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.
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Argentine Colonies
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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.
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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.
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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
Cimarron, OK, Clarion, UT, Happyville, S CAR., Woodlawn, MD and
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)
Founded in 1906 by a group of successful Jewish cattle farmers,
Congregation Knesseth Israel is a Modern Orthodox synagogue
located in Ellington (near Hartford), Connecticut.
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
A 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
· Brantville-Woodstock region
· Spencerville-Kemptville region
· Beamsville region
Quebec
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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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