The creation of the Ort Credit Corporation to be capitalized at $250,000, whose purpose it will be to export tools, agricultural machinery, livestock and raw material to Russia and Eastern Europe was decided upon at the annual conference of the American Ort held Sunday at the Hotel Pennsyvnia.
The $250,000 is to be subscribed by the organizations affiliated with the Ort, and other groups and individuals. It was decided that when the first $100,000 is paid in the credit organization will start to function, acting upon the first 1,500 orders it has already for the shipment of machinery. The Ort, upon payment of 25 percent of the cost of any implement by a relative or friend here of a Jew abroad, will supply the remaining 75 percent of the cost, accepting a long term note for the amount.
Basis for the action was the tentative contract, approved at yesterday’s conference between the Soviet Government and the European Ort. Under the terms of the contract the Soviet Government is to permit the importation duty free and to provide warehouses for the machinery and tools until they are distributed. The Ort pledges itself to import $1,500,000 worth of machinery, livestock, tools and raw materials within a period of three years.
To meet its budget of $130,000 for 1929 for Ort activities in Europe other than those coming under the head of credit corporation, the conference voted to conduct a drive for increased membership and to request community chests and Jewish federations in various American cities to considder the Ort as one of the regular organizations entitled to philanthropic assistance. The conference voted to conduct an intensive drive for the shipment of tools and machinery from America.
A pressing problem that confronted the conference was that of the 50,000 Jewish artisans in Poland, who by a recent statute are threatened to be deprived of their livelihood. Required to take a special examination after three years study to become master workmen, there is no room for them in the regular Polish vocational schools. It was voted that, of the funds raised, some be diverted to increase the number of Ort vocational schools in Poland and to supply the necessary machinery.
Speakers at the conference included Dr. Henry Moskowitz, chairman of the Ort’s executive committee; Dr. Joseph Rosen, in charge of Jewish colonization work in Russia; Ezekiel Grauer, his assistant; Joseph Hyman, secretary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee; Justice Edward Lazansky, Murray Levine, N. I. Stone, Louis Boudin and Chaim Shidlowsky. Former Judge Jacob Panken presided.
The conference re-elected its officers for the ensuing year, Judge Panken was re-elected chairman of the Ort, Dr. Henry Moskowitz, chairman of the executive committee, and Morris Berman, treasurer.
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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.
