"Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is much more than one man's story about his grandparents. Stern's journalistic expertise allows him to broaden his scope, deftly layering different perspectives and narratives throughout the book."— Rokhl Kafrissen, Tablet"Seth Stern has created a nuanced, sensitive, and even affectionate account of an important, albeit neglected, outgrowth of the Jewish diaspora in North America. It will be of great interest to anyone who has a personal, social, or academic interest in the postwar period, oral history, and/or post-Holocaust immigration."— Jewish Book Council"Stern is himself no stranger to the Yiddish-speaking, Jewish immigrant poultry farmers of Vineland, and perhaps it is this personal connection that makes this book so compassionate a telling, and so superb a history." — Marjorie N. Feld, American Jewish History"Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is attentive to the ways in which Holocaust survivors who took up poultry farming in Vineland built upon the achievements of their Jewish predecessors. Stern's individual stories are easy to follow, upbeat, and colorful. Stern is a seasoned and skilled journalist." — Ellen Eisenberg, author of Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920"I grew up Jewish on a chicken farm. This book gets it right...Stern not only pinpoints the economic hardships and social dislocation the survivors experienced...The beauty of Speaking Yiddish to Chickens lies in Stern's skill at conveying the ups and downs of some 1,000 survivors, each with their unique hardscrabble story."— Barbara Finkelstein, The Forward"Seth Stern skillfully brings to life a remarkable chapter in the little-known history of modern Jewish farming in the Diaspora. Lovingly written, Speaking Yiddish to Chickens travels with Stern's grandparents and other European Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust to new lives in and around Vineland, New Jersey's poultry farms, where these survivors healed their wounds and embarked upon their American journeys. Through meticulous research, Stern captures the extraordinary cooperation between the American government, Jewish philanthropic agencies, and the farmers themselves who made this bold experiment possible."— Jonathan Dekel-Chen, author of Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941"Seth Stern skillfully brings to life a remarkable chapter in the little-known history of modern Jewish farming in the Diaspora. Lovingly written, Speaking Yiddish to Chickens travels with Stern's grandparents and other European Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust to new lives in and around Vineland, New Jersey's poultry farms, where these survivors healed their wounds and embarked upon their American journeys. Through meticulous research, Stern captures the extraordinary cooperation between the American government, Jewish philanthropic agencies, and the farmers themselves who made this bold experiment possible."— Jonathan Dekel-Chen, author of Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941"Seth Stern has created a nuanced, sensitive, and even affectionate account of an important, albeit neglected, outgrowth of the Jewish diaspora in North America. It will be of great interest to anyone who has a personal, social, or academic interest in the postwar period, oral history, and/or post-Holocaust immigration."— Jewish Book Council"Stern is himself no stranger to the Yiddish-speaking, Jewish immigrant poultry farmers of Vineland, and perhaps it is this personal connection that makes this book so compassionate a telling, and so superb a history." — Marjorie N. Feld, American Jewish History"Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is attentive to the ways in which Holocaust survivors who took up poultry farming in Vineland built upon the achievements of their Jewish predecessors. Stern's individual stories are easy to follow, upbeat, and colorful. Stern is a seasoned and skilled journalist." — Ellen Eisenberg, author of Jewish Agricultural Colonies in New Jersey, 1882-1920"Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is much more than one man's story about his grandparents. Stern's journalistic expertise allows him to broaden his scope, deftly layering different perspectives and narratives throughout the book."— Rokhl Kafrissen, Tablet"I grew up Jewish on a chicken farm. This book gets it right...Stern not only pinpoints the economic hardships and social dislocation the survivors experienced...The beauty of Speaking Yiddish to Chickens lies in Stern's skill at conveying the ups and downs of some 1,000 survivors, each with their unique hardscrabble story."— Barbara Finkelstein, The Forward
