Gemilah Chesed Kassas Help European Jewry Says Report of Kahn

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Continued organization of Gemilath Chesed Kassas over a period of at least five years will strengthen the position of the Jewry of Eastern Europe to such an extent that they will then be able to care for themselves, is the opinion of Dr. Bernhard Kahn, European Director of the Joint Distribution Committee, in a report to that body.

“Such a program cannot be done intermittently from month to month or year to year. It must be organized for a number of years, for a program of at least five years,” declared Dr. Kahn in his report which has just been made public by Chairman David A. Brown, of the United Jewish Campaign.

The work of the Joint Distribution Committee is of vital importance, Dr. Kahn says, in the effort of the Jews of Europe to readjust themselves to the economic and political developments that have followed the World War, which include the foundation of new states, disrupting former economic units and the geographical bases of their existence, limitation of foreign markets, decrease of domestic markets, and new tax laws, among other things.

Dr. Kahn says in his report that the organizing there of Gemilath Chesed Kassas, has relieved in part, one group of the population. “The middle-class cooperatives, however, are too weak to look after the middle-class industries, and yet this class is a group whose healthy status is necessary for a revival of Jewish economic independence.

“So far as free loan societies are concerned, the Gemilath Chesed Kassa work in Poland is one of our most constructive achievements. It has made for communal life and social feeling and has evoked substantial contributions from the Jews of Poland themselves. There are 540 local free loan offices in Poland. The work has been officially lauded by the Government authorities, But the free loan societies suffer by reason of lack of adequate funds.

“In other countries we have to consider the effect of organization of free loan societies on the cooperative movement which, as yet, is not sufficiently strong. Difficult preliminary educational work is needed.

“No single ‘cure-all’ or plan can be devised to care for the needs of the 6,000,000 Jews living in 11 different countries and in more than 15 different districts.”

During 1928, when the Jewish economic crisis was worse than in 1925, the cooperatives in Poland, Dr. Kahn reports, extended loans to 125,000 people, the Gemilath Chesed Kassas to 100,000 people-with their families constituting together one-third of the Jewish population.

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