Work of the J. D. C.

Chairman, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

The story of the J.D.C. has been known for many years. The word “Joint” is a household word in Eastern Europe and in many parts of Russia. The J.D.C. has been a bridge back to life for many thousands and it has been an agency between despair and hope for a countless number.

In this country, we have come before the public periodically in an effort to raise money to make possible our great accomplishment abroad. In 1927, on the basis of a resolution at the national conference in Chicago, we created a national council comprising nearly 1,000 leading men and women throughout the country.

In 1933, we conducted campaigns in 585 communities and in all States of the Union, under the leadership of the chairman of our fund-raising committee, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, with the assistance of our campaign director, Isidor Coons. In 1934, we joined our efforts with the American Palestine Campaign (as indeed we had done previously in 1930), and conducted campaigns in close to 700 communities.

FORMED IN 1914 BY NOTED LEADERS

To go back to its early history, the J.D.C. was organized in 1914 under the leadership of Jacob Schiff, Louis Marshall, Cyrus Sulzberger, Lee K. Frankel, Julius Rosenwald, Felix Fuld, among others, all of whom were active and were important members of our directorate until the time of their death.

In the years during and immediately after the World War, we cooperated with many nonsectarian organizations, such as the American Red Cross, the Quakers, Near East Relief and other bodies. In our work with the American Relief Administration, a number of the men whom we sent abroad as our representatives, under the leadership of the late Dr. Boris D. Bogen, enjoyed quasi-official status.

The J.D.C. penetrated into every area of the war zone, distributing food, medicaments, and clothing. It did its #are in alleviating famine conditions in Russia under the direction of Dr. Boris D. Bogen and Dr. Joseph A. Rosen. It developed large associations of child-care, supported cultural-religious institutions, established trade schools, organized summer colonies, restored and equipped hospitals and dispensaries, established the first Nurses’ Training School in Poland and helped to eradicate favus in Eastern Europe.

ESTABLISHED PERMANENT AID ORGANIZATIONS

In Palestine, it organized the Malaria Research Unit, and it has aided and continues to aid in a hundred and one ways. Notably, it has been able to establish permanent organizations for economic aid, such as:

1. American Joint Reconstruction Foundation, which has enlarged and strengthened Jewish credit loan societies throughout Eastern Europe, through which a family population of 1,250,000 souls have been aided, and in this work it has been in continuous cooperation with the Jewish Colonization Association.

2. Agro-Joint (American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation) which has directed land settlement and industrial undertakings in Russia. It is important to mention that through the stimulus of the J.D.C. activities and the Agro-Joint program, there was formed, not with the funds of the J.D.C., but separately, an independent organization, the American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in Russia, Inc. As a result of the activities of these organizations, in cooperation with the government of the U.S.S.R., there are now approximately 50,000 families, or close to one-quarter of a million Jews on the soil.

3. Palestine Economic Corporation, which was organized in order to develop the commerce and industry of Palestine and, among other things, it has undertaken a large housing program. It is recognized as a powerful factor in the economic development of that country.

ACTIVITIES AFFECT LIVES OF MILLIONS

Thus, the direct and indirect activities of the J.D.C. have reached into the lives of millions of Jewish people throughout the world; and large sums are being utilized as revolving funds annually in behalf of the needy Jewish population abroad.

Our programs of relief and rehabilitation have been carried on in forty different countries and sections, and during the past twenty years, we have disbursed in the neighborhood of $82,000,000. With great tenacity on the part of the executive committee and board of directors, the J.D.C. was kept together, although there were times when the requirements abroad became more moderate, and local self-help in Eastern Europe had measurably increased. However, when the new crisis in Germany occurred in the Spring of 1933, it was a great relief to know that the J.D.C. organization was available to meet the emergencies without delay, and it was generally felt that if there had been no J.D.C. at that time, it would have been necessary to establish it.

Under the leadership of Dr. Bernhard Kahn, who transferred our major bureau to Paris, our program immediately took on a larger scope. We were thus enabled to work more closely with the French National Committee which had established itself in Paris for refugee aid under the leadership of Baron Robert de Rothschild; with the Central British Fund for German Jewry of which Sir Osmond E. d’Avigdor Goldsmid is chairman of its Allocations Committee; with the Jewish Colonization Association, originally founded by Baron de Hirsch in 1891; with the Hicem, and the refugee committees in the various countries—and since November, 1933, with the full cooperation of the High Commissioner for Refugees (Jewish and Other) coming from Germany, Mr. James G. McDonald. In Germany itself, we conducted our program through the Zentral Ausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau, on which are represented the most important welfare and economic aid organizations of Germany.

WELL-PLANNEA EMIGRATION PROGRAM

In this program of German aid, the main objects have been toward a well-planned emigration program, including emigration to Palestine, the training of Jewish young people for productive occupations, retraining the older people, strengthening the economic status of the Jews within Germany and in refugee countries, and for many constructive purposes.

The significance of the J.D.C. program lies, not merely in the help described above; it is important also in the measure of contact which it brings to the Jewish people of this country with the problems and needs of the Jewish people abroad. Thus meeting the tragedies of Jewish existence, the J.D.C. carries on its historical mission.