Introductory Essays

As early as 1806 1,500 families living in the northern parts of the Pale of Settlement, numbering some 7,000 souls, applied to emigrate within the Russian Empire to engage in agricultural pursuits.

Judischen Kolonien in Rusland by
Julius Elk, Frankfurt 1886 (more tables)

Jewish Colony No. 7 known as Grafskoy, Grafskaya, and Proletarsky, Mariupolskii District, Ekaterinoslav Latitude N 47°E 31' longitude N 36°E 49'

Residents called it "Grafskoy" not Grafskaya which may appear in various sources.

The Komisaruk Family settles in Ukraine

by Keith Freedman (Our Father's House)

"The history of Jewish agricultural colonization in Russia has been sparsely recorded. Thus the experiences of the Komisaruk family provide an invaluable record of a little known aspect of Jewish

endeavor. ...A new site for colonization was found in the Government of Yekaterinoslav. Under Tsar Nicholas I, the Minister of Domains Count Kesseler urged the Jews from Lithuania and Courland to settle in Yekaterinoslav. Between 1840 and 1855 seventeen colonies were established in the region."

JEWISH AGRICULTURAL COLONIES

From RAGAS Newsletter

By Patricia Eames

For centuries the lands lying along the northern shores of the Black Sea were settled by alternating layers of Greeks, Persians, Romans, Goths, Huns, Mongols, Turks, and Tatars. Finally, under the treaties of Kuchuk-Kainarji (1774) and Jassy (1792) Empress Catharine II expelled the Ottoman Turks and annexed the Crimea, bringing an end to the Tatar Khanate. This new Russian territory along the Black Sea from the Dneister River in the west to beyond the Crimea in the east became the new imperial province named Novorossia (New Russia).

Kherson Colonies Established

BY V.N. Nikitin. Yevreiskiya Zemledelcheskiya Kolonii

from The Jewish Encyclopedia Funk and Wagnals 1951

"In 1806 many Jewish families from the Government of Vitebsk and Mogilev on the Dnieper removed to southern Russia and founded the first seven agricultural colonies in the government of Kherson. They were named: Nahar-Tob, Har Shefer, Sede Menuhah, Brobrovy-Kut, Jefer-Nahar, Jaazer, and Kamenka. These lands had previously been inspected by Nahum Finkenstein and Lieberman, who were commissioned to do so by the Jews of Vitebsk and Mohilev with the consent of the minister of the interior."

Colonies in Western Governments

"In the western governments the Jewish agricultural Colonies were founded after the publication of the edict of 1835. There the Jews were permitted to settle on government as well as on private lands, and for founding colonies wealthy Jews were rewarded with the title of honorary citizens.