Our Daily News Letter

(By Our Berlin Correspondent)

The plans for the future work of the Ort (Society for Promoting Agriculture and Handicrafts among the Jews), Oze (Society for Preserving the Health of the Jews) and Emigdirekt (United Jewish Emigration Committee), the three organizations of Jewish social relief which recently decided to unite for common action, were outlined to press representatives here today at a conference of the joint committee of the three bodies.

Dr. Singalowsy, who traced the organization and aims of the three separate federations, said that it was necessary for each of the three bodies to encompass the whole of Jewish life. “The Oze, for instance,” he said, “could not restrict its activity to the healing of the sick. It must seek to prevent disease and epidemics, and consequently the whole social position of the Jewish masses came within its purview. The Emigdirekt, too, had to work in close cooperation with the other federations if it was to solve the question of emigration. And similarly, the Ort could do its work only in close cooperation with the other two federations.

“These three federations had to care for 275 institutions of the most essential character. The development of the work had gone so far that the local groups and the institutions themselves were able to cover the greatest part of their budgets. The capitals which the Joint Distribution Committee and other organizations had invested on the foundation of these institutions had borne rich interest. Nevertheless, the indescribable economic crisis in Eastern Europe had sealed up the local sources, and even if the prospects of the J. D. C. drive in America were justified, it would be impossible in view of the huge demands to place all hopes upon the J. D. C. The Jews of Western Europe must not withdraw from their duty of saving the East European Jewish masses from the annihilation which threatens them,” Dr. Singalowsky emphasized.

Dr. Tcherikower, who reported on the working system of the three organizations, said that the Ort is directing 70 local organizations and 67 schools for technical training with 5,500 pupils, maintaining continuation training courses for artisans, and in recent years, with the assistance of the J. D. C., has supported about 11,000 Jewish peasant families and granted to 4,000 Jewish working class families credits in the form of raw material and machinery. The budget for 1925 amounted to $220,000.

“The Oze,” he declared, “had founded between 1923 and 1925 in Russia and the Border States 14 institutions for mother and infant protections, 18 infant clinics, 63 school medical stations, 4 tuberculosis institutions, 24 children’s sanatoriums and colonies, 48 ambulatories and polyclinics, 4 hospitals, 15 sanitary and vaccination stations, 3 Roentgen-ray cabinets, 2 nursing courses, and 15 other medical institutions–altogether 208 institutions, of which 101 are situated in Russia and 107 in the former Russian Border States. A commission appointed by the J. D. C. and the Oze is looking after the institutions, which have to attend to 1,360,000 visitors. The federation consists of organizations in ten different countries with 15,000 members.

“The Emigdirekt, the youngest of the three federations,” Dr. Tcherikower further reported, “unites the majority of the emigration societies established in Europe on a democratic basis. The Central Bureau of the Emigdirekt in Berlin has affiliated societies in Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Roumania, France, Danzig, etc.–26 organizations in all.

“Up to the beginning of 1925, 40,000 emigrants registered at the Central Bureau and its organizations in the various countries; 35,000 people were supplied with information; 7.000 relatives of emigrants were traced; and 14,000 interventions were made regarding passports and necessary documents. Between 1921 and 1925, the Departments of the Hias and the Emigdirekt transmitted 21 million dollars to emigrants from their American relatives.

Among the 37 new appointments announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, created a year ago by former United States Senator and Mrs. Guggenheim as a memorial to their son who died April 22, 1922, are Dr. David Simon Bloudheim, Professor of Romance Philology. Johns Hopkins University–appointed for the gathering of material for a series of works on the use of the romance language among the Jews of the middle ages: Dr. Ephraim Avigdor Speiser, Harrison Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania–appointed for certain phililogical and historical investigations of the Mitanni-Hurri group of people in Northern Mesopotamia; Isaac Fisher–for continuation of the study abroad of danger trends in world race relations.

The fellowships are tenable anywhere in the world for any length of time and carry a stipend of $2,500 a year.