Delaware’s first Jewish farmers, Isaac and Ida Beinoff, settled here in 1897. Like those who followed, they were recent immigrants fleeing poverty and oppression in their native Russia. Between 1912 and 1929, the Jewish Agriculture Society, based in New York City, provided loans to the Beinoffs and other Jewish farmers who moved to Kent County as part of a national back-to-soil movement. After World War II, the Jewish farmers remaining in the area contributed to the organization of the Jewish community in southern Delaware and the establishment of the first synagogue in Dover.