Monday, January 12, 2015

Baron Maurice von Hirsch: Charitable Organizations

Baron Maurice von Hirsch: Charitable Organizations

Arthur L. Finkle



Baron Maurice von Hirsch was born 1831 in Munich. His grandfather, the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, was ennobled in 1818. Maurice’s father, a banker to the Bavarian king, became a baron in 1869. For generations, the family occupied a prominent position in the German Jewish community.
He went into business at the age of seventeen.
In 1855, he became associated with the banking house of Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt, of Brussels, investment bankers with offices in London and Paris. He amassed a large fortune, by purchasing and working railway concessions in Austria, Turkey and the Balkans, and by speculating in sugar and copper.

Baron von Hirsch married Clara Bischoffsheim in 1855. daughter of Senator Bischoffsheim of Brussels.
Maurice von Hirsch died in Slovakia (then Hungary) in 1896. The baroness continued the Baron’s philanthropic activities until her demise in 18899.

After the death of his only son, Lucien, Baron de Hirsch devoted his 
large fortune to helping Eastern Jews by raising their moral and material status.

The Russian government granted him permission to facilitate 
emigration of 15,000 Jews a year until he had moved the 3.2 million 
into Argentina.

Argentine Colonies

In 1889, Dr. W. Löwenthal, on his return from a trip to Argentina, 
suggested to Baron de Hirsch the idea of founding a colony in that 
country.




In 1891, incorporated at London a fund to “establish and maintain 
any part of the world (other than Europe), educational and training 
institutions, model farms, loan-banks, industries, factories, and any 
other institutions  conducive for Jews to emigrate
The $2, 5000,000, divided 20,000 non-dividend-drawing shares: 
Baron de Hirsch subscribed for 19,993 shares. The crème of 
European Jewish philanthropy received the remaining 
SEVEN SHARES: Lord Rothschild, Sir Julian Goldsmid, E. Cassel, 
F. D. Mocatta, and Benjamin S. Cohen of London, and 
S. H. Goldschmidt and Solomon Reinach of Paris.

Before his death in 1896, Baron de Hirsch divided his shares among 
the following corporations: the Brussels synagogue; the Jewish 
communities of Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main; the Anglo-Jewish 
Association of London; and the Alliance Israélite Universelle of Paris, 
4,595 shares each.

Jewish Colonial Trust 


 











In 1896, at  his death, his will directed the establishment of  
Baron de Hirsch the Jewish Colonization Association funded by 
$30,000,000 (equivalent to $798,111,213.62 in 2011 dollars.
 – almost a billion dollars!).

The council focused its work in developing colonies of Russian 
Jews  in North America, the island of Cyprus, Asia Minor, Palestine, 
Russia, Rumania, and Galicia. The Jewish Colonization   Association 
also aided the Alliance Israélite Universelle and other institutions 
whose aims were the similar.

The Baron’s widow, Clara, assumed responsibility of the Fund 
and upon her death two years later, Baron Edmond de Rothschild 
the Jewish Colonization Association assumed the management of 
the colonies founded by him in Palestine.

Nonetheless, most of de Hirsch’s philanthropy targeted North America 
as a haven for oppressed European refugees, particularly after the 
restrictive 1882 May Laws in Russia.

Convinced that modern secular education could ameliorate the lot of his oppressed brethren, De Hirsch hoped to regenerate the refugees to a class of independent farmers and handicraftsmen.

In 1889, on the advice of Oscar S. Straus and Michael Heilprin, De Hirsch allocated the proceeds of a $2,400,000  (equivalent to $59,150,001 in 2011 dollars) to specifically fund agricultural colonies and trade schools in the United States.

The Fund created several subsidiary corporations that may seem confusing to the reader.

JEWISH COLONIZATION ASSOCIATION (ICA)


European Jews generally were not farmers. They could not own 
land in many countries and areas. And their skills were more 
mental than physical.

Nonetheless, in the early 1800’s, in parts of Russia, 5 to 10% of 
 Jewish population farmed.

Suwalki Jews owned 13% of the agricultural land. Russia 
established Jewish colonies in Kheerson (Ukraine) in 1804.


