Cooperative loan societies functioning in thirteen Central and Eastern European countries and districts in association with the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation have granted a total of 2,902,116 loans, aggregating $278,152,221 to Jewish manufacturers, merchants and artisans from 1921 through 1931, a report from Dr. Bernhard Kahn, managing director of the Foundation, received here at the office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, disclosed.
The number of loan societies or “kassas,” has increased from 92 in 1921 to 757 in 1931 and their membership from 24,380 to 310,481. Their capital has increased from $34,396 to $3,558,346, exclusive of credits from the Foundation, according to the report. Deposits have increased from $139,353 to $9,026,730.
The “kassas,” despite the financial crisis in most of the countries in which they function, have weathered conditions that have caused the collapse of numerous banking institutions, although temporary difficulties resulting from the withdrawal of deposits have necessitated the granting of credits to a number of the societies by the Foundation, the report states. These withdrawals are ascribed to the economic conditions which are compelling East European Jews to use their capital and savings for food and other necessities.
Discussing the work of the kassas and its extent, Dr. Kahn pointed out that “It must be remembered that this large amount was granted mostly to borrowers who could not under any circumstances have received credit elsewhere in order to establish a small business or secure what they had, unless they paid usurious rates of interest.
“It is also worth noting that not only could the kassas develop as they have, thanks to the material assistance of the Foundation, but until recently (and partly even today) our kassas in the countries of the East have been the only finanical institutions that granted loans at a very low rate of interest, while private banks still usually take four to five percent a month.”
The report also cites the granting of special one to two year credits by the Foundation for special objects such as for a survey in behalf of Bessarabian artisans, for the extension of crop loans so that the farmers might delay the sale of produce in order to benefit by higher prices, for producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives, home building, reconstruction after floods and fires, trading licenses in Poland and rent in Roumania.
“There can be no doubt that the activity of the Foundation was decisive in spreading the cooperative idea and making it take root, because, without the material support of the Foundation, the kassas would not have been able to increase in number and enlarge the scope of their work as they did,” Dr. Kahn declared in the report.
The American Joint Reconstruction Foundation was established in 1924 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Colonization Association in order to consolidate and continue reconstruction and rehabilitation projects undertaken by the two organizations in Central and Eastern Europe.
The American members on the Council of the Foundation are: Bernard Flexner, Meyer Gillis, Col. Herbert H. Lehman, Leonard J. Robinson, Felix M. Warburg and Peter Wiernik.
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.
