Baron De Kirsch Centenary to Be Celebrated in December: Man Who Gave Twenty Million Pounds for Welfa

The centenary occurs on December 9th. of this year of the birth of Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the great Jewish philanthropist who created the Jewish Colonisation Association (Ica), contributing its entire foundation capital of two million pounds, in addition to which he left it the huge legacy of 6 million pounds and contributing, according to estimates, a total of about twenty million pounds to various welfare purposes.

“In relieving human suffering”, he wrote in an article referring to his charitable work,” I never ask whether the cry of necessity comes from a being who belongs to my faith or not; but what is more natural than that I should find my highest purpose in bringing to the followers of Judaism who have been oppressed for a thousand years, who are starving in misery, the possibilities of a physical and mental regeneration?”.

The Congress of Jewish farmers in the Argentine which has been meeting at San Salvador, has adopted a plan to erect a monument to Baron de Hirsch, and further to commemorate his centenary by the publication of a history of Jewish colonisation in the Argentine, the establishment of a special colonisation fund, and the issue of an album depicting the achievements of the Jewish Colonisation Association in the Argentine. The fund will be used to buy small stretches of land upon which Jewish families from Eastern Europe can be settled, to build preparatory schools for future Jewish colonists, and to establish trade schools for the children of Jewish farmers.

The entire Jewish life in the Argentine, which is to-day one of the big Jewish centres of the world and also in Brazil, where a big Jewish community is developing, is due almost solely to the work of the Ica, continuing the emigration and colonisation movement started by Baron de Hirsch during his lifetime.