In Poland the Maskilim (Enlightened thinkers) promoted farming.

In the United States, Mordchai Noah 1920 promoted his Messianic 
but failed Niagara Falls experiment. In 1837, another farming 
experiments in Shalom, Ulster Co failed

In 1843, a group of New York Jews started farms in the Midwest 
near Cook County (Chicago).

A massive pogrom in Odessa 1871 triggered the US American Board 
of Delegates of the American Israelites (initially not in favor 
not in favor of mass immigration), led by the great human rights 
attorney Adloph Crelieux, lent its support for a farm colony in Alliance,
New Jersey. Led by Benjamin Peixsotto, a New York Sephardic Jew,
the Alliance Israelite Universalle sponsored an experimental colony 
in Southern New Jersey, calling it Alliance to honor its sponsoring 
agency. Alliance later became the bustling Jewish farm area of 
Vineland, New Jersey.    

The Jewish Agricultural and Aid Society also supported outlaying 
rural communities of Carmel, Brotmanville and Norma.

In 1900, the Jewish Agricultural Society coordinated 200-400 Jewish 
farms. In 1910, 5,000.

It established cooperatives, self- help groups, credit unions, 
extension services, a Farmers organization 1909 (Federation of Jewish Farmers, with 35 locals and a Magazine, “The Jewish Farmer.”)

Coordinating with the Chautauqua Society, B’nai Brith, the National 
Council on Jewish Women, and the United Synagogue, the Jewish 
Colonization Society bought land in the lush farm area of Hunderdon 
County, NJ.

In a reversal of policy, instead of collective farms, the Society 
suggested farmers own their own farms. The Jewish Agricultural 
Society helped with mortgage and start-up costs.

The society utilized King’s Farm on Long Island as a test farm for 
new farmers.

The society promoted the Federal Land Bank Act of 1914.

Leonard Robinson of the Jewish Agricultural Society became 
President of the Fed Land Bank in Springfield, MA.

The Society helped potential farmers seeking new land. They also 
assisted in their settlement. It provided a Rural Sanitation Department to devise minimal resident standards for boarders.

In 1920, it opened a Branch Office in Ellenville NY in Catskill 
Mountain area, a farming and resort area.

The Society’s Chicago branch worked to established Benton Harbor, 
Michigan.

In the 1930’s those Germans who were lucky enough to emigrate 
found jobs as farmers, In 1937, the Society processed 
11 German Jewish families; in 1938; 600; and in 1940, 741.


During the 1930’s the Society discovered that the new German immigrants averaged 56-years old for the rigors of cattle and truck farming. Accordingly, it suggested poultry farms, which did not take as much money and strength as other types of farming


In 1891, the Jewish Agricultural and Aid Society formalized the colony, built several others and finally built Woodbine, a farm community of 5,300 acres, 56 miles Philadelphia 120 miles from New York.

The Jewish Agricultural and Aid Society founded an
 Agricultural School in 1896 in Alliance.

Shortly thereafter, the Rev., Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, 
Rabbi of Philadelphia’s Knesset Israel in founded the 
National Farm School in Doylestown, PA.

Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, after his return from a visit to the towns 
within the Pale of Settlement in Russia, proposed such a school 
in 1894.

His charismatic lectures managed to raise funds for the purchase 
(1895) of the present site of the school.

It opened in 1897 with eight students. Student criteria did 
not discriminate against anyone, except they all had to have been 
raised in an urban environment.

Some of its early graduates took jobs with the U. S. Department of 
Agriculture.

By1904) the National Farm School taught 45-pupils.

Its four year curriculum gave   thorough training in practical and 
scientific agriculture, including improved methods of farming, use of 
farm machinery, soil recognition and treatment, crop management, 
animal husbandry, dairy operations (including butter-and cheese-
making), poultry, diseases of plants and animals, insects in their 
relation to crops, gardens, and fruit-trees, greenhouse- and nursery-work, truck-gardening, fruit-growing, and landscape-gardening.

The experimental farming area was 125-acres, containing timber-land,
 a dairy building, model barns for cattle.

