American lend-lease authorities in the Middle East have concluded an arrangement with the Joint Distribution Committee which provides for the transfer of part of lend-lease stocks in Teheran to the J.D.C. representatives there for the purpose of using these commodities in the J.D.C.’s parcel service for Jewish refugees in Russia.
An announcement to this effect was made here today at a press conference addressed by Dr. J. L. Magnes and Charles Passman who are acting as J.D.C. representatives in the Middle East. They added that the Joint Distribution Committee has already paid $500,000 to the U. S. Treasury in Washington.
The stock which the J.D.C. will receive includes 40,000 pairs of shoes and 30,000 blankets, also overcoats, suits, powdered milk, canned food and other commodities. It is sufficient to fill 100,000 parcels. The entire stock will be sent to Russia by the end of the year, thus enabling the J.D.C. to dispatch no less than 10,000 parcels monthly, while it is arranging to secure goods from other parts of the world in order to maintain a continuous flow of relief to Jewish refugees in various parts of the U.S.S.R. An agreement has also been reached between the J.D.C. and the Polish Red Cross whereby the J.D.C. secured gratis considerable quantities of goods for distribution among refugees from Poland now in Russia.
Addressing the same conference, Moshe Shapiro, head of the immigration department of the Jewish Agency, estimated that there are about 400,000 Jewish refugees in Russia. They include 250,000 Jews from Poland, 75,000 from Bessarabia, Bukovian and the Baltic States, in addition to 60,000 Jews from Transnistria and 15,000 from Czernowitz. He praised the rescue work conducted jointly by the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee. He also announced that the Jewish Agency has appointed a special committee to investigate the activities of landsmanchaften and private firms which have recently started to send parcels from Palestine to Jews in Russia on a commercial basis.
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