In 1907, as a cofounder member, he also provided funds and support for the foundation of the Friends of the French National Museum of Natural History Society.

[3] He served as a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts and through it sponsored the archaeological digs of Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau in Egypt, Eustache de Lorey in Ottoman Syria, and Raymond Weill in Palestine.

[4] Although he remained separate from the Zionist movement, and "rejected institutional and ideological Zionism," The Baron Rothschild became an avid supporter of Jewish settlement in Palestine financing the site at Rishon LeZion.

In 1924, he established the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which acquired more than 125,000 acres (50,586 ha) of land and set up business ventures.

Under the supervision of his administrators in Ottoman Palestine, farm colonies and vineyards were established, and two major wineries were opened in Rishon LeZion and Zikhron Ya'akov.

[citation needed] According to historian Albert M. Hyamson, "Rothschild recognised that the overriding interest of the Jews of Palestine was the confidence and the friendship of their Arab neighbours.

"[7] While Edmond de Rothschild was not always supportive of an inclusive government—he suggested in 1931 to Judah Magnes that "We must hold them (the Arabs) down with a strong hand"[8]—he acknowledged the importance of co-governance and peaceful coexistence in a 1934 letter to the League of Nations, stating that "the struggle to put an end to the Wandering Jew, could not have as its result, the creation of the Wandering Arab.

A state funeral was held with former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion giving the eulogy following which Edmond de Rothschild and his wife were re-interred atop a hill near Haifa in what today is called Ramat HaNadiv (The Generous one's Heights) Memorial Gardens, near the towns of Zichron Ya'akov (in Memoriam of Jacob, which is James in English) and Binyamina ("of little Benjamin"), both of which he helped fund, and are named in his honor.

Started in 1954, (the very same year the Baron and his wife were buried in Israel) to carry on the legacy of Edmond's earlier philanthropy in Palestine, and his colony association, the PICA.