Tuition was free. A Board of trustees managed school operations. 
The Pennsylvania and the Federation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia funded the operation.

In 1891, Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) formed to assist 
Jews in to emigrate from Russia to the United States.  
Incorporated in London as a joint-stock company, its shareholders 
were Baron Edmond de Rothschild, J. Goldsmid, Sir Ernest Joseph 
Cassel, F.D. Mocatta, Benjamin S. Cohen, S.H. Goldschmidt, and
Salomon Reinach.

De Hirsch's initial plan was to provide emigration for 15,000 
Russian Jews to settle in Argentina where he had significant land 
purchases. He envisioned ultimately Russia’s 3.2 million Jews would 
emigrate. However, due to significant troubles in settling the first 
groups, the  ICA shifted its focus to agriculture in the United States 
and Canada, creating the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society (JAIAS) to focus on Jewish agriculture in North America.
In 1911, the Fund created the Farm Bureau as an educational tool to 
learn farming.

Emigration

Emigration was the cornerstone of ICA's activity throughout its 
history. From 1904 to 1914,  ICA established 507 emigration
 committees in Russia, and a central office in St. Petersburg, 
with the approval of the Russian government. As early as 1891, 
the Fund established a trade school to prepare new immigrants for making a living.


Emmigtatopn Hall - Hamburg
The large-scale immigration into America in the early 20th 
century led ICA and the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid 
Society jointly to establish the Removal Committee. 
This organization linked immigrants in America with their relatives remaining in Europe. Information bureaus sprang up all over Europe, and by 1912, the Industrial Removal Committee had helped over 70,000 immigrants. [1]


In the United States, the ICA assisted the Baron de Hirsch Fund in 
establishing the first Jewish agricultural school at Woodbine, N. J.
as well as the prior mentioned trade school in New York. It 
consolidated  the colonies of Alliance, Carmel, and Rosenhayn, and 
has other aided several agricultural endeavors of 
individual farmers in various parts of the country. For example, the 
Hirsch colony in the Northwest Territories; the Baron de Hirsch
Institute of Montreal immigrant settlement and education for children).
Since 1901, the Jewish Colonization Association contributed to the 
foundation of a new colony near Qu'Appelle, Assiniboia, N. W. Ter., 
on land granted by the Canadian government to families of Rumanian Jews.

The ICA, in conjunction with the Baron de Hirsch Fund, formed 
another corporation, the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society, to aid Jewish farmers and  help resettle those urban Jews identified  by the Removal Committee.  

The Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society established 
agricultural settlements in Brazil, Palestine and  Galicia and 
Syrma (a Greek city in Turkey).

In order to counteract the disastrous results of the Rumanian 
laws of 1893,  Jewish Colonization Association with its various 
corporations established schools for more than 8,00 pupils. 
Since 1899, when the economic crisis, added to the restrictive laws, 
forced the Jews to leave Rumania, the association systematically 
organized emigration
Going in with more hope than expertise, the Jewish farming 
movement failed miserable in Sicily Island Louisiana. The 
landowners bought a swamp 4- hours from New Orleans. Besides 
the unarable soil and a sinking water table, malaria and other tropical diseases dispirited these raw immigrants.

The sponsors tried farming in Tyler Texas, Kansas 
Beersheva, Montefiore and Lasker, Hebron, Gilead and the Dakotas). These short-running operations withstood severe privation and flooding of the Mississippi River.

The Chicago-based Jewish Agriculturalists' Aid Society of America 
(JAAS) and JAIAS of New York.  Experimented in Laramie, WY and 

In Michigan, farming settlements failed in Carp Lake, Emmet County
Foolhardy neophytes also failed to operate successful farms in 
The benchmarks of success were the colonies established in 
Knesseth Israel), and elsewhere, to the extent of locating 18,500 
Jews into rural areas with scores of economic approaches 
(communes, individual entrepreneur, cattle farming, poultry farming, 
mixed farming with a mixed industrial economy).

Southern New Jersey


Alliance

In the late 1880’s, New Jersey lost farmers to the opening of the 
West. It sought to attract new farmers, thus, the idea of Alliance for 
fruit.


