From the Jewish Encyclopedia

Jewish Colonization Association in Galicia and Jewish Agricultural Colonies: Galicia and Russia.

The loan-banks, founded since 1899, constitute the chief work of the Jewish Colonization Association in Galicia. There are now six of these in operation—at Brody, Kolomea, Rzeszow, Stanislawow, Tarnow, and Zalesczyki; and others are contemplated. Each of these institutions is managed by a council, in conformity with the Austrian laws. By the end of 1902 these banks had altogether 3,912 shareholders with 7,929 shares of 10 kronen each; the loans range from 25 to 400 kronen, repaid in small monthly installments. Since their foundation these banks have loaned altogether 1,197,554.96 kronen. The industrial work of the association includes: the operation of knitting-mills, furnishing work for about sixty working women; the doll-factory at Tarnow, which employs one hundred men and women, and is intended to introduce the manufacture of dolls among the Galician Jews; the carpenter-shops at Stanislawow and Tarnow, for instructing boys in trades. In 1899 the association acquired the estate of Slobodka Lesna, near Kolomea, where it has established an agricultural school, with seventy pupils and eight carpenter's apprentices (1903). In Russia the association subventions agricultural, professional, and primary schools. It aids the Jewish farmers in the different governments, contributes to the loan-banks, and has established at Dubrovna a spinning-mill and a society for providing cheap lodging-houses. It has six agricultural and horticultural schools, with 210 pupils, at Czestoniew, Minsk, Moghilef-on-the-Dnieper, Novopoltawka, Orgejew, and Orsha. It supports twenty trade-schools for boys (1,916 pupils), seven trade-schools for girls (1,547 pupils), and two mixed schools, these schools being distributed in twenty-seven different localities. The association trains young men to assumepositions as directors and instructors in its schools. In the interest of primary instruction it aids the Hebrat Marbeh Haskalah (Society for the Spread of Enlightenment) of St. Petersburg, which subventions seventy-five schools having a total roll of more than 5,500 pupils. It aids Jewish farmers by instructing and encouraging them in employing improved methods in agriculture and fruit-growing; it plants model gardens, introduces bee-culture and mutual loan-banks, and distributes farmers' almanacs and pamphlets on agriculture. This work also extends to Bessarabia and the colonies of the Northwestern Zone and of Kherson. The association has furthermore been instrumental in forming cooperative societies among the Jewish artisans at Akkerman, Bairamtcha, Romanowka, and Tarutino, and advances funds to the loan-banks founded in the cities for the purpose of aiding especially artisans and small dealers. The thirteen banks which thus have received funds are situated in localities having a total Jewish population of 240,000 persons. The banks have altogether 7,600 shareholders; the average sum loaned is 40 rubles, and in 1902 more than half a million rubles were loaned. Beginning with 1898 the association has instituted a statistical inquiry into the Jewish population of Russia in order the better to study its needs; this census is now completed, and the results have been published.

Western Governments