Charitable giving is one of the foundations of
Judaism and a firm part of Judeo-Christian societal norms. The evidence
is everywhere: from Moore, Oklahoma, where strangers offered money to
other strangers left homeless by tornado devastation, to the winter coat
giveaway by car donation charity
Kars For Kids after Hurricane Sandy. Giving is a part of us forever.
Some of us, however, are more blessed than others
and therefore give beyond the everyday abilities of most. In this
category are people like Baron Maurice de Hirsch, for instance, who in
his 64 short years donated an estimated $100 million to educational
initiatives and for the establishment of agricultural colonies (mostly
in Argentina) to help improve the lives of the poverty-stricken Jews of
Eastern Europe.
Moritz Hirsch auf Gereuth, born December 9, 1831 in
Munich, Bavaria, was the grandson of the first Jew of Bavaria allowed
to own land. Hirsch’s grandfather was an international trader while his
father was a banker and his mother came from a banking family. As a boy,
Moritz, known as “Maurice,” was given both religious and secular
education and was considered bright enough, but not a scholar.
While there are many who give – from entrepreneurs like
Ron Hershco to the Bill Gates Foundation, here’s an interesting tale of one such special philanthropist.
Pushy Jewish Academics
In fact, Hirsch made his feelings about academia
well known in a statement he made to Theodore Herzl in which he voiced
the idea that Jewish woes came from being too caught up in cerebral
prowess and academic success. “We have too many intellectuals, my aim is
to discourage this tendency to push among Jews,” said Hirsch.
At 17, Maurice dabbled in investments including on
the commodities market, experimenting with copper and sugar trading. At
the age of 20, Maurice began to work at the Brussels banking firm known
as Bischoffsheim & Goldschmidt and married the daughter (Clara
Bischoffsheim) of the bank’s major share holder four years later. Hirsch
went on to nab the concession to build a railway from the Balkans to
Constantinople in spite of naysayers who thought the project a pipe
dream. As a result of his success with this venture, he earned a name as
a courageous business visionary. Funding for the Oriental Railway came
by way of Maurice’s family inheritance combined with Clara’s wedding
dowry.
As a result of Hirsch’s involvement with the
Oriental Railway, he came face to face with the impoverishment of
Oriental Jews throughout the Ottoman Empire who were both uneducated and
lacking in marketable skills. Hirsch made donations to existing trade
schools in European Turkey through the organization known as the
Alliance Israelite Universelle. He went on to fund field hospitals
during the Russo-Turkish Was (1877-1878) which treated victims of both
warring sides. Ten years on, Hirsch made a gift of 500,000 pounds to
Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph for the express purpose of building
primary schools and trade schools throughout Galicia and Bukovina.
Unacceptable Condition
Hirsch encountered an obstacle when it came to
funding the poor Jews of Russia. At first, he pledged to give the Czar 2
million pounds to found a secular school system for Jews living in the
Russian Empire, who, at that time, were only allowed to live in the Pale
of Settlement, and thus had few means by which they might support
themselves. The Czar was ready to take Hirsch’s gift, but was not
inclined to allow a foreigner to determine how that money would be used.
Hirsch found this an unacceptable condition.
At some point, Hirsch came to the conclusion that
the only way to help Russian Jewry was to get them out of Russia. To
that end, Hirsch established the Jewish Colonization Association in
1891, with the goal of helping Jews leave lands where subsistence was
forcibly meager. As Hirsch put it, the aim of the association was, “to
assist and promote the emigration of Jews from any part of Europe or
Asia – and principally from countries in which they may for the time
being be subjected to any special taxes or political or other
disabilities . . . and to form and establish colonies in various parts
of North and South America and other countries, for agricultural,
commercial and other purposes."
Hirsch spent a great deal of money purchasing land
in Argentina on behalf of his association, some 11 million pounds
sterling, all told, making the association the most generous benefactor
of its time.
Hirsch believed that farming was part of the Jewish
DNA, inherited from biblical forefathers, and that in agricultural
pursuits, Jews could become financially independent. In addition to the
colonies he founded in Argentina, Hirsch also established agricultural
colonies in Brazil, Canada, the United States, and Palestine. Hirsch,
however, refused Herzl’s invitation to become a political Zionist.
Hirsch thought of Zionism as a deranged hallucination.