Schematic map of Alliance, New Jersey



The Russian government has discriminated against its 5 million 
Jews for some time. However, after the assassination of Alexander II,
 this oppression increased. In the ‘temporary’ May laws, the government imposed severe economic, social, religious restrictions to the extent that its Jews thought serious about emigration.
These artisans, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tailors, bakers, peddlers would even be farmers, something that had been forbidden to h=them.
Pogroms began in which mobs aided by the local constabulary, looted and set fire to personal property with some loss of life and other casualties. (In 1905, with the Kishinev Massacre, the casualty total mushroomed.)

Judge J. Harry Leven, brought up in Alliance, tells the story of his grandfather, Moses Bayuk, a lawyer from Bialystok Russia, influenced a ‘back-to the earth’ movement among Jews, along with Michael Bacall, Sidney Bailey and Moses Herder. Am Olam (Eternal people) became the organization through which Russian Jewish emigrants would train in order to become agricultural pioneers. (There also was a Zionist movement dong the same.)
With the help of Alliance Israelite Universalle, a French Jewish organization organized to fight discrimination, fostered an effort to encourage agricultural pioneers to go to the United States. Dr. Moses Dropsie, a representative in the Philadelphia office was the agent of this change,
The first group of 43 Jewish families came from Odessa, Kiev and Volgograd. They were aided by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of New York and the Mansion House, a fund for Jewish refugees based in London.
All of the original streets in Alliance were named after the New York benefactors: Henry S. Henry, Jacob Schiff, Isaac Eppinger, Leopold Gersshal, Mr. Rosenfeld, M.W. Mandel, Leonard Lewisohn, Joseph. Seligman, Cyrus Sulzberger, Morris Loeb and Dr. F. de Sola Mendes .

Led by Moses Bayuk and Eli Stavitsky, they scouted the United States and concluded that the Alliance Area, situated on the Maurice River, in the Southeast corner of Salem County in New Jersey was a great location due to tits easy access by train and only 43 miles to Philadelphia, who ere a large Jewish community congregated.

The group chose the name ‘Alliance’ in recognition of the Alliance 
Universalle and the Alliance of the new group of Jewish settlers.

The settlers came to New York to the Broadway Station and 
dispatch on the NJ Central Railroad to Vineland. The delegates 
partitioned the city of Vineland for shelter resulting in the purchase of 
1,200 Army tens to living quarters until the settlers could build their 
own dwellings.

In 1883, the Baron de Hirsch Fund took over the financial 
responsibility by creating the Alliance Land Trusty. Provisions were 
the distribution of 15 acres to each family with the proviso that a   
10-year mortgage be repaid at a low interest rate. There were 
incentives, to lower the interest payments if a certain amount or 
produce was harvested.
In the winter, the settlers made a living working for a shirt factory. 
The second year, they tried to perform both the tailoring and farming 
jobs. Clearing the land of trees and their stubs were difficult at best. 

The backbreaking labor did not help the optimism of the pioneers.
In 1886 and 1887, crops gained economic viability. Eventually, 
Alliance became a viable community. It housed social organizations, 
such as the Charles Rosenberg Library of Brotmanville (1903) 
Alliance Israelite L:ibrary (1894); the Women’s Society of Somech 
Noflim (benevolent society) (1903); Brotmanville; Hevre Kadisha 
(cemetery association); Social Club (1910); Free Loan Society of 
Norma , 1911; Hevra Bikur Holim (Visiting the Sick), Alliance, 
Alliance Board of Trade, 1891.

Shuls abounded for these small communities: Eben Has Ezer, 
Alliance; B’nai Jacob Norma; Bnai Anshei Estreich, Shaaris Israel 
(Tifereth Israel). Shul also hosted professional Yiddish theater and 
other community events.

They found that Norma was a hubbub of activity at harvest season due to its train stations. Louis Rothman and William H. Levin became local shipping agents FOR the large New York produce outlets.

