J.D.C. Course on Relief and Reconstruction Opens Next Week at Columbia University

Outstanding authorities on European social and economic conditions, former heads of European Jewish communities, former professors at continental institutions of learning, and technicians in the field of relief and reconstruction will comprise the faculty of the Joint Distribution Committee’s Introductory Course on Relief and Reconstruction Overseas, it was announced today.

The course, lasting four weeks, will be given at Columbia University, beginning on October 25, under the directorship of Prof. Philip Klein. The subjects for study have been grouped under four major topics: the present work of Jewish relief and rehabilitation overseas; background and conditions in the principal areas to be served by Jewish relief and rehabilitation in the post-war period; technical tasks and special activities relating to relief and rehabilitation; and organization, history, procedures and administration of the J.D.C.

Material on European affairs will be presented by Vera Micheles Dean, research director of the Foreign Policy Association; Charles Davila, former Rumanian Ambassador to Washington; Professor J. B. Condliffe of the Carnegie Endowment Fund and economic consultant to the Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations; Professor Otto Nathan of Vassar, Professor Marcus Nadler of New York University and Professor Salo Baron of Columbia University and George Warren, executive secretary of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees. The Low Countries are to be covered by Dr. Max Gottschalk, director of the Research Institute on Peace and Post-War Problems of the American Jewish Committee. Material on the Near East and Palestine will be supplied by Hans Kohn, professor of modern history at Smith College. Russia will be discussed by Olga Lang, professor of history at Hunter College.

History, background and techniques of the J.D.C.’s twenty-nine years of relief and reconstruction will be presented by Joseph C. Hyman, executive vice-chairman, and Moses A. Leavitt, secretary. Dr. Bernard Kahn, who directed the J.D.C. work in Europe for seventeen years, will lecture on post-war emergency relief and reconstruction requirements. The philosophy underlying credit cooperatives and free loan banks will be discussed by Alexander A. Landesco, member of the Board of the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation, J.D.C. affiliate, which organized banks and cooperatives in Europe in the 1920’s and which is now extending its program to South American Jewish communities. Technical details of operations in this field will be presented by Noel Aronovici. Col. Marris Troper, who was in charge of J.D.C. work in Europe from 1938 to 1941, will describe administrative and budgetary programs.

Jewish community life and problems in Rumania will be presented by S. Labin, formerly editor and publisher of one of Rumania’s outstanding liberal newspapers and a veteran fighter for Jewish civil rights in that country; Dr. Simon Segal and Jacob Lestchinsky will discuss Poland, Eugene Hevesi, Hungary; Rabbi D.A. Jessurun Cardozo, Holland; Isaac Alkalay, Yugoslavia; Henri Sinder, France. Problems and techniques of child and medical care will be presented by Dr. Leo Wolman, while Dr. J.J. Golub, director of the Hospital for Joint Diseases of New York, is to discuss medical rehabilitation on the basis of his experience as a member of the J.D.C. medical commission sent to Poland after World War I.