Jews of Poland, Eastern Europe, Helpless in Face of Crisis, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise Says

Warning that the Jews of Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe are facing a crisis this winter from which they cannot rescue themselves without the assistance of American Jewry was issued yesterday by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, chairman of the fundraising effort of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, agency for the relief of Jews overseas. Aggravation of the serious condition of these people by an early and hard winter as well as by the recent disturbances in Poland and prolonged economic retrogression, has reduced hundreds of thousands to a state of desperation, Dr. Wise said.

“It is almost impossible to credit the statements of impartial observers, as to the depths of misery and despair of the Jewish population of Eastern and Central Europe,” he declared. “But the fact remains that these people have been existing under unbearable conditions, suffering cruel blows, spiritual and physical, and are now at the end of their tether. I am not exaggerating when I say that hundreds and thousands of these people cannot survive the winter unless the Jews of America intensify and extend their generous support in the face of conditions unparalleled in the last decade in Europe.

“The Joint Distribution Committee, as the Agency of the Jews in America, has undertaken relief measures in behalf of these stricken coreligionists for whose rehabilitation we have been laboring for eighteen years. In view of the drastic urgency of their needs, and in order to rescue thousands from starvation, disease and other conditions which menace them, it is imperative that these relief efforts be extended without delay and that funds for the work be made immediately available to the Committee.”