The Jewish Colonisation Association
(JCA or ICA, Yiddish ייִק"אַ), in America spelled Jewish Colonization Association, is an organisation created on September 11, 1891, by
Baron Maurice de Hirsch
Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (german: Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth; french: Maurice, baron de Hirsch de Gereuth; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and phila ...
. Its aim was to facilitate the mass emigration of
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
s from
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
and other
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
an countries, by settling them in agricultural colonies on lands purchased by the committee in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
(
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and the United States),
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
(
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
) and
Ottoman Palestine
Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...
. Today ICA is still active in Israel in supporting specific development projects under the name Jewish Charitable Association (ICA).
History
Palestine and Israel
![M](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/M._Hirsch.jpg)
In 1896 the JCA started offering support to Jewish farming communities newly established in
Ottoman Palestine
Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...
. In 1899 Baron
Edmond James de Rothschild
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
transferred title to his settlements ("
moshavot") in Palestine along with fifteen million francs to the JCA. Starting on January 1, 1900 the JCA restructured the way in which the colonies received financial and managerial support, with the effect of making them more profitable and independent. Between 1900 and 1903 it created 4 new
moshav
A moshav ( he, מוֹשָׁב, plural ', lit. ''settlement, village'') is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 an ...
ot,
Kfar Tavor
Kfar Tavor ( he, כְּפַר תָּבוֹר, ar, كفر تافور) is a village in the Lower Galilee region of Northern Israel, at the foot of Mount Tabor. Founded in 1901, it was awarded local council status in 1949. In it had a population of ...
,
Yavniel
Yavne'el ( he, יַבְנְאֵל, ar, يفنيئيل) is a moshava and local council in the Northern District of Israel. Founded in 1901, it is one of the oldest rural Jewish communities in the country. According to the Israel Central Bureau o ...
,
Melahamia (Menahamia), and Bait Vegan.
In addition, it established an agricultural training farm at
Sejera
Ilaniya ( he, אִילָנִיָּה) is a moshav in northern Israel. Also known as Sejera, after the adjacent Arab village al-Shajara, it was the first Jewish settlement in the Lower Galilee and played an important role in the Jewish settlement ...
.
The Palestine operation was restructured by Baron de Rothschild in 1924 as the
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association
The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association ( he, חברה להתיישבות יהודית בארץ־ישראל), commonly known by its Yiddish acronym PICA ( he, פיק"א), was established in 1924. It played a major role in purchasing land for ...
(PICA) and placed under the directorship of his son
James Armand de Rothschild
James Armand Edmond de Rothschild DCM DL (1 December 1878 – 7 May 1957), sometimes known as Jimmy de Rothschild, was a British Liberal politician and philanthropist, from the wealthy Rothschild international banking dynasty.
Biography
De Ro ...
. PICA transferred most of its properties to the State of Israel in 1957 and 1958.
ICA resumed activities in Palestine in 1933, at first in association with another fund and from 1955 on by itself as "ICA in Israel".
ICA is at present supporting projects in the fields of education, agriculture and tourism in the north (Galilee) and south (Negev) regions of Israel.
Argentina
Focused on agricultural colonies in Argentina, until East European Jews were forbidden to, even if in 1896, when Hirsch died, the association owned a thousand square kilometers of land in the country, on which lived a thousand households, the “
Jewish gauchos Jewish gauchos ( es, gauchos judíos, lad, gauchos djudíos) were Jewish immigration, immigrants who settled in fertile regions of Argentina in agricultural colonies established by the Jewish Colonization Association. The association was establishe ...
”. Theodor Herzl considered it expensive and unrealistic, against
Zadoc Kahn
Zadoc Kahn (18 February 1839 in Mommenheim, Alsace – 8 December 1905 in Paris) was an Alsatian-French rabbi and chief rabbi of France.
