Biking Through the Forgotten Jewish Settlements of South Jersey’s Pinelands
by Martin Lessner
There is a very small town of less than 500 people in the Pinelands of South Jersey named “Mizpah.” The literal Hebrew translation is “watchtower” or “lookout.” The word “Mizpah” also means an emotional bond between people who are separated, a covenant of watchfulness and remembrance between people who are apart. It is taken from the biblical line
“The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” (Genesis 31:49)
In the late 19th century, waves of Eastern European Jews arrived through Ellis Island in New York—“huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—to escape rising antisemitism and violence, especially the pogroms in the Russian Empire.
Concerned about the exploitation and overcrowding of immigrant Jews in the lower Manhattan slums, Jewish philanthropist Baron de Hirsch drove the idea of an agricultural resettlement to promote self-sufficiency and dignity through land labor. In 1891, Baron de Hirsch purchased approximately 5,300 acres in Woodbine, Cape May County, New Jersey, with the goal of the new Jewish immigrants becoming farmers. Each immigrant family received a farmhouse and 50 acres of land, organized in a grid pattern.
The land around Woodbine is sandy, pine-covered, and not optimal for farming. Nevertheless, families came and cleared the land, built homes and a community, including a cemetery and synagogue. Woodbine became known (probably incorrectly) as the first self-governing Jewish community since the fall of Jerusalem, complete with local baseball teams. But the farming proved too difficult, and several factories were built to sustain the local economy.
The Jewish majority in Woodbine began to decline in the 1930s with the slowing of Jewish arrivals and growth of the general community. Most of the second and third generation moved out for college (and never returned) or for better opportunities in Philadelphia or New York. As of 2003, Woodbine had a total population of 2,719 residents, of whom only 72 were Jews. Still, the town echoes its past—Dehirsch Avenue remains the main thoroughfare and the Jewish cemetery lies quietly off Washington Avenue. Recently, director Steven Spielberg brought a film crew of 175 people to Woodbine to film scenes for a new UFO-themed film, tentatively titled The Dish.
Each summer, the Jewish population of Woodbine temporarily rises by one or more, depending on who is riding with me, rolling down Dehirsch Avenue during long bike rides to the Shore that begin in Pennsville, with a refuel at the Mauricetown Wawa.
About 20 miles north of Woodbine is Mizpah, a town much smaller and more obscure, whose roots are bound to the same story. In the 1890s, two clothing manufacturers, seeking cheap labor, built a factory town there for newly arrived Russian-Jewish immigrants, fresh from the urban slums of Philadelphia and New York.
Mizpah’s main drag is still called Dehirsch Avenue—a tribute to the same baron whose utopian dream inspired Woodbine. But by the early 1910s, the clothing industry consolidated in Woodbine and Atlantic City, and Mizpah’s Jewish presence dissolved into distant memory.
On the Friday before Memorial Day, Dan K. and I got an early morning start, meeting at the Claymont Steak Shop at 5:30 AM. We rode through Chester, passed the Boeing factory in Tinicum, through the Penn campus, and up and over the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden.
To commemorate Memorial Day, we paid a visit to the Camden County Veterans Cemetery and then biked over to the adjoining Harleigh Cemetery to see the small mausoleum where Walt Whitman and his family are buried. “O Captain My Captain!”
Having biked to the Jersey shore so many times, I make it a goal to cycle some new stretch of pavement, even if it’s just for a couple hundred yards. After riding through Hammonton (the blueberry capital of the world), the usual route would go through Egg Harbor or Smithville. But on this day, we headed through the blueberry farms and the pineland forest directly toward Mays Landing.
But just south of crossing Route 322 in Weymouth, the aptly named Mizpah Road cuts through the pinelands on a beautiful five-mile stretch, ending in the town of the same name. As we biked down Dehirsch Road to cross present-day Route 40, we had to use our imagination to view this little town of 500 residents for what it was at the turn of the 20th century.
Aided by a favorable breeze, Dan and I stretched out the final segment to the Atlantic Ocean, where we ended with 115 miles, and a brief “lookout” to a century passed when immigrant hopes for a new life after escaping czarist Russia took them to the pinelands of South Jersey.
About the Author:
MARTY LESSNER is an infrequent contributor to Jewish Living Delaware. He enjoys riding his bike to the Jersey Shore and taking a break at the Custard Ranch outside of Woodbine. Marty, along with his wife, Lisa, are currently involved with Jewish Federation of Delaware as Chairs of the Community Security Campaign.
