An agreement was signed here today between the Joint Distribution Committee and the World OSE Union, Jewish health organization, which will bring the two groups closer together and will strengthen the central committee of the OSE through financial support pledged by the JDC.
The agreement was signed by Abel Shaban, chairman of the executive committee of the World OSE Union, and Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman of the JDC. The pact grows out of a study undertaken by the two organizations of the OSE central organization and its branches in various countries. Today’s agreement pledges the two parties to accept the findings and recommendations of the report and to work hand in hand to implement them.
The pact aims to strengthen the World OSE Union’s central direction. The JDC pledges to provide moral and financial support for the OSE reorganization and promises to help enlist the support of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
In a statement issued by Mr. Shaban and Moses W. Beckelman, European director of the JDC, it is noted that the goal recommended by the study will have been achieved when the OSE Union is established as the central and controlling organization for Jewish health activities in a group of countries to be mutually agreed upon.
“There is a great need for a strong central Jewish health organization to supervise and carry through effective and healthy programs in many countries, the joint statement said. It revealed that it had been agreed that the JDC will make a global grant to the OSE only after the functional and organizational changes recommended in the report are put into effect.
At present, the JDC subsidizes the medical program of OSE branches in France, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Tangiers. The statement pointed out that there is a long history of cooperation between the OSE and the JDC dating to the time when the JDC came into Europe after World War I. The OSE, organized in Russia in 1912, was disorganized by the first World War and was reorganized in Berlin in 1923 with the help of the JDC.
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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.
