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Moises Ville is an agricultural colony located in the North of Santa Fe province, Argentina, it was founded by a group of Russian Jewish colonists who arrived in the country in August 1889 from Kamenetz-Podolsk, Ukraine.

"Mozesvil" (so known in Yiddish) was the first agricultural Jewish settlement in South America. The 130 families – 815 persons - who founded the colony constituted the first Jewish group in recent history to abandon Europe to establish Jewish settlements in Argentina. They arrived in Buenos Aires aboard the steamship Weser. Read here to learn about their history.

Some months later a smaller group that had already been organized by the time the first group left, arrived in Argentina. They came mainly from Bessarabia, now Moldova. Some of the families of this group established themselves in a place near Moises Ville called “Monigotes la Vieja” (Old Monigotes).

  Map of the zone of confinement called the “Pale of Settlement”, with the sources of emigration to Moises Ville noted.

AN UNKNOWN COUNTRY

Noe Cociovich, who came to Moises Ville in 1894, related to us:

“Since the immigration of the first group of Jewish pioneers from Podolia (Kamenets-Podolosk) to Argentina, we were very anxious to know about that land. Argentina was an unknown country, only those in academic circles had much knowledge of it. In our district (Grodno) there was only one ‘superior’ school, and there we could point on a map of South America to the Parana River (accent in the middle), the mountain range that separates Argentina from ‘Cilli’ (Chile) and named on the map with the Russian letter ‘CA’. I remember the word ‘PAMPASI’ written on the barely marked map of Argentina with very spacing letters…”

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In 1891, Baron Maurice de Hirsh founded the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), a colonizing organization with philanthropist basis. In the same year the JCA bought from Dr. Pedro Palacios the rights over the lands previously sold to the colonists of the Weser because of the colonists debt to him. During that year and the subsequent ones, many groups of Russian Jewish with the help of the JCA arrived at the colonies that had just been founded in the provinces of Entre Rios and Buenos Aires.

Within the frame of the JCA’s program a group of 42 families from the Province of Grodno, nowadays Belarus also arrived to Moises Ville between 1894 and 1895. The colonists settled in villages near to Moises Ville. These were named after the number of houses that formed them: "The Four Houses", "The Six Houses", "The Twelve Houses" and "The Twenty-four houses".

Maps of "Colonie Moises Ville"

In 1900, the colonists requested the JCA to enlarge the colony and bring new groups from the Grodno area. The request was conveyed through the colonist Noe Cociovich who, in 1900, 1901 and 1902, carried out several trips to Russia and assembled three groups totaling 104 families that met the JCA demands: they already had relatives in the colony and they paid for their tickets themselves. The groups settled in the Wavelberg area, north of Moises Ville, which had been named for the philanthropist who helped finance the travel; in the Virginia area to the east, and in La Juanita to the west. In 1901, another group of 31 families organized in Bialystok (current Poland) arrived, led by the writer and Jewish leader Gdalia Bublik. The area in which this group settled is known nowadays as Línea Bialystok (Bialystok Line). Many of the colonists who settled in La Juanita and Bialystok later moved to the town of Las Palmeras.

At the same time, a group of Rumanian families selected by the JCA arrived. This group settled in the area of Zadok Kahn, to the west of Moises Ville. It was named in honor of the Rabbi of Paris. Most of the colonists in that group that remained also eventually moved to Las Palmeras.

In 1903, soon after the first Kishinev pogrom, an additional group from Bessarabia was organized. This group settled in the Mutchnik area, northwest of Moises Ville, in the so called Línea Ortiz (Ortiz Line). And in 1905, a group from Kherson, Ukraine, colonized the area of Monigotes.

Several years later was colonized the zone of Capivara, to the northeast of Moises Ville. In the decade of the 1930's German Jews persecuted by the Nazis began to arrive, in a wave that lasted until the beginning of World War II. After the war was over, several families of Dutch and German refugees arrived. Most of them were sent by the JCA.

Starting from its foundation and continuing until 1950, Moises Ville received a large number of craftsmen, merchants and professionals from different countries of Europe and different places within Argentina. We wish to identify all of them.

THE FIRST URBAN CENTER

The colonists of the first group and perhaps some from the second, Podolia and Bessarabia, settled in the surrounding areas of a budding urban center. As Noe Cociovich related, that center had three precarious buildings in 1894: the synagogue, the JCA administration house and the public baths. The colonists' houses were arranged around them along three streets. The plots were 100 meters wide and 1,000 meters deep.

Outline based on a map included among the attachments to the contract between Dr. Palacios and the Jewish Colonization Association in 1891.

The area identified as “BOSQUE” on the map, currently eucalyptus grove in the center of a 1,000 x 1,000 meters square (for those that know Moises Ville, it’s called “EL BOSQUE”), is probably where the former urban center mentioned above was located. Among the roots of the trees, ruins have been found that still have not been identified.

Many of the plot divisions shown in this map exist as yet. Several streets have been cleaned up along them. Some of the original houses still exist at the front of each plot. The current urban center is shown in gray. The map shows the location of the current Hospital Baron Hirsch, and of the ruins of the first milk processing plant that existed in the colony.

The first cheese factory-1898

(ruins of the basement)

The eucalyptuses grove

195.., some years before paving

Copyright © 2008 Mario N. Jeifetz.