Mavi Boncuk | Joseph Niego (1863–1945) also known as Yosef Niego was born in Andrinople/Edirne, Turkey into a rabbinical Behmoiras family though he did not embrace a rabbinical career.Joseph Niego was sent to France to the Faculty of Agriculture in order to help Mikveh Israel cultivate the land. Thanks to the Eucalyptus trees he imported to the Holy Land, he dried the swamps that prevented agricultural development.
In 1891, Baron Moritz de Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) in order to help the Russian Jews who were suffering from anti-semitsm. In about 1891 he was appointed director of the *Mikveh Israel Agricultural School (near Tel Aviv). In 1898, Joseph Niego arranged a meeting between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Theodor Herzl in Palestine. In 1896 Baron Hirsch appointed Joseph Niego as the advisor of JCA in Palestine. Aware of the unemployment and integration problem of the Russian Jewish immigrants, Joseph Niego decided to build economically viable "work-farms" which was a primitive form of a modern day Kibbutz.
In 1911, Joseph Niego founded the B'NAI B'RITH Grand Lodge District XI that covered all Ottoman lands.
He served in this post for 18 years, and during that time he went to Kurdistan on behalf of the *Alliance Israélite Universelle. On his return he presented an interesting report about the Kurdish Jews which was published in French and in a Hebrew translation. Later he was nominated as inspector of the Jewish Colonization Association agricultural settlements in Oriental and European countries, including its colonies in Palestine (Gederah, Be'er-Toviyyah, Sejera, Ḥaderah, etc.). He remained at this post for 20 years. His headquarters were in Istanbul, but he was also very active in agricultural research in Anatolia.
In 1923, his employment at JCA was terminated when Turkey was declared a democracy and could not allocate any more regions of its territory for the settlement of Jewish refugees.
In 1911, Joseph Niego founded the B'NAI B'RITH Grand Lodge District XI that covered all Ottoman lands.
He served in this post for 18 years, and during that time he went to Kurdistan on behalf of the *Alliance Israélite Universelle. On his return he presented an interesting report about the Kurdish Jews which was published in French and in a Hebrew translation. Later he was nominated as inspector of the Jewish Colonization Association agricultural settlements in Oriental and European countries, including its colonies in Palestine (Gederah, Be'er-Toviyyah, Sejera, Ḥaderah, etc.). He remained at this post for 20 years. His headquarters were in Istanbul, but he was also very active in agricultural research in Anatolia.
In 1923, his employment at JCA was terminated when Turkey was declared a democracy and could not allocate any more regions of its territory for the settlement of Jewish refugees.
Joseph Niego was 60 years old. By the suggestion of the American ambassador Morgenthau, he was employed by the American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee, as head of a fund that offered assistance to small Jewish businesses: ‘Caisse de petits pres de Constantinople’. As head of a fund that offered loans to the small and medium Jewish businesses. The impact of this association helped the Jewish community of Turkey to flourish economically.
The B'NAI B'RITH lodge in Israel is named after Joseph Niego in order to recognize and honor a life of service to the Jewish causes.[1]
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cinquante Années de Travail dans les Oeuvres Juives… Bulletin Publié à l'Occasion du sixante-dixième Anniversaire… J. Niego (1933); M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 468f.; M. Benayahu, Massa Bavel(1955), 43.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Cinquante Années de Travail dans les Oeuvres Juives… Bulletin Publié à l'Occasion du sixante-dixième Anniversaire… J. Niego (1933); M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1938), 468f.; M. Benayahu, Massa Bavel(1955), 43.
[1] JOSEPH NIEGO LODGE
Kaplan St. 10 Tel-Aviv - P.O.BOX: 39637 Tel-Aviv 61396 bneibis@zahav.net.il