According to Ellen Eisenberg, the first arrivals, especially those from 
Odessa, were ideologically more committed to communitarian 
practice, clearing the land together and planning to farm jointly as 
well. See Ellen Eisenberg . 1995, 27). The commitment waned as 
new arrivals with more individualistic views arrived and with clear 
direction from the philanthropists.
The homesteads and farmsteads were not outright gifts but 
required repayment, so the colonists needed income. Many settlers 
failed and left, but renewed colonizing efforts brought others. 
A cigar factory was introduced to provide work during the winter 
when farming would leave them free. The factory lasted only two 
years, and then needlework served the same purpose. At first, 
the residents worked from home under contract from Jewish 
manufacturers in Philadelphia and New York City. 
Later several clothing factories were established locally.

Newspaper reports published in 1885 described the struggles in the colonies, but in 1887, they saw improvement—good crops, new houses and stables, happy people (Geffen 1971, 372) By 1889 Klein optimistically cited the average annual profits for Alliance's farmers as $280, excluding produce for their own use.
The Alliance colony, named in honor of its founding philanthropic organization in France, the Alli­ance Israelite Universalle, was in Pitts Grove, Salem County, only 40 miles from Philadelphia and about 100 miles from New York City on the Central Jersey railroad line.

Bottom Line


Judge Levine opined that that Alliance will be remembered for the 
indefatigable people who sought freedom and opportunity.  
They conquered a difficult language and most soon became citizen 
(80 in 1888).
Though struggling, Alliance was the small center of a colonization 
movement, with nearby Norma, Rosenhayn, Brotmanville, and 
Carmel, all founded in the 1880s. Each of these had its own mix of 
agriculture and industry, its own ideological bent, depending on 
auspices and settlers. Norma, site of the railroad station used by 
Alliance's farmers, became more of an industrial town. Its benefactor,
the Philadel­phian Maurice Fels, established a model farm there and 
a cannery so that the farm­ers need not pay to transport their 
produce. Rosenhayn, also started in 1882, had a more uneven 
history. Started with less secure sponsorship, it nearly collapsed 
entirely after an epidemic but revived in 1887, inspired by Alliance's success. In 1889, the population reached 300, and by 1901, it stood at 800, its workers evenly divided between agriculture and industry (Stainsby 1901).

Rosenhayn Colony
The Rosenhayn colony, situated in the township of Deerfield, 
Cumberland County, New Jersey, was founded in 1882. In that year 
six families, through the initiative of Michael Heilprin, a polymath 
and Jewish philanthropist. The Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society 
purchased of more than 1,000 wooded acres involved multiple 
parties—a local realtor who also served as New Jersey's 
commissioner of immigra­tion; the Leach Brothers, sellers from 
nearby Vineland; and the buyers, the Hebrew Emigrant Society and 
the Alliance Israelite UniverseIle, who then turned the purchase 
over to the Alliance Land Company.
In 1888, 37 more families settled.


Carmel, 3 miles southwest of Alliance, also be­gan in 1882, 
with the help mainly of  Michael Heilprin, mentioned above, 
who acquired land from W. H. Miller of Philadelphia and brought seventeen Rus­sian Jews to begin its cultivation. On 123 of its 848 acres, they grew corn, rye, buck­wheat, vegetables, and berries. They put up houses, schools, and outbuildings. 
They added stores, a library, school, and synagogue (Klein 1889, 57).
However, not in the original plans, industrial buildings rapidly 
became part of the landscape, especially in Woodbine. The farmers 
lacked sufficient income, and so the agricultural experiment had 
to change. Alliance's Baron de Hirsch Fund agent first renegotiated 
the repayment schedule and then reframed the terms of the 
ex­periment. Rev. Sabato Morais of Philadelphia raised funds for this 
community. In 1889, the population was 286.Agriculture in Alliance was not subsistence. The farmers needed a mar­ket to keep them afloat. A cannery would help as well, providing an even larger buyer.
The Norma cannery was situated near the railroad station for ease of trans­porting canned goods to the urban markets. Factories with workers would buy the farmers' produce. Rather than destroying Jewish agriculture, factories would save it. [2]
Of Alliance's nine manufacturing establishments, the clothing 
industry—familiar to, but less desirable than, other industries—employed the largest number of workers .

