Baron Edmond de Rothschild הברון אדמונד דה רוטשילד

The house of Rothschild began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a money-changer from the Frankfurt Judengasse: his five sons settled in five cities—Frankfurt, Vienna, London, Naples, Paris—and the bank became European. Edmond, of the Paris branch, had almost nothing to do with the bank's affairs: he collected paintings and occupied himself with the Land of Israel.

The settlements of the First Aliyah—Rishon LeZion, Zichron Yaakov, Rosh Pina—hung by a thread in their first years. The land was heavy, the marshes malarial, the settlers had no experience whatever. From 1882 the baron took them onto his own account, and with the money sent managers, agronomists and vintners from France: the wine cellars of Rishon and Zichron are his.

And this must be said honestly. The managers ran things harshly, the settlers rebelled, and the argument over which is better—freedom without money or money without freedom—dragged on for years. In 1900 the baron handed the settlements to the Jewish Colonization Association, and later founded his own, PICA. But the argument does not undo what he did: without him there would have been no First Aliyah at all.

He came to the country five times and asked to be buried there. In 1954 he and his wife were moved to Ramat ha-Nadiv near Zichron Yaakov—"the Benefactor's Hill".