(J. T. A. Mail Service)
Dr. Beruard Kahn, European Director of the Joint Distribution Committee, in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative here concerning the charges made against the Joint Distribution Committee by Max D. Steuer said that he had a visit from Dr. Szabad of Vilna, who according to Mr. Steuer, was one of those who had given him the information on which he had based his charges.
Dr. Szabad, Dr. Kahn said, has been one of the workers in the Joint Distribution Committee since its inception. He told Dr. Kaim that he could not understand how Mr. Steuer had come to make his charges and for what reason he had said that Dr. Szabad and his friends who had spoken with him in Zurich about an entirely different matter had been the source of his information. He could only suggest that it was due to the fact that Mr. Steuer did not understand a word of Yiddish and that Mr. Hertz who had acted as his interpreter did not know Yiddish either.
Their conversation had turned upon settle Jews on the land in Poland. They had tried to enlist the aid of American Jewry for the work of the Tor. They had spoken of the Joint. Distribution Committee, but only to pay tribute to its work and to deplore the fact that its funds did an appear to be sufficient to allow it to assist the work of the Tor. As Mr. Steuer could not follow their conversation, they submitted a memorandum on the question, in which, however, there was not a single word of all that Mr. Steuer had said about the administration of the funds of the Joint. Deputy Gruenbaum who is stated by Mr. Steuer to be another of his informants, had said that be was a political opponent of Louis Marshall, but that he would never think of making use in his political comfier with him of such weapons as the assertions which had been made by Mr. Steuer.
Dr. Kaim added. “The work of the Joint Distribution Committee is carried on openly and in full view of the public without any attempt at concealment or secrecy. Criticisms have at various times been directed against the Joint Distribution Committee’s work, but it was never resented or ignored. Efforts were always made to improve the work and to meet the criticism. Never before, however has there been any suggestion that the funds were mishandled.”
At a meeting of Mispah Congregation, Chattanooga. Tennessee, Rabbi Samuel R. Shillman was re-elected for a period of three years. Mispah Congregation will soon defense its new Juilus and Bertha Odds Memorial Temple, the wife of Mr. Adolph S. Colts to the Jewish community of Chattanooga.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
