‘Jewish Farmers In Connecticut,’ October 26

WATERBURY — Connecticut’s Jewish farming tradition will be highlighted in the 11th annual Frederick G. Mason Lecture at the Mattatuck Museum on Thursday, October 26, from 7 to 8:30 pm.

The featured speaker will be Kenneth Lobo, PhD, a professor of American Jewish history at Hunter College, New York, who grew up Jewish on a chicken farm in Lisbon 50 years ago.

Dr Libo says that people in New York had little knowledge about Jewish farmers at that time, and the same attitudes exist even though Connecticut Jewish farmers and their families are credited with establishing the first farmer’s credit union in the United States, with introducing large-scale use of scientifically designed chicken coops, with building four synagogues in Lisbon, Chesterfield, Colchester and Ellington, and with introducing a new industry to Connecticut — summer boarders.

His talk is based on his background as a chicken farmer’s son, as well as on scores of interviews he has conducted, listened to and read transcripts of for an updated history of Connecticut Jewish farm families in the journal Connecticut Jewish History. He will also refer frequently to recollections of Waterbury-area natives Vera Roosin Robin, Clayton Blick, Harry Rubenstein, and Abe and Selma Raskin. Their memoirs comprise part of the Mattatuck Museum’s rich oral history collection.

The lecture is free, but preregistration is suggested at 203-753-0381, extension 10. The Mattatuck Museum Arts and History Center is at 144 West Main Street.