The Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA or ICA; ) was an organisation created on September 11, 1891, by Baron

Maurice de Hirsch Moritz Freiherr von Hirsch auf Gereuth (; ; 9 December 1831 – 21 April 1896), commonly known as Maurice de Hirsch, was a German Jewish financier and philanthropist who set up charitable foundations to promote Jewish education and improve the ...

. Its aim was to facilitate the mass emigration of

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s from

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

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. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

an countries, by settling them in agricultural settlements on lands purchased by the committee in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

(

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and the United States),

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

(

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

) and

Ottoman Palestine The region of Palestine (region), Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia.Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of ' ...

. Today ICA is still active in Israel in supporting specific development projects under the name Jewish Charitable Association (ICA).

History

Argentina

Zadoc Kahn presented the German Jewish philanthropist Baron

with the project of setting up a Jewish settlement in Argentina, before JCA was created in 1891.

Theodor Herzl Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of Types of Zionism, modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization, Zionist Organizat ...

considered it expensive and unrealistic. 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”. It focused on agricultural settlements in Argentina until East European Jews were forbidden to emigrate there. In 1920, 150,000 Jews lived in Argentina and new settlements appeared:

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

( Lapin,

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 block away from it, at the north end of Route 5 (Uruguay), Route 5. Together, they form an ...

), Entre Ríos (San Gregorio, Villa Domínguez, Carmel, Ingeniero Sajaroff, Villa Clara, and Villaguay), and Santa Fe ( Moisés Ville), while about 64% of the Jews in Argentinia lived in Entre Ríos.

Palestine and Israel

In 1896 the JCA started offering support to Jewish farming communities newly established in

. In 1899 Baron

Edmond James de Rothschild Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French member of the Rothschild banking family. A strong supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine, his large donations lent significant support to ...

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 settlements 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 (, plural ', "settlement, village") is a type of Israeli village or town or Jewish settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists between 1904 and 1 ...

ot, Kfar Tavor, Yavniel, Melahamia (Menahamia), and Bait Vegan. In addition, it established an agricultural training farm at Sejera. The Palestine operation was restructured by Baron de Rothschild in 1924 as the

Palestine Jewish Colonization Association The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (), commonly known by its Yiddish acronym PICA (), was established in 1924. It played a major role in purchasing land and building Jewish settlement in Palestine and later the State of Israel until t ...

(PICA), with his son James Armand de Rothschild appointed as life President. 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 onwards by itself as "ICA in Israel". In the 21st century, the organisation has focused its efforts on fostering the development of the peripheral regions of the Galilee (north) and the Negev (south). Operating under the name Jewish Charitable Association, it describes itself as "championing innovative projects in the realms of education, agriculture, economic development and cross-community opportunities (for both Arabs and Jews) within rural areas."

United States

Settlements were founded within the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in southern New Jersey, Ellington, Connecticut ( Congregation Knesseth Israel), and elsewhere.

Turkey

The JCA also established two agricultural settlements in the first two decades of the 20th century in what now is

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. 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 settlement for several hundred families. In 1928 the settlements were mostly liquidated, with only the immigration bureau remaining to assist migrants in their migration to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

Canada

Canadian Canadians () 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 their being ''C ...

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. Economic factors, notably the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, led to the dissolution of all western Canadian settlements 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 (CJC; ; ; ) 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 Hum ...

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) * Akiva Ettinger (Director General of the Jewish Colonization Association in Southern Russia, Brazil, and Argentina)
Center for Israel Education

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 Jewish settlement schemes 1891 establishments in France Jewish charities Jewish agricultural colonies