(By our Moscow Correspondent)
Jewish industry in the towns and villages of Soviet Russia will be re-established by the operation of the agreement between the Soviet Government and the World Federation Ort, which has just received the signature of the Council of People’s Commissaries. The agreement allows the Ort to import into Russia without payment of any customs dues machines and tools from abroad to the value of three million roubles over a period of five years. These machines and tools will be distributed among the Jews in the small towns on five year term loans, and in this way the Jews will be enabled to help themselves through work.
The money to provide the machines will be contributed by relatives living abroad who wish to help their kin and their friends in Russia with tools to enable them to become self-supporting workers.
In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency representative here, Mr. Zegelnicki, the representative in Russia of the Ort, said: “The agreement which has been concluded imposes upon us the following objects in the new work which we are to start in Russia; to assist the Jewish artisans whose tools have been damaged during the war and the pogrom period, to provide them with tools from abroad which will enable them to take up their work again, to assist in the improvement of the farms of the Jewish land workers by helping them to obtain machinery and to produce themselves those articles which they require for the development of the Jewish farms.
“The Ort will provide machinery and tools to those Jews in the small towns who were previously engaged in small trading and as commission agents and who now find it difficult to earn their daily bread. We shall teach those Jews who will receive the machines how to work them. To this purpose we shall have a staff of instructors in various branches of work. We shall strengthen the co-operative movement among the Jews by giving the very big machines to the Jewish artisan co-operatives, which will be formed in every town to which the machines are sent.
“The new agreement,” Mr. Zegelnicki said, “will give us an opportunity to make use of the unorganized aid which the Jews abroad send to their relatives in Russia. The Jews living abroad will now be able to send their assistance through us in the form of tools and machinery which will be handed over direct to their relatives in Russia. The Jews living abroad will now be able to send their assistance through us in the form of tools and machinery which will be handed over direct to their relatives in Russia whom they wish to help, thus enabling them to be industrialized.
“The distribution of the machines will, in accordance with the agreement which has been signed, be carried on in conformity with a joint plan which has been drawn up by the Ort together with the Government Commission (Comzet). Before tools or machinery are given to anyone, his position will be inquired into first to establish whether it is possible to obtain sufficient raw material for the work to be done by the machines. An enquiry will be made also in regard to the possibilities of a sale for the finished products.”
The new agreement between the Soviet Government and the Ort has aroused great interest in the Jewish small towns, and enquiries are now being made as to how they can set themselves in touch with the Landsmanschaften and individual relatives in America in order to obtain from them, through the agency of the American Ort, tools and machines by means of which the Jews of these small towns will be enabled to lift themselves out of the ranks of the declassed Jewish population.
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.
