Joseph Niego
Compiled from various sources by Raphael Ventura
Joseph Niego was a famous member of the Behmoiras family though he did not embrace a rabbinical career. His activity for the benefit of the Jewish community is taught in Israeli schools, and is well known among the Jews of Istanbul. His mother was a daughter of Grand Rabbi Moshe-Rahamim Behmoiras and sister of Grand Rabbi Raphael Behmoiras.
His career is mentioned in encyclopedias, in books and various articles, even on the Internet. The Tel-Aviv lodge of Benei-Berit members of Turkish origin is named after him, and there is a 'Joseph Niego Grove' in Holon, Israel.
Joseph Niego was born in Edirne in 1863. His parents died when he was very young and his uncle, Raphael Behmoiras, took care of his education.
At first, Joseph received the standard Jewish education in Heder and Yeshiva. However, when the Alliance Israelite Universelle opened a school for boys in Edirne, Joseph preferred to study there, in the spirit of French emancipation, despite the attempts of his uncle to interest him in rabbinical studies.
Because of the Russo-Turkish war of 1876, Joseph Niego left for Istanbul to a parallel school of the Alliance there. He was 13 years old.
He was chosen among the best students of this school to pursue his studies in Paris, at the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale, which had been founded in 1865 by the Alliance in order to train young Jewish people of oriental origin for eventual leadership in their countries of origin, according to its spirit.
Joseph studied in Paris between 1878 and 1882 and proved to be an outstanding student. There he met another Alliance graduate, Lea-Pauline Mitrani, who was to become his wife.
In 1870 the Alliance founded Miqve Israel, the first agricultural school in Palestine, in what was then the outskirts of Jaffa and now Holon. Its purpose was to train the new settlers in modern methods of agriculture to enable them to earn their livelihood out of the land. Karl Netter himself headed the school for several years and then Hirsch. The time had come to appoint a licensed agronomist as head of the school. It was therefore decided to send Joseph Niego to Montpellier to specialize in agricultural studies.
In 1885 he obtained his diploma of engineer agronomist, and was directly appointed to Miqve Israel.
In early May of 1886, 23 years old Joseph Niego set foot in Palestine as the first Jewish agronomist of Eretz-Israel. He served under Hirsch for a few years and in 1891 was appointed head of Miqve Israel.
Under Niego the school flourished and expanded. He moved with his wife and daughter to the second floor of the main building. His living quarters there, modeled in Franco-oriental style, have been kept intact and are accessible to modern visitors to the still active school.
Niego made it a point to have in his school students from each one of the pioneering settlements of the 'Hovevei Zion' so that they, in turn, would introduce modern methods of cultivation to their settlements.
After a short visit to Kurdistan, where he was sent by the Alliance to check the situation of the Jews, he was appointed advisor to the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association) in Eretz Israel.
In 1896 Joseph Niego received Kaiser Wilhelm II who passed by Miqve Israel on his way to Jerusalem. Though, as an Alliance adherent, Niego did not share Herzl's vision about Zionism, he enabled Herzl, who happened to be on a visit to Eretz-Israel, to meet the Kaiser and shake his hand on that special occasion.
Niego was very active in the massive introduction of Australian Eucalyptus trees to Eretz-Israel, as a means for drying up the malaria infected swamps. He was also the driving force in the foundation of Sejera, the first agricultural settlement.
Unfortunately, the climate of the Holy Land was too harsh for the delicate health of Lea, Niego's wife. This was the principal reason for Niego's departure for Istanbul, with his family, after 13 years of tenure as head of Miqve Israel.
In 1904, he was appointed inspector of the JCA in Istanbul. He was 41 years of age. In this function, Niego was involved in the foundation of various settlements for Jewish refugees throughout the Ottoman Empire.
In 1911 he founded the Grand Lodge of Benei-Berith in Istanbul. The founding ceremony took place in Niego's house, and he delivered the main speech. The Jews of Istanbul were eager to assume greater responsibility for the fate of their fellow community members, whereas the Alliance seemed to lead a policy, which was firmly dictated from Paris. The Benei-Berith offered a much more acceptable alternative for the solution of local community affairs. Niego was appointed founding director of the grand lodge and kept that post for 22 years. In the course of these years he delivered many ardent speeches and became known as an excellent orator.
The First World War brought about the cessation of activities of foreign schools in Ottoman Turkey. The Jews of Istanbul, who used to send their children to such foreign schools, were in urgent need of a Jewish lyceum. Joseph Niego, with the devoted help of Rabbi Dr. Marcus, raised the needed funds and established the first Jewish lyceum in Istanbul, the 'Bene-Berith', later named 'Yabne'. Niego served as its first principal, on a voluntary basis (1914-1917). Three years later he passed the function over to Dr. Marcus.
In 1918, when the allies entered to negotiate the situation of the Ottomans on the aftermath of the war, there was urgent need that the Jews of Turkey be properly represented at the negotiations. However, the Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, Rabbi Haim Nahum, was temporarily unavailable. The Istanbul Jews urgently formed a temporary national council of the Jewish community of Turkey and unanimously elected Joseph Niego to preside it.
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'.
At the age of 70, Niego retired from communal activities. It was then that his book was published: Niego, Joseph. Cinquante annees de travail dans les Oeuvres Juives, Allocutions et conferences. Bulletin publie a l'occasion du soixante-dixieme anniversaire du grand frere president J. Niego, sous les auspices du District XI de la Bene-Berith, (avec une preface de J. Shaki), Babok & Fils, Istanbul, 1933.
He died in 1945, at the age of 82.