Factory Work Popular with Russian Jews, Products of Ex-merchants in High Demand

Private business is completely disappearing from the Jewish communities, only a numbered few still engaging in peddling, stated Dr. M. Zilberfarb, member of the central-executive of the Ort organization, which promotes technical trades and agriculture among the Jews in Eastern Europe, in an interview with Jewish Telegraphic Agency, when he returned today from a tour inspecting the work and the attainments of the Ort.

Dr. Zilberfarb visited Kiev, Odessa, Proskurov, Vinitsa, Kamentz-Podolsk, Vitebsk and Yelisavetgrad. “Jews of all shades realize that there is not any standing in merchandizing,” Dr. Zilberfarb said. “For the sake of their children and themselves they realize that they must enter the productive trades, which alone can bring them equality and standing in the community.

“Thousands of Jews are looking enviously at those whom the Ort established in new trades and productive occupations, which were organized with the aid of machinery equipment supplied by the American Ort. The trades are organized on a factory basis and also individually to meet the needs of single artisans in the small communities.

“The Soviet authorities everywhere are extremely helpful and sympathetic to the Ort work, as the government realizes the plight of the former traders and are eager to help them find a new economic footing. The present shortage in manufactured commodities is making the articles produced by the Jewish workers very popular. The woodworking, knitting, locksmithing and other machinist trades are rushed with orders for goods, thus making the earning of these Jewish workers as high as the earning of workers in the Soviet factories,” Dr. Zilberfarb said.