Charles Netters And The Founding Of Mikveh Israel

Photo Credit: Saul Jay Singer

Charles (Yaakov) Netter (1826-1882) was a founding member of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, but he is best known as “The Father of Jewish Agriculture” for his founding of the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School, renowned not only as the first modern Jewish agricultural settlement in Eretz Yisrael, but also the first modern Jewish settlement under the Ottoman Empire outside Jerusalem.

Mikveh Israel, which served as the central research center for Eretz Yisrael, played a central, though mostly forgotten, role in the growth of the Yishuv and the establishment of Israel. The school was singularly responsible for the development of agriculture in Eretz Yisrael and in making Israel one of the few countries in history that, even at the time of its birth, had achieved noteworthy development in agriculture, including exporting of crops.

Born in Strasbourg, France, into a rabbinic family, Netter studied there and engaged in business in London, Moscow, and Lille (France) before moving to Paris in 1851, where he commenced his life-long involvement with Jewish and civic affairs, including establishing a Jewish vocational school in 1865, founding a society for safeguarding the rights of workers, and creating a hostel for impoverished artisans.

In the wake of the infamous Edgardo Mortara affair, where the Vatican seized a Jewish child and baptized him, and the Damascus Affair, when leading members of the Damascus Jewish community were accused in a notorious blood libel, Netter and five others met in Paris on May 17, 1860, to found Alliance Israélite Universelle (“AIU”), whose official purpose was

To gather good-natured people to fight against hate and prejudice.

To create a society of young idealist and militant Jews that feel solidarity with all those who suffer from their condition as Jews or all those who are victims of prejudice, regardless of their religion. To ensure that culture replaces the ignorance of fanatics, for the good of all. If you believe that this would be an honor for your religion, a lesson for the people, a progress for humanity, a triumph for truth and for universal reason to witness all the vibrant forces of Judaism come together, small with respect to number but large with respect to love and good will, come to us, we are thus founding the Alliance Israélite Universelle.

Netter was appointed general secretary of AIU and, for some time, his home served as headquarters for the organization. He was joined four years later by French-Jewish politician Adolphe (Isaac-Jacob) Crémieux, a French-Jewish politician who would serve as the president of the society while serving as French Minister of Justice, in which capacity he was a powerful defender of Jewish rights.

The initial attempts of European Jews to establish a colony in Eretz Yisrael began in the fertile lands of Jerusalem, Safed, and Hebron that, boasting fertile and tillable land, were particularly conducive to agriculture. In 1860, the Colonization Society for Palestine in Frankfurt was founded with the primary goal of launching the first attempts toward the restoration of the Jewish sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, which led to an increase in aliyah to the region.

The AIU had already commenced ambitious educational activities in the Middle East, having opened schools in cities such as Tangier, Thessaloniki, and Istanbul, when Netter conceived the idea of establishing a new settlement in Eretz Yisrael that would be used as an agricultural school for Jewish men. In 1867, he submitted a proposal to the AIU to assist Jews from Persia and other Eastern countries to make aliyah and to found such an agricultural settlements for them, which was not acted upon. In his first trip to Eretz Yisrael, which he undertook a year later on behalf of the AIU, he found there 13,000 Jews, only about 2,500 of whom were adult men and about 375 of them were working in manual labor, trade, or as craftsmen, with the remainder teaching or studying in yeshivot. In Jaffa and Jerusalem, he found only two(!) Jews engaged in agriculture.

Upon his return to France, Netter refined his proposal to include the creation of an agricultural school and to establish settlements for its graduates, and that such a program had the potential to become a boon to aliyah, as Eretz Yisrael would provide a shelter for Jews fleeing from hostile countries and enable them to occupy and settle the land. His original plans for the agricultural school – which carried through intact to its founding and operation – was to emphasize and facilitate the self-sufficiency of its students and graduates.

After the AIU approved his proposal on January 1, 1869, Netter traveled for many months through Jerusalem, Syria, and Turkey seeking approval for his plan. Finally, he was able to arrange a meeting with the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Imperial State Council in Constantinople, who approved Netter’s plan, and Rashid Pasha, the governor of Syria, who approved the acquisition of 650 acres of land near Jaffa for the annual rental of 1,800 francs, with a right of renewal for 25 years. AIU’s motive in backing Netter and Mikveh Israel was not merely agricultural but, agreeing with Netter, to also increase aliyah and to transform the population through a European system of education. The Ottoman authorities, in turn, were motivated, at least in part, by their expectation that the school would generate improved agricultural activity in Jaffa and ultimately through all of Eretz Yisrael. An additional motivation for the Ottomans was to increase its influence, because, by law, all students to be admitted to the school were required to be Ottoman subjects, and all non-citizen foreign subjects residing within the Ottoman Empire would be required accept Ottoman nationality.

When the Ottomans issued a firman (Sultan’s edict) in 1870 finalizing the arrangement, Netter immediately returned to Eretz Yisrael and launched the school, naming it Mikveh Israel based upon the verse in Jeremiah 14:8 (G-d is “The Hope of Israel (Mikveh Yisrael), his savior in time of trouble”) and Jeremiah 17:13 (“Oh, Hashem, you are the Mikveh Yisrael, all who forsake you shall be ashamed”). Fortunately, this firman was later honored by the British Mandate authority, which permitted the school to continue operations through all the difficult decades spanning the two World Wars and Israel’s War of Independence.

However, when Netter launched the school, there were daunting problems. First, there were no buildings or facilities – Netter himself lived in a cave on the land, braving inclement weather and other challenging conditions – and few people were interested; in fact, his inaugural class boasted a total of one student, whom he recruited off a Jerusalem street, and by 1871, when the official dedication ceremony was held on Purim that year, there were only ten students. Second, farming was considered by Jews to be an inferior profession and parents of prospective students feared Arab violence; indeed, there was great hostility from the “Fellahs,” local Arab farmers and agricultural workers, who deeply resented the competition from the Jewish “interlopers.” Moreover, clashes with the Arab inhabitants of nearby Yazur created significant disruptions – and not unreasonably so, given that some of its land was confiscated to create Mikveh Israel.

Third, Netter struggled against objections from Orthodox Yishuv leaders, who emphasized Torah studies; did not want to see donations from diasporan Jews diverted for secular purposes; and, in particular, objected to Jewish manual labor in Eretz Yisrael. Considering their core beliefs, this opposition was not unreasonable, given that one of the primary goals of the administration and staff of the school was to serve as an alternative to, and ultimately to replace, the traditional cheder and to encourage their students not to marry at a young age. There was also opposition from other Jewish residents of the Yishuv, who complained that the school adopted a secular education that prioritized European culture and languages to the detriment of Jewish culture and the Hebrew language.

Worthy of note, however, is that some Zionist rabbanim, including Rav Judah Alkalai and Rav Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, were outspoken supporters of the school; at one point, Rav Kalischer even considered accepting Netter’s invitation to come live at Mikveh Israel and supervise the mitzvot that were particular to being performed in Eretz Yisrael. The school, which was in close contact with many of the leading halachic authorities of the time who regularly visited the Mikveh Israel, was run according to halacha and followed the ritual requirements set out by the rabbis of Jaffa; for example, Rabbi I.H. Levy, president of the Rabbinical Tribunal of Jaffa, confirmed that Mikveh Israel ritually separated terumah and tithes from the vegetables in accordance with Torah law before the crop was sold in Jaffa.

Fourth, the recruitment and development of students became even more difficult when funding from the AIU became problematic when the Franco-Prussian War made it difficult to transfer funds to the school and the transfer of Alsace and part of Lorraine to German rule substantially interfered with the AIU’s ability to fundraise. When the financing proved insufficient to sustain Mikveh Israel, Netter donated his own money to the school and commenced a massive effort to raise funds from philanthropists and other supporters. Thanks to the economic largesse and political support from Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Crémieux, and the Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the school went on to achieve notable success.

However, Netter somehow overcame all these seemingly insoluble difficulties. Despite Jews not having their own land for two thousand years, knowing little about agriculture, and competing against Arab farmers with centuries of experience working the land and deep familiarity with the climate, precipitation, and endurance of the soil, Netter’s use of modern advanced agricultural techniques and superior tools was such that Mikveh Israel soon far outpaced the production and quality of Arab crops.

The school launched theoretical and applied courses that taught students the European style of agriculture and, thanks to its steady and well-organized education, demand for admission increased. This demand was also boosted by Netter’s idea to have the AIU and other Jewish organizations sponsor three or four Mikveh Israel graduates to go to Europe for internships at agricultural institutes or farms, who then became in very high demand for employment. Another important boost to Mikveh Israel came when the Jewish Colonization Association decided to expand its activities in Eretz Yisrael, including providing material assistance to Mikveh Israel, the result of which was a significant increase in student enrollment. The school became so superior to anything offered by the Arab and Ottoman authorities that many Muslim and Turkish families began to enroll their children there.

Netter was singularly responsible for hiring Mikveh Israel’s instructors and appointing its administrators; establishing the syllabus and the term of study (which he set at seven years); and determining which lands should be rented or purchased and what crops should be planted on them. He was also responsible for determining admissions to the school, for the first ten years prioritizing orphans and poor children, who were not required to pay for their education. He single-handedly managed the school until 1873, when he was injured falling off his horse. When his health continued to deteriorate, he followed his doctor’s advice to return to Europe, where he continued to raise funds and work on behalf of Mikveh Israel. Before his departure, however, construction had begun on the winery at the school, and cuttings from the vineyards at Mikveh Israel were the first to be used by wine growers at Rishon L’Tzion and Zichron Yaakov.

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For the first three years, Mikveh Israel students received theoretical training for half a day and hands-on field training during the afternoon, when they were trained in clearing and ploughing land; barn and dairy construction; wine-growing and storage; fruit growing, including growing the precursor of what is known today as the Jaffa orange; orchard and nursery cultivation, maintenance and repair; the principles of meteorology; breeding and seeing to the welfare of animals; primary and secondary education; and even carpet weaving, sewing, and handicrafts. In the evening, there were an additional two hours of study practices, and classes were also held on weekends, with the syllabus left to the discretion of the instructors. The school also emphasized multilingualism; although the language of instruction was French, Netter encouraged students to study other languages so that they could contribute to commercial life in other countries and contribute to the spread of Mikveh Israel’s culture. Particular care was taken to teach Hebrew and Arabic to the students so that could fully participate in the culture and commerce of Eretz Yisrael.

To assure that its graduating students would not experience financial problems, the school paid each of them 1,000 francs, but that largesse proved unnecessary because virtually all of them quickly gained meaningful employment, in most cases very well paid jobs, because the skills that they had gained in Mikveh Israel were in high demand. After finishing their studies, the thousands of graduates left the school to start agricultural settlements of all kinds in villages, kibbutzim, moshavim, farms and agricultural schools, or serving in management positions; some continued their agricultural studies in institutions of higher learning and filled positions in research and development, the export branches, marketing, and agricultural management.

Back in France, Netter, though ill, resumed his political activities on behalf of Jewish causes. In 1877, he returned to Constantinople on behalf of the AIU, after which he submitted a report on the dire situation of the Jews, especially in Romania and Serbia. In 1888, he was the AIU delegate to the Congress of Berlin, which unanimously (except for Russia, the lone holdout) determined that Romania would not be internationally recognized as an independent state until it formally recognized the equality of its Jewish subjects. Moreover, as the AIU representative at the Madrid Conference in 1880, where the international assembly deliberated the status of Morocco, he passionately advocated on behalf the rights of Moroccan Jews.

