Jewish colonization society

It was founded in September 1891 in London by Baron Maurice de Hirsch with the aim of “To help the emigration of Jews from any part of Europe or Asia, and especially from countries where they are subject to special taxation, political or other restrictions, to any other part of the world, to found colonies in various parts of the Americas for agricultural, commercial and other purposes. "

In 1892, a branch of the Jewish Colonization Society was opened in St. Petersburg, headed by Baron Horace Gunzburg . ECO founded several dozen Jewish agricultural colonies, mainly in Argentina and Canada. The project to create rural colonies was not particularly successful. Most Jewish immigrants preferred to settle in cities rather than go to the countryside.

After the death of Maurice de Hirsch, the nature of the activities of the Jewish colonial society expanded. A meeting of ECO figures in Paris in 1896 decided not only to facilitate the resettlement of Jews, but also to help develop agriculture and crafts where Jews already lived (mainly in Russia, Austrian Galicia and Romania).

Until 1914, the Jewish Colonization Society, together with ORT, created or funded about 40 technical and agricultural schools in Russia. ECO instructors working in Jewish agricultural settlements in Russia helped improve agricultural practices, introduced new cultures, and created cooperatives. Loan savings banks were created to help Jews.

In 1899, Baron Edmond de Rothschild transferred agricultural colonies in Palestine, based on the land he bought, to the ECO “jurisdiction”. In 1923 they were transferred to the Palestinian Jewish Colonization Society founded by Rothschild.

In the period after the First World War, the scope of the ECO declined.

In Moscow, the ECO branch existed until the mid-1930s on Arbat at Karmanitsky Lane 3. One of the functions was to help reunite ties between Jewish families in the USSR and abroad.

• ORT
• Jewish Land Management Society
• Jewish agricultural colonies in Bessarabia

• EKO // Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron . - SPb. , 1908-1913.