The constantly increasing distress and unemployment among the Jews of Berlin is causing grave anxiety for the coming winter, says a motion introduced by Dr. Alfred Wiener at the emergency meeting of the Representative Council of the Berlin Jewish Community held here last night in order to consider the economic distress among Berlin Jewry.
Public attention, Dr. Wiener’s interpellation goes on, must be directed to this state of affairs, and a special meeting of the Representative Council should be called as soon as possible for the purpose of receiving a full report on the extent of the distress among the Jews of Berlin, and the relief measures already taken and contemplated.
The aim in this respect, it says, must be to concentrate the efforts of all those who still have a means of livelihood and a source of income to a much greater extent than hitherto, so that proper measures should be taken in time to provide adequate relief for the rigours of the coming winter.
Dr. Bruno Woyda put an interpellation asking what measures the welfare authorities contemplate taking for the coming winter, in view of the exceptional distress.
The Jewish People’s Party. also presented an interpellation signed by Dr. Klee, Dr. Oscar Cohn and others, asking what measures are being taken by the Board of the Community to provide for the urgent needs of the distressed Jewish population in the matter of clothing, food, and heating for the coming winter; whether measures had been taken to provide for the unemployed, especially the younger people, and whether arrangements were being made to place the synagogues and synagogue meeting halls at the disposal of those needing shelter.
The Liberal fraction put another interpellation, urging the Board of the Community to take measures as speedily as possible, to relieve the distress of the unemployed youth in the coming winter.
Mr. Moses Waldman dwelt on the sufferings of the Jewish population on account of the economic antisemitism, which made their position worse than that of the generality of the population. The antisemites used the existence of the rich Jews as a propaganda weapon against the poor Jews, he said. The wealthy Jews ought to realise this fact. Most of these wealthy Jews were very fine men, who did a great deal for general relief, but they did not do enough for Jewish relief. The Jewish press must remind them of their duty in this respect.
Director Stahl, who replied on behalf of the Board, pointed out that the Community could, in the main, provide only supplementary welfare relief. The State, he said, has started an extensive winter relief campaign, in which the Welfare Office of the Jewish Community is participating. The Board is determined to put the Welfare Office in a position, he said, where it can help the distressed people as much as possible.
Many people who had previously been in comfortable circumstances, he declared, are now in need of assistance. Many important textile, banking and other enterprises have collapsed, with the result that a great number of people who had been quite well-to-do are now destitute, without having even a crust of bread. In Charlottenburg, where there were last year a thousand applications for relief, they had now 1,600. Even the fashionable Fasanen Strasse district, from which they had never had any relief applications before, had now furnished 300 applications for relief. A great many families, he said, are in danger of eviction from their homes. We are helping these poor people with legal advice, he said. We are also helping them to get smaller and less expensive homes, and we are providing them with the most essential needs. We are helping them out of their immediate trouble, but the future is most grave. We are organising the delivery of bread, clothing and fuel. We are issuing bread for 25 pfenig, instead of 50, and in many cases for nothing at all. So far as bread is concerned, he declared, everyone is provided for. The existing eight kitchens of the Welfare Office will be increased by another two or three, and eating rooms will be opened. Families will have food sent into their homes. We need an organisation to provide neighbourly help, he added. We have started a collection to provide clothing, and 10,000 Marks have already come in. The collection is being continued. We are arranging for the feeding of the children in the schools. We are also organising evening assistance. The halls in which food is provided during the day will be arranged in the evenings for the distribution of tea and bread, together with reading and concert facilities, to dispel a little of the sorrows of the sufferers. We are also taking measures for training the unemployed youth. We have already registered 528 boys and 553 girls between the ages of 17 and 20.
The Board of the Berlin Jewish Community can be depended upon, Director Stahl concluded, to do everything necessary in its power, and in this time of grave crisis, when we are compelled to make economies in all directions, we shall do everything we can to maintain and extend our welfare relief work, because we know that there is nothing that is more important.
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