JCA Head Office (Paris, New York, London)

The archives of the head office contain about 1000 files of correspondence, c. 1891 to 1971, between the head office and JCA's branches in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Argentina, Brazil, Romania, Austria (Galicia), Turkey, Cyprus and Palestine, as well as with other philanthropic organizations, such as the Alliance Israélite Universelle, ORT, HIAS, etc. The head office archives also contain several series of reports and minutes (seances) in printed and mimeographed form. Many files deal with Jewish schools in Eastern Europe, professional and other, some of them set up by JCA, others supported by the organization. For some of these schools and indeed for some of these communities, the JCA files provide the only surviving written evidence of their existence. Another aspect of JCA's activity in Eastern Europe was the encouragement of "productive" i.e. agricultural and industrial activity. The files abound in information on loan associations and cooperatives set up to assist the Jews in these ventures. Not to be overlooked are the colonies in Palestine, which received assistance from JCA from 1896 onwards. In 1899 Baron Edmond de Rothschild transferred to JCA the colonies under his care, and only in 1923 were they returned to his "jurisdiction" with the foundation of PICA (the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association). The 1000 correspondence files (which contain reports, maps and school plans as well) contain approximately 300,000 pages, about 40% of which are handwritten and the remainder typed. The most dominant language is French, with German not far behind. Other languages, in order of their relative prevalence, are Russian, Romanian, Yiddish, English, Hebrew, Polish and Spanish. Read more