Mikveh Israel

Jewish agricultural school near Jaffa, founded in 1870 by Charles Netter of the Alliance Israélite Universelle on land granted by the Ottoman government

Mikveh Israel
Logo	School buildings at Mikveh Israel, photographed by the American Colony, Jerusalem (between 1898 and 1934)
Type	Agricultural school and village
Founded	1870
Founder(s)	Charles Netter; Alliance Israélite Universelle
Location	East of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, on land formerly cultivated by the village of Yazur
Services	Agricultural education; Youth Aliyah centre from the 1930s
Key people	Charles Netter (director 1870–1873); Joseph Niego (director from 1891); Eliyahu Krause (director 1914–1955)

Mikveh Israel is a Jewish agricultural school and village east of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. It was founded in 1870 by the Paris-based Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), on the initiative of Charles Netter. The Encyclopaedia Judaica calls it "the oldest Jewish rural community in Ereẓ Israel". The name, from the Book of Jeremiah, means "Israel's Hope".

The school trained some of the first Zionist settlers, and Netter saw it as the start of a network of Jewish villages. Herzl greeted the German Kaiser at its entrance in 1898. But the AIU that founded it was not a Zionist body. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, its board was "opposed to the encouragement of emigration to Ereẓ Israel" but "ready to help Jews already there".

Foundation and the land

Netter, a founder and treasurer of the AIU, first visited Palestine in 1868 on its behalf. He recommended an agricultural school, to be followed by settlements for its graduates. In his report he wrote that the country could shelter Jews fleeing hostile surroundings and let them, in time, "occupy and settle the Holy Land". In 1869 he went to Constantinople. There he won the approval of the grand vizier and the Imperial State Council, and the authority of Rashid Pasha, governor of Syria, to acquire 2,600 dunams (650 acres) for an annual rent of 1,800 francs, renewable for 25 years. A firman (decree) of 1870 confirmed the grant. Netter opened the school in the summer of 1870 and ran it until 1873.

The land was state land, but it was not empty. Charles Tyrwhitt Drake reported to the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1872 that "before the land was granted by the Sultan for the purpose of founding an agricultural school, it was cultivated by the villagers of Yazur, and though the land belongs to Government, the fellaheen, from long usage, have got to look upon it as virtually their own". The men of Yazur, he wrote, were "particularly enraged", because they had lost the market gardens they planted on its edge and sold to people in Jaffa.

Drake reported that the school employed 80 to 100 fellaheen (peasant farmers), mostly from Yazur, with others from Selameh, Beit Dejjan and nearby villages. After some delay 1,600 dillem (dunams) of Beit Dejjan's land had been allotted to Yazur in compensation, but the fellaheen complained "that they were not paid for land which they own to be Government property". One party in the village, led by its mukhtar (headman), was "a violent opponent to the institution". Drake himself wrote in favour of selling Palestinian land to foreigners. He argued that "the present fellah would be either eliminated or converted into a useful member of society".

The school and the yishuv

The Encyclopaedia Judaica says Netter gained support from the Anglo-Jewish Association and interested Baron Edmond de Rothschild in the school. In 1882 the first Bilu pioneers, early Zionist settlers from Russia, were trained and found work there as soon as they arrived. Netter himself was disappointed with the school's results. In March 1882 he came out in the press against immigration to Palestine, but later that year he returned, met the settlers of Rishon LeZion and members of Bilu, and offered them help. He died there a month after arriving.

During his 1898 visit to Palestine, Theodor Herzl greeted Kaiser Wilhelm II at the entrance of Mikveh Israel. Joseph Niego directed the school from 1891, and Eliyahu Krause from 1914 to 1955. Under Krause it became a testing ground for new crops and farm branches, and Hebrew became the language of teaching.

In 1930 Sir John Hope Simpson told the British government that "the Jews already have an agricultural school at Mikveh Israel with accommodation for 160 students", along with other Jewish agricultural schools. In contrast, the Arab rural population, more than nine-tenths of the country's rural people, had only one, at Tulkarm.

Later history

From the 1930s Mikveh Israel was an important centre for Youth Aliyah. The school was attacked several times in the 1948 war. The Jewish Colonization Association has given it grants. The Encyclopaedia Judaica says it pioneered methods in citrus and other branches, introduced avocado growing, and ran wine cellars. It had 940 inhabitants in 1968, about 1,545 in the mid-1990s and 749 in 2002. Its second edition (2007) describes a campus of 3.2 square kilometres with a state and a state-religious agricultural high school, a school for agricultural technicians, experiment stations and a botanical garden of more than 1,000 species.

See also

• Jewish Colonization Association
• Palestine Jewish Colonization Association
• Anglo-Jewish Association
• Theodor Herzl
• Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael - Jewish National Fund