Over one million Polish Jews benefitted during the year 1927 by the credit institutions established with the support of the Joint Distribution Committee, according to a report submitted to David A. Brown, National Chairman of the United Jewish Campaign by Dr. Bernhard Kahn, European Director of the Joint Distribution Committee.
The number of credit institutions in Poland extending loans to the Jewish middle-class, the small trader and artisan, is 874. Of these, 370 are cooperative loan associations which were founded by the Joint Distribution Committee and which are still receiving support for the Joint-Ica Foundation. During the year 1927, these loan kassas operated with a capital of $4,383,887 and granted 326,724 loans. “Repeat” loans constitute sixty per cent of the total number given and 134,668 families have benefited by these loans.
In addition to the 370 cooperative loan societies, there were at the beginning of this year, 504 free loan associations, so-called Gemilath Chesed Kassas. The total number of loans issued by them was over 140,000. Discounting the “repeat” loans issued by these societies, there were 80,000 additional families, or 400,000 persons, benefited by these small credit institutions. The operating capital of the Gemilath Chesed Kassas would have been considerably increased during the past year, had the Joint Distribution Committee been in a position to grant additional support for the establishment of new institutions, Dr. Kahn stated in his report.
According to its original program the Joint Distribution Committee established the Kassas in cities and towns that contained about eighty per cent of the Jewish population in Poland. Over one hundred free loan associations have been organized since that time by the Jews in various towns, these institutions have appealed to the Joint Distribution Committee through the “Hilf,” the Central organ of the Gemilath Chesed Kassas, for help in establishing themselves on a firm basis.
The report states that these 100 new kassas are located in the most impoverished towns which have no means of securing any other form of credit and stresses the necessity of providing credit to those towns which contain about ten per cent of the Jewish population of Poland.
A new Hebrew daily newspaper is to start publication shortly in Jerusalem under the editorship of Mr. Elmaleh, former editor of the “Doar Hayom.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
