A committee of the newly-formed International Jewish Colonization Society conferred this morning with Lewis J. Ruskin, of Chicago, and worked out plans to coordinate projects for the evacuation and settlement of the entire German-Jewish population.
The plans, which include establishment in every country of a branch of the society, envisage projects requiring expenditure of some $2,000,000,000. A Netherlands group headed by Daniel Wolf, prominent Jewish philanthropist, has already raised approximately $2,200,000 of this sum. Mr. Wolf donated $550,000 in founding the society.
The project will be discussed Friday when the five-nation directorate of the Inter-governmental Refugee Committee meets in London. Mr. Wolf has already discussed the society’s plans with Jewish leaders and Director George Rublee of the refugee bureau. During a flying visit to London last week, he asserted that creation of a strong financial instrument, backed by the prestige of noted Jewish personalities, would facilitate negotiations with governments having suitable territories for colonization.
Following this morning’s conference, Mr. Ruskin informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the conferees had agreed with his viewpoint that it was of vital importance to the success of any plan that Palestine continue to be recognized as a permanent Jewish home and spiritual center, while additional territories were being found for large-scale emigration.
The plans adopted by the conference are more comprehensive than any previously discussed. They include setting up of an organization able to finance and build up territories as well as rehabilitate evacuated populations.
The Netherlands Government has been informed of the society’s decisions. Mr. Wolf and Mr. Leeuwen, of Holland, were scheduled to leave for London tonight with Mr. Ruskin, to meet with representatives of the Intergovernmental Refugee Committee, British Jewish organizations and leaders.
Lewis J. Ruskin, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has ascertained, is president of the Ford Hopkins Drug Store Company, Inc., a chain of 45 retail drug stores with headquarters in Chicago and operating in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana.
According to Mr. Ruskin’s housekeeper, reached on the telephone at his home in Kenil-worth, Ill., a Chicago suburb, he is 35 years old and unmarried. To her knowledge, Mr. Ruskin had never before been identified with Jewish activities. Mr. Ruskin sailed for Europe on Nov. 11, following receipt of several cables from an unidentified source.
Drug trade publications here asserted that the Ford Hopkins Company had an excellent reputation and was held in high esteem throughout the Midwest.
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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.
