Jewish Agricultural Settlement in Latvia As Cure for Jewish Economic Distress

The Jewish youth of Lativia must organise for the purpose of settling on the land, and establishing Jewish agricultural settlements on co-operative lines, Mr. Latzki Bertholdi, former Minister of Jewish Affairs in the Ukraine, one of the founders of the Folkist movement in Russia and at one time a prominent figure in the Jewish emigration movement, writes in an editorial in the Yiddish daily “Frimorgen” here, of which he is editor.

There are two methods of agricultural settlement among the Jews in Latvia, he pursues, collective farms for the youth, and middle-class individual colonisation. The collective settlement should be carried on by voluntary collectives of comrades, and the Jewish middle-class colonisation should begin in the vicinity of the towns, utilising all the available long-term credit opportunities. First of all, we must organise the existing Jewish farmers, and extend Jewish agricultural middle-class colonisation on the basis of their experience and in their vicinity. The responsibility for financing this agricultural movement should be assumed by the Jewish public in Latvia, making use, of course, of the opportunities provided by the proper credit institutions of the country.

To begin with, it would be a good thing if the Latvian O.R.T. would think of the second part of its programme, artisanship and agriculture, and would take the initiative in forming a social committee for promoting Jewish agriculture in Latvia. This Committee would consist of the workers in our agricultural school, our agricultural experts, our students at the Agricultural Faculty, and representatives of the Jewish farmers and of our youth organisations, both Zionist and non-Zionist. This committee would draw up the financial plan and also the plan of work and would set up a body charged with the supreme control of the entire Jewish agricultural movement. The first step is to secure the land. Big farms can be bought. Many are now being offered for sale, and they should be parcelled out for middle-class colonisation, or maintained intact for collective farming on co-operative principles. There are also considerable areas of land which are not immediately suitable for individual farming, which would have to be ameliorated for colonising by a collective group. This amelioration would be beneficial to the whole country and would open up for us the road to an extensive pioneering haluzim activity.

There is no doubt, Mr. Latzki Bertholdi says, that such a social committee would be able to make good use of the connections with the Jewish organisations abroad, and mobilise Jewish public capital for the Jewish agricultural movement in Latvia. The present economic crisis in Latvia, he proceeds, form which the Jews suffer most because of the stunted and one-sided character of their economic life, must attract the attention of Jewish public opinion in other countries. The Latvian committee would thus be able to approach the O.R.T. headquarters in Berlin, the Jewish Colonisation Association (Ica), and also the Agrojoint, which could, with absurdly small sums, do very great things for the Jews of Latvia. It is only necessary that the people should be ready and that we should have our plan of work, and then the funds will be found.

LATVIAN GOVERNMENT GIVES LAND TO 235 JEWS WHO FOUGHT FOR LATVIAN INDEPENDENCE

235 Jews who took part in the fighting which brought about Latvian Independence have been given grants of land by the Government, in connection with the new agrarian laws, under which land grants are being made to ex-soldiers.

Applications for land were received from 600 Jews who took part in the War of Independence, but it is not expected that many more of these will be given grants, since the distribution of land is about to be stopped. It is expected that those who do not receive land will be given money grants.