Comrades and Chicken Ranchers: Story of a California Jewish Community (Cornell Paperbacks)

This book is a portrait of the Petaluma Jewish community from the early years of the century to the present day. . . . Kenneth L. Kann interviewed more than two hundred residents, representing three generations of Jewish Americans. The picture that emerges from their testimony is of a wonderfully animated and fractious community. . . . Its history blends many of the familiar themes of American Jewish life into a richly individual tapestry. . . . In the first few decades of this century, many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe wound up in Petaluma. . . . This first generation of chicken farmers consisted largely of educated, often professional men and women; many were drawn to chicken farming as much by Marxist or Zionist beliefs in the dignity of labor as by economic necessity. They helped establish the particular character of a community, with its combination of arduous work and cultural aspiration. -Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle