the world of private banking

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THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
wealth to philanthropy was not unusual for nineteenth-century businessmen of
all religious persuasions, though few could make donations to match the size and
range of those of Hirsch.
He had become active in humane causes before his son’s death, probably due
to his wife’s influence but also to his observing the poverty of the Jews of Turkey
and the Balkans as he travelled in connection with his railway transactions. He
primarily exerted himself to relieve the poverty and persecution suffered by Jews
in Turkey, the Balkans, and later in Russia and Galicia. Clara had been secretary
to her father when he was a member of the General Committee of the Alliance
Israélite Universelle, which was the major channel for assistance from rich Jews
of prosperous parts of the world to the poor and persecuted. Hirsch also became a
committee member in 1876. In December 1873 he donated a million francs to the
Alliance for the furtherance of education in Turkey. From 1879 he contributed an
annual 50,000 francs for the artisans training scheme of the Alliance. From 1882
he underwrote its large annual deficit, keeping it in independent existence. In 1882
he contributed a million francs to an emergency fund for refugees from the Russian
pogroms. By the time of his death he had donated at least 12 million francs to the
Alliance. An equivalent amount went primarily for the education and training of
Jews in Austria, in the face of opposition from the government of Austria. In 1889
he opened welfare agencies in towns in central and eastern Europe, dispensing
aid to those in need. These also he supervised closely. His policy was only to give
relief in such a way as positively to assist people to become self-supporting, for
example through acquiring training or the tools of a trade. He claimed not to give
to communities which had substantial other sources of relief, such as the poor of
London and Paris, though he evidently made an exception for the hospital charities
favoured by the Prince of Wales.
He sought to introduce relief schemes in Russia, but faced with the resolute
opposition of the government, sought instead to assist mass emigration of Jews.
He gave large sums to poor Jews arriving in America through the Baron de Hirsch
Fund, which was established in 1891.
Above all, Hirsch wished to establish and endow a safe Jewish colony. He
initially expected this to be located somewhere in the Americas, through the
instrument of the Jewish Colonization Society which he established in 1891,
with headquarters in London, to raise money for this enterprise and make it a
reality. It was floated with a capital of £2 million issued in shares of £100 each.
He held 19,993 of these, the others being taken up by prominent London Jews. He
distributed his shares around prominent European Jewish organizations. He was
to invest at least £38 million in this enterprise before his death. He had high hopes
of establishing a colony in Argentina, where a large amount of land was purchased
and Jews settled. Smaller colonies were funded elsewhere, including Palestine,
after Hirsch’s death.
Jewish colonization had become the centre of Hirsch’s life and of his incessant
work (though his financial dealings never ceased) by the time of his sudden death in
Hungary in 1896. He was interred in the family vault at the Montmartre Cemetery,