentality, sense of divine mission, and a view of the other as unclean or dangerous. Each had its distinct legal privileges, restrictions, and duties under the Tsar, and each looked out for their own. For both, moderation, spiritual values, family, learning and success were important, and their related dialects made communication possible.

But the traditional occupation of eastern European Jews was as “middlemen” between the “overwhelmingly agricultural Christian population and various urban markets,” as peddlers, shopkeepers and suppliers of goods (note 1). Jews were forbidden to stay for longer periods in German colonies or to erect houses or shops there. “If they try to stay, they are to be reported immediately. If they are not, the German mayor will be held responsible” (note 2).

At least since the early 1820s Mennonites had supported Moravian and Pietist missionaries to Jews in New Russia, as well as the missionary work of Johann C. Moritz—a convert from Judaism (note 3). In 1830 a law was passed in Bessarabia (near the Crimean Peninsula) that offered Jews freedom from any taxes or benefits throughout life if they converted to Christianity (note 4).

In 1836, landless Chortitza Mennonites began to settle the so-called “Jewish steppe” to form the Mariupoler Mennonite Bergthal district. These lands had been set aside in 1817 for distribution and settlement of urban Jews, and specifically for members of the Society of Israeli Christians—an association organized by Prince Alexander Golitsyn, Minister of Foreign Creeds. Because the Society had so few members, the lands remained largely unsettled and the state eventually abandoned its plans (note 5).

Prejudice towards Jews was shared broadly in Russian society. The Russian Ministry for the Interior—which was dissatisfied with the growing poverty of the Jewish agricultural colonies—drew up plans for retraining its Jewish farming population, and placing all of these colonies under the oversight of the Guardianship Committee for Foreign Settlers. About 20 percent of Jews in New Russia lived in agricultural colonies; many had been removed from Jewish ghettos a few decades earlier.

In 1847 Johann Cornies was appointed by the Guardianship Committee to oversee the six-village experimental settlement known as the Judenplan. The plan was to attract “model” Mennonite farmers and village administrators, with special privileges and incentives—including land. Scores of Jewish homes stood empty as families had given up on agriculture and migrated back to the cities. Mennonites acquired these farms for minimal contributions to the Guardianship Committee. Approximately 100 to 140 qualified Mennonite families participated in this program.

The overseers were Mennonite—typically not respected by their Jewish underlings, and with little authority to carry out their mandate. While some agricultural change can be documented, the results were less than successful and included some terrible conflicts. For example, a Mennonite mayor in the Judenplan, Heinrich Goerz, was accused of beating and killing a Jewish man, and complaints were issued against a successor, Jacob Dyck, for temper and the use of corporal punishment (note 6).

On occasion legal disputes occurred between Jews and Mennonite service providers outside of the Judenplan as well (note 7). In these relations there was mistrust, and that distance grew as Mennonites’ economic competencies diversified and the need for Jewish middle-men lessened. Often the petitions by German colonists to the Guardianship Committee about Jews were in fact a strategy to deal with “annoying competition” (note 8).

The Judenplan vision established in part by Cornies came with good intentions. But it was paternalistic from the start, ensuring that the two communities would not relate as neighbours.

And not surprisingly, competing notions of divine mission were at play—Jewish, Mennonite and Russian. The notion of “model farmers”—so central to Mennonite identity in Russia—was a contradiction in terms for some local Jewish Rabbis, who sought to convince “simple settlers that the Chosen People of the Jews was not destined for agriculture—this was the bitter lot of the Goyim, the other-believers” (note 9)!

In the coming years the Jewish community would suffer violent attack in South Russia. In May 1881 thousands of Jews in the Berdjansk district were chased from their homes, beaten and robbed. Some fled to the Mennonite villages for protection. In the Molotschna Colony, “Russian lads” in Rudnerweide attacked the Jewish craftsmen who were there on Sundays, and in Tiegerweide “Russian servants” beat the local Jews badly. Some Jews from Tokmak found refuge in Fürstenau, though its residents were warned not to provide shelter (note 10).

"Until now [1882] it appeared that in Russia Jews could find protection with German colonists from the raw persecution of Russians. This came naturally to us [Mennonites], for in our view it is not impossible that hatred could be stirred up against Germans as well. … 'Do unto others what you would have them do to you.' But now it is clear that this type of sympathy with Jews also incites the hatred of the country’s population against Germans." (Note 11)

But even in this case, the unnamed Mennonite correspondent continued the column with his own hateful language against these “lost sheep from the House of Israel.”

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

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Painting by Mykola Pymonenko, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia#/media/File:Pimonenko._Victime_of_fanatisme.jpg.

Note 1: Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 106.

Note 2: “Inspektor Artillerie Kapitän Kotowirsch, an die Gebietsämter von Klöstitz, Malojaroslawetz und Sarata” (March 3, 1836). No. 279, Folder 18. Letter (copied). Benjamin H. Unruh collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, MS. 295, folder 14, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/ms_295/folder_14/SKMBT_C35107061313230_0034.jpg.

Note 3: James Urry, “‘Servants from far’: Mennonites and the pan-evangelical impulse in early nineteenth-century Russia,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 61, no. 2 (1987), 219.

Note 4: See https://jewinthepew.org/2015/11/28/28-november-1830-grotesque-russification-conversion-law-offers-financial-inducements-otdimjh.

Note 5: Dimitry Z. Feldman, “Archival Sources for the Genealogy of Jewish Colonists in Southern Russia in the 19th Century,” in RAGAS Newsletter 5, no. 1 (Spring 1999), https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/colonies_of_ukraine/archival_sources_for_the_genealo.htm; Johann Cornies, “No. 186, Cornies to Andrei M. Fadeev, March 12, 1830,” Transformation on the Southern Ukrainian Steppe: Letters and Papers of Johann Cornies, vol. 1: 1812–1835, translated by Ingrid I. Epp; edited by Harvey L. Dyck, Ingrid I. Epp, and John R. Staples (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015), 166f.; Jakob Stach, ed., Grunau und die Mariupoler Kolonien (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1942), V–VI;191, https://media.chortitza.org/pdf/Buch/Grunau.pdf.

Note 6: Harvey Dyck, “Landlessness in the Old Colony: The Judenplan Experiment 1850–1880,” in Mennonites in Russia, edited by John Friesen (Winnipeg, MB: CMBC, 1989), 197. See also George K. Epp, Geschichte der Mennoniten in Rußland, vol. 3 (Lage: Logos, 2003), 214. Corporal punishment was used on Jewish underlings in other non-Mennonite, German-run colonies (Dmytro Myeshkov, Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten: 1781–1871 [Essen: Klartext, 2008], 337). 

Note 7: “Guardianship Committee of Foreign Settlers in South Russia,” Inventory 2, file 12301, 1849 to 1866; Inventory 3, file 15107; also files 15165, 1852 to 1854; Inventory 4b, file 21683, 1863, regarding quality of flour received from Mennonite mill in Waldheim. Fond 6. From Mennonite Heritage Centre, Winnipeg, MB, https://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/organizations/OdessaArchivesF6.htm.

Note 8: Cf. 1865 report cited in Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten, 452.

Note 9: Cited in Myeshkov, Die Schawarzmeerdeutschen und ihre Welten, 343.

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To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "The Jewish Colony (Judenplan) and its Mennonite Agriculturalists," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 11, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-jewish-colony-judenplan-and-its.html.