A warning that the occupational rehabilitation program being put into effect through the Central Committee of German Jewry for Relief and Reconstruction may result in the overcrowding of Jews in the crafts and agriculture was sounded today in the report of Jewish experts surveying the problem.
The report, in its conclusions, points out that one-third of the German Jews being rehabilitated should go into commercial occupations in order to maintain a normal occupational distribution.
Surveying the rehabilitation activities now in process, the report discloses that 6,060 Jews are now engaged in reconstruction activities at 1,282 collective training centers and 1,418 individual centers. In addition to this number 2,369 young Jews are receiving occupational training through the Hechalutz, the organization for training Jewish youth for settlement in Palestine.
Jews to the number of 2,739 are being trained to follow agricultural pursuits. This number includes 900 young Jews in training centers abroad for whom the Hechalutz is providing with the assistance of the Central Committee.
FEW PROFESSIONALS ASK AID
The report brings out the curious fact that the classes expected to have the most urgent need of rehabilitation assistance–the academicians and professional mem–form one of the smallest groups numerically among those undergoing reconstruction. The majority is made up of merchants, shopkeepers, women office workers, store assistants and others formerly in similar occupations. There are only forty-five students and fifty-three professors and professional men registered.
During the month of April 9,000 Jews will be brought into the scope of the reconstruction work, making a total in excess of 15,000 being prepared for existence under the altered conditions of Nazi rule. Of this number 3,000 will be trained in commercial pursuits in keeping with the recommendations of the experts.
Four thousand of those being trained are paying their own expenses. Five thousand are dependent upon relief work.
During 1933 the Central Committee of German Jews for Relief and Reconstruction expended 370,000 marks on its program. The budget for the first six months of 1934 calls for expenditures of 900,000 marks (approximately $360,000).
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.