Disappointed with the initial lack of success by Mikveh Israel and the general unsuitability of Eretz Yisrael for the absorption of large numbers of Jews, Netter initially opposed the aliyah of Russian and Romanian Jews at the very time when adverse developments in those countries created great pressure for emigration and a new aliyah movement was growing. He even went so far as to issue a public press statement in March 1882 opposing aliyah, and a conference of Jewish organizations in Berlin, in which Netter participated, determined to support emigration to the United States and to seek other countries, except Eretz Yisrael, where Jews could find refuge. However, still determined to rescue and help Jews, Netter visited Brody, where he remained for months arranging for the emigration of 1,200 Russian Jewish refugees to America and of a group of 28 children to Mikveh Israel. Upon his return to his home in Paris, he was appointed secretary of the special committee established there for the support of Russian Jews, and his house was relentlessly besieged by the desperate Russian refugees, who found in him an untiring protector.

Under pressure from Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who passionately believed that Eretz Yisrael should serve as a center for Jewish immigration, Netter revised his views and returned to visit Eretz Yisrael in August 1882. He met there with Russian Jews who had settled in Rishon L’Tzion to offer his help, and he developed further plans for agricultural activities and the development of crafts in Eretz Yisrael but, sadly, he died a month after his arrival.

Netter died during a visit to Mikveh Israel, where he is buried, and his tombstone was erected by the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Kfar Netter, a moshav near Netanya, was founded in 1939 by graduates of Mikveh Yisrael, and several Israeli cities have named streets after him.

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Beyond being merely a school, Mikveh Israel became an essential training center for contemporary agricultural research, which made a significant contribution to the transformation of Eretz Yisrael into a Jewish homeland. On the 90^th anniversary of the founding of the school in 1960, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion commented that:

For decades, this institution has instilled this Jewish spirit of work and Jewish heroism in thousands of students, who are descendants of workers and proponents of the Jewish state before, during and after the founding of the state… The establishment of the state was possible with this school. If this school had not been founded to serve the studies of Judaism, I would have doubted that the Jewish state could have been established.

Exhibited here is a January 21, 1956, correspondence written by Ben Gurion on his letterhead to Minister of Education and Culture Zalman Aran:

In these days, we are commemorating the 70^th anniversary of the death of Charles Netter who founded “Kol Yisrael Chaverim” (“all of Israel are friends”) that opened the way for many Jewish settlers in the desolate Eretz Yisrael and also the founding of the first agricultural school in Israel “Mikveh Israel,” and that was to return Jewish agriculture in the country to what it had been in antiquity. Therefore, it is important that the name of the man and his accomplishments be presented and taught in every school for the education of our youth, the blossoming of the wilderness, and the security of the people.

As Minister of Education, Aran (born Zalman Aharonowitz. 1899-1970) introduced “Jewish identity” and Jewish tradition into Israel’s core curriculum; the Knesset accepted his reform program for Israel’s education system as well as his demand that Israel’s compulsory Education Law be expanded to ages of 14-16. He also promoted the integration of children from different backgrounds into the same schools to accelerate Israel’s melting-pot ideal and cut down socio-economic gaps in the Israeli society. The Tel Aviv School of History and the central library of Ben-Gurion University were named for him.

In a second beautiful Ben-Gurion letter exhibited here, dated March 29, 1955, he writes on his Minister of Defense letterhead to Yosef Efrati, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, waxing nostalgic about the early days of settlements in Eretz Yisrael, including Mikveh Israel:

Prior to coming to Israel, I read about the citrus plantations of Montefiore and of Mikveh Israel and Petach Tikva of Stempfer and Solomon; I envied them that they were privileged for some of which no other Jew will merit – to be the first. When I arrived in Israel, I realized that the first chapter did not end; au contraire, it almost did not begin – empty and desolate parcels of land are waiting to be redeemed by the new immigrants that are arriving. It is our obligation to increase the settlements in the Negev to strengthen our security.

Mikveh Yisrael, which remains an iconic symbol of the passionate commitment and sacrifices of the early settlers of Eretz Yisrael to the creation of the Jewish State, has continued its mission as an agricultural school for over 150 years, and generations of its graduates have continued to work the land of Eretz Yisrael and to develop important agricultural innovations. In 1976, the Knesset, with broad support across the political spectrum, enacted a special law prohibiting the sale of Mikveh Israel land for real estate development, forever preserving it for use by the school.