Mikveh Israel

Mikveh Israel was founded in 1870 by Charles Netter of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Paris-based Jewish organization, as the first Jewish agricultural school in the Land of Israel. After visiting the country in 1868, Netter obtained from the Ottoman government a lease of about 2,600 dunams on the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and young Jews from the Old Yishuv and from abroad were taught to farm, plant vineyards and orchards and work the land with modern methods. Its name comes from Jeremiah 14:8, "the Hope of Israel, its Savior in time of trouble". Netter died in Jaffa in 1882 and was buried at the school.

Mikveh Israel trained many of the farmers and agronomists of the First Aliyah, and its graduates helped the new moshavot survive. In October 1898 Theodor Herzl greeted Kaiser Wilhelm II at its gate on his way to Jerusalem. The school, still working today in Holon, is the oldest Jewish agricultural institution in the modern Land of Israel.