ATLANTIC CITY – The Board of Jewish Education of Atlantic and Cape May Counties and the Sam and Sara Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center will present an afternoon with Seth Stern, author of “Speaking Yiddish To Chickens: Holocaust Survivors on South Jersey Poultry Farms.”
The free program will be held 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.Thursday, Jan. 18 in the Fannie Lou Hamer Event Room at Stockton’s John F. Scarpa Academic Center, 3711 Atlantic Ave.
Speaking Yiddish to Chickens is the first book to chronicle how roughly 1,000 Holocaust survivors, including the author’s grandparents, found an unlikely refuge and gateway to new lives as poultry farmers in southern New Jersey. This book relies on interviews with dozens of these refugee farmers and their children, as well as oral histories and archival records. It is their remarkable story of loss, renewal, and perseverance in the most unexpected of settings.
Seth Stern is a legal journalist and author. His grandparents were Holocaust survivors who settled on a Vineland chicken farm, which is where his mother grew up. He co-authored “Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion” and is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