Near Carmel, Twenty-four Jewish farmers traveled Carton Road, 
founded in 1888 possessed good soil. Then in 1907, with help of the
 Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society (JAIAS) and Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Assistance Society, fifteen families attempted to farm at Six Points, NJ. [3]
Estelle

Begun by speculators from New York, the farming success was nil 
and the commercial success minimal of an older colony known in 
Estelle, Atlantic County. Accordingly, after a few years m the settlers 
move to find an easier way of making a living.

Baron de Hirsch Fund Archives various dates; Philip Reuben Goldstein, Social aspects of the Jewish colonies of South Jersey, Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1921 - n - Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WT_VAAAAMAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=woodbine+%2BJewish&ots=E9peOfezxV&sig=jGozvcaw7gag6pscBkBpldQLUs0#v=onepage&q=woodbine%20%2BJewish&f=false; Klein, M. 1935. History of the Baron de Hirsch Fund: The Americanization of the Jewish Immigrant. New York: Baron de Hirsch Fund; Hon. J. Harry Levine, History of Alliance, New Jersey: First Jewish Agricultural Settlement In The United States, Vineland Historical Magazine, nd; William Stainsby, The Jewish colonies of South Jersey: Historical Sketch of Their Establishment and Growth,  Chew & Sons, 1901, Connecticut

Congregation Knesseth Israel (Ellington, Connecticut)

Congregation Knesseth Israel

Founded in 1906 by a group of successful Jewish cattle farmers, 
Congregation Knesseth Israel is a Modern Orthodox synagogue
The synagogue building, built in 1913 with help from the Hirsch 
Fund, this modern Orthodox congregation exists today although in a 
different location). The congregation maintains an Orthodox Jewish
 cemetery within the larger Ellington area.

Canada

Canadian Committee of the JCA was established in November 
1906 to assist in the settlement of thousands of Jewish refugees 
fleeing Russia, and to oversee the development of all JCA 
settlements in the country.
Colonies Established Prior To 1906
·       Hirsch (1892)
·       Qu'Appelle or Lipton (1901)
·       Cupar near Regina (1901)
·       Edenbridge east of Prince Albert (1906)
·       Sonnenfeld west of Estevan (1906)
Manitoba
·       Bender Hamlet or Narcisse north of Winnipeg (1903)
·       Quebec
·       La Macaza (1904) north of Montreal
·       Ste-Sophie (1904) north of Montreal
·       Alberta
·       Trochu (1906) halfway between Calgary and Edmonton
·       Rumsey (1906) halfway between Calgary and Edmonton
·       Pine Lake (1892) near Red Deer, Alberta.
The Fund established approximately  Fifteen Colonies after 1906.
·       Manitoba
·       Pine Ridge (1907) not far from Winnipeg
·       Bird's Hill (1911) east of Winnipeg
·       Camper or New Hirsch (1911) north of Winnipeg
·       Eyre (1910)
·       Montefiore (1911)
·       Rosetown (1911).
Later colonies
Economic factors, notably the Great Depression, led to the 
dissolution of all western Canadian colonies by the end of 
World War II. Thereafter concentrating its work in the east, the Canadian chapter of the JCA purchased farms and made loans to farmers in Ontario and Quebec:
Ontario colonies
·       Niagara Peninsula
·       Brantville-Woodstock region
·       Spencerville-Kemptville region
·       Beamsville region
Quebec
·       Saint-Hyacinthe
·       Saint-Damase
·       Saint-Jean-Baptiste
·       Frelighsburg
·       Clarenceville [4]







ENDNOTES



[1] http://www.jewish-tours.com.ar/news/news038; S. Joseph, History of the Baron de Hirsch Fund (1935);  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7731-hirsch-fund-baron-de

[2] (Klein 1889; Stainsby 1901; Goldstein 1921, 13­22; Baron 
de Hirsch Fund Archives various dates).

[3] See Gabriel Davidson.

[4] Canadian Jewish History. www.jewishencyclopedia.com
http://www.quatroirmaos.rs.gov.br/portal1/municipio/historia.asp? iIdMun=100143490

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