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DESCRIPTION:you'll laugh, you'll cry , you'll give a little sigh...\n\nA Home on the 
 Range - Jewish Chicken Ranchers in Petaluma. Little-known story of Jews who 
 fled pogroms of Eastern Europe and traveled to California to become chicken 
 ranchers. Meet an intrepid group of Jewish pioneers as they confront 
 obstacles of language and culture on their journey to become Americans. 
 Jack London, California vigilantes, McCarthyism, the Cold War and 
 agribusiness all figure into this saga.\n\n"A Home on the Range: The Jewish 
 Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma"\n\nIt reads almost like an epic myth: Where 
 they came from, they were shopkeepers or professionals, forbidden from 
 entering trade guilds or owning land. In Russia, in Poland, all over 
 Europe, Jews found themselves the victims of persecution. Many who could 
 afford it fled to America, where they took up the occupations they had held 
 at home, the trades they already knew. \nBut anti-Semitism in America, 
 although certainly present, was not as institutionalized: Jews could hold 
 any type of job, Jews could own land, Jews could farm. And so, even as far 
 as New York City, news spread of a little town not too far from San 
 Francisco called Petaluma, a little town of chicken farmers -- Jewish 
 chicken farmers.\n\nBonnie Burt and Judith Montell's documentary, "A Home 
 on the Range: The Jewish Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma," tells the story of 
 Petaluma's Jews, from their first settlements around the turn of the 
 century to their ultimate assimilation into American culture. The film 
 details a century of struggle, as the community strove to establish itself 
 in a new land, lived in fear of neighbors with German sympathies during 
 World War II, found itself beset by the McCarthyism that followed, and, 
 above all, tried to keep the chickens healthy.\n\nBurt and Montell 
 interview a cross-section of the populace, from young to old, offering 
 different political and religious perspectives and painting a complex 
 picture of a vibrant community. "At Home on the Range" provides an 
 interesting historical look at a the lives of Jewish immigrants in 
 America.\n\nWhen left-wingers and chicken wings populated Petaluma\nSUE 
 FISHKOFF       \nJerusalem Post Service\n\nPETALUMA -- A giant painted 
 chicken once stood at the entrance to Petaluma.\nGeorge Nitzberg, 76, 
 remembers it from his childhood.\nThat was back in the 1930s, when Petaluma 
 wore the proud title of "Egg Basket of the World" -- back when hundreds of 
 long, low wooden chicken sheds dotted the fertile valley, producing 
 millions of eggs a year that were transported throughout the 
 country.\n\nAmong the thousands of chicken farmers who worked that land 
 were several hundred Jewish families -- idealists, socialists, Jews from 
 the shtetls of Eastern Europe and the sweatshops of New York's Lower East 
 Side, young men and women who dreamed of escaping urban poverty and mixing 
 their labor with \nthe soil of the earth.\n\n"The word went out there was a 
 chicken community here in Petaluma,where Jews could make a living," says 
 Nitzberg, who moved there from Los Angeles with his mother in 1925. "So we 
 all got together."\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/06/18433491.php
SUMMARY:film: The Jewish Chicken Ranchers of Petaluma
LOCATION:The Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609   
 (510) 595-7417  NPML@marxistlibr.org
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/06/18433491.php
DTSTART:20070714T020000Z
DTEND:20070714T043000Z
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