The Jewish Colonial Trust was established on March 20, 1899. The first Zionist bank was the brainchild of Theodor Herzl who understood that funding would be required to make his vision of a Jewish homeland a reality. Each share cost one English pound, the equivalent of $280 today. (Herzl bought the first 1,000 shares which was a substantial investment at the time).
Purchasing a JCT share was the first tangible way to support Herzl’s vision, and many people bought only one or two shares, often on instalments payable over time. The Federation of Zionist Societies of Canada, founded in 1907, enabled purchasers to buy one share, after making 55 ten-cent payments. Ultimately, 250,000 shares were sold around the world, well below the target of 2 million shares.
JCT’s main activities in Palestine were conducted through the Anglo-Palestine Bank, a subsidiary formed in 1902. The bank undertook transactions such as land purchases and imports and opened branches in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, Haifa and Tiberius, as well as in Beirut and Gaza. In 1934, JCT terminated its own activities and become solely a holding company for the bank.
This year, a team at the Guardian General’s office, part of Israel’s Ministry of Justice, began looking for the heirs of shareholders to distribute the value of unclaimed shares. There are about 180,000 unclaimed shares worth US $124 million which originally belonged to 80,000 shareholders.
If you have inherited a JCT share like the one pictured, or have heard a family story about an ancestor purchasing a share but the whereabouts of the certificate is unknown, you can contact Israel’s Guardian General and Director of Inheritance Affairs at [email protected]. Information about the Israeli government’s continuing initiative to redeem JCT shares can be found (in Hebrew only) at gov.il/he/service/redemption_of_shares.