Life
In 1856 he entered the rabbinical school of Metz, finishing his theological studies at the same ...
who presented the German Jewish philanthropist Baron
Maurice de Hirsch
Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (german: Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth; french: Maurice, baron de Hirsch de Gereuth; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and phila ...
with the project of setting up a Jewish colony in Argentina, before was created the I.C.A. in 1891. In 1920, 150,000 Jews lived in Argentina.
and new colonies appeared: (
Lapin
Lapin (masculi) or Lapina (feminine) is a Russian patronymic surname russian: Лапин. Notable people with the surname include:
Lapin
* Aleksandr Lapin (general) (born 1964) Russian general
* Chay Lapin (born 1987), American water polo goalke ...
,
Rivera
Rivera () is the capital of Rivera Department of Uruguay. The border with Brazil joins it with the Brazilian city of Santana do Livramento, which is only a street away from it, at the north end of Route 5. Together, they form an urban area of aro ...
),
Entre Ríos (San Gregorio, Villa Domínguez, Carmel, Ingeniero Sajaroff, Villa Clara, and Villaguay), and
Santa Fe (
Moisés Ville
Moisés Ville ( yi, מאָזעסוויל) is a small town (''comuna'') in the provinces of Argentina, province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe, Argentina, founded on 23 October 1889 by Eastern European and Russian Jews escaping pogroms and persecu ...
) (about 64% jews lived in Entre Ríos.
United States
Colonies were founded within the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in
southern New Jersey,
Ellington, Connecticut
Ellington is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. Ellington was incorporated in May 1786, from East Windsor. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 16,426.
History
Originally the area in what is now Ellington was named ...
(
Congregation Knesseth Israel), and elsewhere. A
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
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.
Turkey
The JCA also established two agricultural colonies in the first two decades of the 20th century in what now is
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
. In 1891, JCA bought land near
Karataş, Izmir, Turkey, and established an agricultural training centre, or Yehudah, on an area totaling 30 km² by 1902. The centre was closed in 1926 owing to numerous difficulties. A group of Romanian Jews in Anatolia were assisted by JCA in the early 20th century to establish an immigration bureau in Istanbul in 1910. The JCA also bought land in the Asian part of Istanbul and founded Mesillah Hadassah agricultural colony for several hundred families. In 1928 the colonies were mostly liquidated, with only the immigration bureau remaining to assist migrants in their migration to
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
.
Canada
Economic factors, notably the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, 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. The JCA Canadian Committee made no loans after 1970 and ceased all legal existence in 1978. The JCA deposited the majority of its papers at the National Archives of the
Canadian Jewish Congress
The Canadian Jewish Congress (, , ) was, for more than ninety years, the main advocacy group for the Jewish community in Canada. Regarded by many as the "Parliament of Canadian Jewry," the Congress was at the forefront of the struggle for human r ...
in 1978, and the remainder (the "S" collection) there in 1989.
Directors-General
* Sigismond Sonnenfeld (1891–1911)
* Louis Oungre (1911–1949)
* Victor Girmounsky and Georges Aronstein (1949–1977)
See also
*
Kolonja Izaaka
Kolonja Izaaka (Kolonia Isaaka, Isakowa, קולוניה איזאקה) was a small Jewish farming village in what is now Belarus, founded in 1849 through government land grants to 26 poor Jewish families for the purpose of engaging in agriculture. ...
, Belarus
*
Moisés Ville
Moisés Ville ( yi, מאָזעסוויל) is a small town (''comuna'') in the provinces of Argentina, province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe, Argentina, founded on 23 October 1889 by Eastern European and Russian Jews escaping pogroms and persecu ...
, Argentina
*
Joseph Niego
Joseph Niego (1863–1945) also known as Yosef Niego was born in Adrianople (modern-day Edirne, Turkey).
Joseph Niego was one of the leading figures in the creation of the state of Israel. He was instrumental in the political, agricultural, and e ...
*
*
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association
The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association ( he, חברה להתיישבות יהודית בארץ־ישראל), commonly known by its Yiddish acronym PICA ( he, פיק"א), was established in 1924. It played a major role in purchasing land for ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Jewish refugee aid organizations
Jews and Judaism in Argentina
Jews and Judaism in Brazil
Jews and Judaism in Canada
Jews and Judaism in Turkey
Jews and Judaism in the United States
Romanian-Jewish diaspora
Russian-Jewish diaspora
Settlement schemes
1891 establishments in France
Jewish charities