When Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe started streaming into America in the eighties, they came upon conditions somewhat similar to those that now prevail in Eretz-Israel. There was an incipient “boom” in America fifty years ago, and almost anything to which industry and enterprise turned their hands seemed to offer roseate prospects. Jews got in on the ground floor, so to speak, when the edifices of American business was being reared.
But there was this difference. In those days in America a “greener” had more or less to depend upon his own acumen and organizing abilities in order to succeed. Nowadays the German Jew or Polish Jew or other newcomer finds investment opportunities, business openings and fields of endeavor more or less charted by rule of thumb, and he can obtain free of charge the services of expert investment advisors to help him build up his new existence. in Palestine.
The American Economic Committee for Palestine is the contemporary pioneer in this field of investment servicing. Directed locally by Rehabiah Lewin-Epstein, New Yorker of considerable business experience, the committee’s practical work from its headquarters at 18 Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv, has succeeded in placing many newcomers, with foreign industrial or business experience but wholly unacclimatized locally, upon the right path.
The American Economic Committee was established by a group of American Jewish business leaders and men of practical affairs as their gesture of good will towards the evolving economics of this land. Judge Julian W. Mack, Israel B. Brodie and Robert Szold headed and still head the undertaking.
To establish whether or not the bureau has accomplished its avowed object of servicing would-be Jewish investors, with varying amounts of capital, one has but to look at the latest figures published by the committee.
One of the fundamental problems facing the Economic Bureau was to obviate duplication in the same spheres of industrial and other endeavor and we give the following passage from one of the committee’s publications as an instance of what might happen without guidance:
“In its work of guiding ‘capitalist-immigrants’ the committee places great stress upon the necessity of the ‘capitalist’ to have a practical experience which can be used in Palestine. Capital flowing into Palestine without control by those who can put it to productive use on the basis of Diaspora experience can be a danger to the orderly economic development of Palestine. Such capital may cause inflation and speculation, and may create mythical values which can bring misfortune to the country and to many individuals. The committee is less interested in piling up records of totals of ‘capitalist-immigrants’ and of their aggregate possessions than it is in searching the record of the experience of the prospective settler for a practical basis for his settlement. The committee believes that through this process private misfortune can be prevented and the orderly and sound upbuilding of the country may be facilitated… Its function is to furnish him with all the available reliable data relating to his problem and to suggest to him, if it thinks that affirmative action is feasable that he proceed (into final action) in consultation with the committee’s representative (in Palestine).”
Applicants to the Tel Aviv bureau possess capital of from £1,000 to £20,000, plus productive experience. It has undertaken comprehensive studies of all branches of commercial, business and industrial effort, and is setting itself the object of lining up well-planned, scientific suggestions for investors of every type. Investment and settlement information is easily accessible by an ingenious system of classification. Overlapping of investments is thus prevented by co-ordination. The bureau is trying to help Palestine industrialists get new markets, particularly in the United States. Speculation is tabooed. Business must be on a sound footing to earn its way.
There is a general card-index of industries with a category classification for each industry. One of the committee’s hopes is to analyze local economics in such a way as to present a scientific basis for a new government finance and tariff policy.
No less than sixty-five per cent of the capitalists who come to Palestine apply to the bureau. Sixty-two per cent of all such applicants are German Jews and Jews from Mittel-and Ost-Europa. For example: of the 151 total applicants for the first quarter of 1933, seven were from Germany out of seventy-one who called at the office. During the first quarter of 1934, there were 644 total inquiries, 401 persons calling in at the office, and 250 of these being from Germany. Again: during January to March, 1933, the aggregate capital reported by applicants on personal calls was £206,908. In the same quarter of 1934, the capital represented by such personal applicants was £1,023,300-almost a five-fold increase. Two hundred and forty-eight of the 1934 “capitalists” had funds of up to £3,000 and sixty had from £3,000 to £6,000 each; whereas the previous year, forty-six had up to £3,000 and sixteen from £3,000 to £6,000.
The totals for 1933 are impressive reading. Of the total number of 1,362 capitalist enquirers who called in at the office (an average of roughly five persons each working day-almost a steady siege, 838 were from Germany, 125 from Poland, eight-four from American, and eighty from Austria. They reported possession of capital funds amounting to £3,298,903, or roughly $16,500,000, as available for investment. Of them, 1,022 declared they were interested in industry. Eight hundred and twenty-five had capital up to £3,000 each and one hundred and eighty-eight from £3,000 to £6,000 each. The actual total inquiries amounted to 2,379, for in addition to the 1,362 potential investors, there were 124 seeking employment and 893 general inquiries by mail.
These figures are a most eloquent testimony, if such testimony were needed, of the real benefits that are being derived from the bureau. The spinner, the banker, the candlestick maker can be sure that all that carefully compiled information is devised with one aim-that of really helping to get his orientation in a new land so that he may obtain the maximum good.
Gone are the days of irresponsible, indiscriminate “greenhorn” ventures. The industrial or business newcomer is practically helped almost from the very day of his arrival. And that is how American business efficiency is putting orderly economic development in its proper sphere.
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.
