Joint Distribution Committee Borrows $1,000,000 to Cope with Immediate Needs of East European Jewry

One million dollars is to be borrowed immediately from New York banks by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee according to an announcement made by that organization yesterday, so that relief of the starving Jews of Poland and Bessarabia may begin at once.

Half of this loan will be used for settling approximately 10,000 Jewish families in Russia without waiting until subscriptions made in the $15,000,000 United Jewish Campaign shall become due.

Notes for a half-million dollars have already been endorsed for this purpose by leading New York members of the Joint Distribution Committee, and it is expected that the balance will be underwritten within the next twenty-four hours by a number of out-of-town members who have been communicated with by telegram.

This unprecedented step was decided upon at a conference called by Mr. Felix M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee and David A. Brown to consider a cable report from Dr. Joseph. A. Rosen in Moscow, head of the Agro-Joint, through which the Joint Distribution Committee carries on its work of settling Jews as farmers, and reports from Dr. Bernard Kahn, European Director of the Joint Distribution Committee, located in Berlin detailing the despeate situation of Polish and Bessarabian Jewry and urging prompt action.

In announcing the intention of the Joint Distribution Committee to borrow a million dollars, Mr. Warburg for that body and Mr. Brown for the United Jewish Campaign stated:

“The campaign is progressing in a very satisfactory manner and we are confident that the Jews of the United States and Canada will respond to our appeal as generously this time as they have done in the various war-relief campaigns during the past ten years. Our work in Poland, Russia, Bessarabia and other foreign lands must, however, not be interrupted. The situation is so critical and the demands so urgent in view of the fact that conditions on the other side of the ocean are continuously getting worse and we must make available a million dollars as the funds in our treasury are absolutely exhausted and it will be some time until the first payments on pledges made in this campaign become due.”

In his cable which arrived Monday, Dr. Rosen said that unless a half-million dollars are made immediately available to him for the Russian agricultural work it will be impossible for him to take care of the thousands who have registered at the Agro-Joint office in Moscow their intention to take up farming in the Spring.

“Our plans must be presented to the Russian Department of the Interior for approval,” his cable states. “The work of the Agro-Joint is more necessary now than ever before, and conditions for colonization most favorable. While opportunities exist for artisans after short training, on the other hand, the fate of private tradesmen is on an ever downward curve.

“We have already opened soup-kitchens to feed the starving. We had to do this because a breadriot has already occurred in Lodz, in which many were injured, and in Warsaw a famished mob stormed the offices of the Jewish Community Organization clamoring for food,” Dr. Rosen reported.