American Jewish Work Will Long Be Remembered Says Soviet Health Commissar

Tribute to American Jews for the part played by them in the rebuilding of the physical as well as the economic life of Russian Jews, was paid by the People’s Commissar of Health, M. Semasko, on the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Commissariat. A cabled interview with the Commissar was received by the United Jewish Campaign and released by David A. Brown, National Chairman.

“Jewish colonization in Russia is stamping out the nervous and other diseases that were chronic among Jews and is infusing new blood into the settlers which will undoubtedly affect the Jews as a nation,” M. Semasko stated. “Centuries of miserable existence in overcrowded ghettoes under fear and oppression have left their traces in the physical and psychic make-up of the Russian Jews. Now for the first time in their history the Russian Jews are sapping physical strength from the soil, sunlight and fresh air and we now see the vital human forces within them renewed and regenerated. The transformation is amazing.

“Happiness and freedom are erasing the lines of suffering from the faces of the aged colonists who find themselves on the soil after a lifetime of weary buffeting about. The new generation that moulds itself in the Jewish colonies will suffer no more from rheumatism, tuberculosis and other diseases caused by ghetto life.

“There are still, however, urgent needs among the colonists that require immediate attention,” he continued. “In some places, too, many people live under one roof. In other places the water supply and sanitary conditions are still insufficient. Clinics are needed. More houses and more agricultural implements would ease both the work and living conditions of the colonists. They must not be allowed to suffer for lack of such necessities. In this colonization work initiated and generously supported by the Soviet Government the part played by American Jewry is off the utmost significance.

“The support of American Jews in this great movement of putting new life-blood into the Jews of Russia will long be remembered in this country.” he concluded.