page_title: Alliance Israélite Universelle
section_title: Schools
hierarchical_section_title: Alliance Israélite Universelle / History / Schools
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Portail de l'institution professionnelle de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle à Jérusalem, rue de Jaffa (1882)
context_page_description: The Alliance israélite universelle is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 by the French statesman Adolphe Crémieux to safeguard the human rights of Jews around the world. The organization promotes the ideals of Jewish self-defense and self-sufficiency through education and professional development. It is noted for establishing French-language schools for Jewish children throughout the Mediterranean, Iran and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th century.
  The motto of the organization is the Jewish rabbinic injunction Kol yisrael arevim ze laze, translated into French as Tous les israélites sont solidaires les uns des autres.
context_section_description: Over time, the activity of the Alliance became more focused on education and especially improving the welfare of Jews. In 1864, an Alliance school opened in Baghdad. In 1870, Charles Netter, a founding member of Alliance israélite universelle, received a tract of land from the Ottoman Empire as a gift and opened the  Mikveh Israel agricultural school, the first of a network of Jewish schools in Palestine before the establishment of the State of Israel. Over 60 Alliance schools operated in the Ottoman Middle East, Iran and North Africa, providing Jewish children from poor families with formal elementary school and vocational training. Many of the teachers were educated at Alliance teacher training schools in Turkey and France.
  By 1900, Alliance Israelite Universelle was operating 100 schools with a combined student population of 26,000. Its greatest efforts were concentrated in Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. French was the third most popular foreign language spoken in Palestine by 1914.  After decades of teaching in French exclusively, the schools began teaching Hebrew to their students after the eleventh Zionist Congress insisted, amidst the modern revival of the Hebrew language, that it be included in the curriculum.
caption: Gate of the school of Alliance israélite universelle (1882), on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem
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