“What about the children? It is for them that these fine men and women, the Jewish leaders overseas, do their best work both in conducting welfare activities and in providing the great bulk of the moneys for these activities. American Jewry is still helping them and must continue to help for a while. The American backing is the stimulus which keeps alive the child-care federations, medical associations and schools for trade and vocational training overseas, reaching over 18,000 children.
“Through local Jewish medical organizations all over Eastern Europe no less than 66,000 children of school age receive medical attention and hygienic instruction. In Russia, where 70% of the Jewish children are tubercular of in the early stages of that disease, over 40,000 children are being helped by summer colonies, sanatoria, by milk stations, etc. The cultural work gives financial aid to schools in Eastern and Central Europe and Palestine, with a student membership of over 250,000.
“It would be absurd and unfair to create the inference that the money from America supplies everything for the Jewish children of Europe. What we are giving is only a small proportion. We who have studied the problem for years are convinced that it is fair to say the European Jewish communities that supply over seventy-five per cent of the funds for this child-welfare work are immensely stimulated and encouraged by American aid and would be seriously handicapped and in many cases would have to stop entirely if American backing ceased at this time. In fact, this is already threatened in a number of important Jewish communities overseas.
“Let us not desert the children.”
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.
