Palestine Jewish Colonization Association

The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym PICA (), was established in 1924 and played a major role in supporting the Yishuv in Palestine until its disbandment in 1957.
The Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) was founded by Bavarian philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch in 1891 to help Jews from Russia and Romania to settle in Argentina.Brandeis, 1973, p. 499.Pat Thane, ‘Hirsch, Maurice de , Baron de Hirsch in the Bavarian nobility (1831–1896)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 1 June 2007 The Baron died in 1896 and thereafter the ICA began to assist the Palestinian colonies. In 1899 Edmond James de Rothschild transferred title to his colonies in Palestine plus fifteen million francs to the ICA, which was reorganised as the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association in 1924,Norman, 1985, p. 153. under the direction of Edmond's son James Armand de Rothschild.Avneri, 1984, p. 159.
After the 1929 Palestine riots PICA helped to rehabilitate agricultural colonies that had been damaged.
James de Rothschild's will instructed PICA to transfer most of its land in Israel to the Jewish National Fund.Fishbach, 2003, p. 162. On December 31, 1958 PICA agreed to vest its right to land holdings in Syria and Lebanon in the State of Israel. Fishbach, 2003, pp. 163-164.
==Notes==
==References==
*Avneri, Arieh (1984). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land-settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0878559647
*Brandeis, Louis Dembitz (1973). Letters of Louis D Brandeis. SUNY Press. ISBN 0873952316
*Fischbach, Michael R. (2003). Records of Dispossession. Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12978-5
*Norman, Theodore (1985). An Outstretched Arm: A History of the Jewish Colonization Association. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 
==External links==
*Halbrook, Stephen P. (1981). The Alienation of a Homeland: How Palestine Became Israel. Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. V, No. 4, pp 357-374.
*Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Redeemers of the Land, 18 October, 1999, accessed 1 June, 2007.
*UNISPAL, Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development, Sir John Hope Simpson, Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, October, 1930.
Category:British Mandate of Palestine
Category:Jewish history
Category:Zionist organizations
he:פיק"א