Plans for intensification of Jewish colonization work in South America and elsewhere were announced today by the Jewish Colonization Association, which owns vast reserves in the Argentine, Brazil, Canada, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Palestine.
Sir Osmond d’Avigdor-Goldsmid, president, outlined details of the plans at a conference of the association.
Referring to the association’s plan to train and settle German-Jewish families in Argentine colonies and a new settlement in Brazil, the announcement stated that its first experiment with the colony d’Avigdor had proved “highly satisfactory.” “We have already put into effect during the current year,” it was stated, “a plan for greatly enlarging the field of this enterprise.”
Reporting the satisfactory position of the Argentine colonies, the association declared its intention of increasing the number of settlements and to “accelerate the development of the vast reserves which we still possess in that country.”
The statement said the association’s colonies in Canada, in a precarious position because of crop failure, were being assisted by the Government and by the association itself.
Progress of 3,000 Jewish farmers on its colonies in Bessarabia was reported satisfactory, as were the association’s activities in Carpatho-Russia, Czechoslovakia.
Reviewing the association’s general position, Sir Osmond described at the conference the increasingly critical condition of Jews in Germany and Poland.
Referring to the many calls for aid with which the association has been faced, Sir Osmond declared:
“We find ourselves again and again placed in the cruel dilemma of being compelled to refuse our assistance in a situation which is often tragic or else to allow work in which we have taken an interest for so many years to be imperiled.”
The statement also reported progress of the association in Palestine and described the work of the Joint Reconstruction Foundation, in which it participates with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The foundation, it was pointed out, now operates loan banks in seventeen countries and is now engaged in facilitating the establishment of similar banks in seven South American countries.
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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.
