The Joint Distriution Committee must continue its relief work in Europe and in Palestine after its 1929 program will have been concluded. This is the reaction in the Jewish press of the country to the nation-wide inquiry sent out recently by David A. Brown, National Chairman of the United Jewish Campaign, asking leading contributors to voice their opinion.
The Yiddish daily press is in agreement with the Anglo-Jewish press of the country in urging the J.D.C. leaders to continue the work. Editorials to this effect were published in the “Jewish Morning Journal,” “The Day” and other dailies. The “Jewish Morning Journal” added the suggestion that the Joint Distribution Committee be reconstituted on a permanent basis without emphasis on the distinctions of its three parent constituent organizations.
Under the headline “Yes,” the “American Israelite” of Cincinnati writes in its current issue: “If a man save a life, he is blessed. So we have been taught.
“David A. Brown wants to know if he and his associates in the Joint Distribution Committee should go on saving thousands of lives. He has sent that inquiry to some 100,000 communal leaders in the United States and Canada.
“Now, we do not know just how many of these busy persons will sit down and write replies to Mr. Brown. But the heart sends an answer that knows no delay or negation.
“In the name of all who have known succor through this great relief work since the darkness of 1914, in the name (Continued on Page 4)
ll who love humanity, and especially in the name of all whose only hope for existence lies in the continuing of the Joint Distribution Committee’s efforts, we urge that the labor of love proceed.”
Writes the Kansas City “Jewish Chronicle” under the headline, “Our Answer to David Brown”:
“What is the answer of the Jews of America going to be? Well, what can it be? First of all, they are not in a position to know the facts themselves. They can only know about the facts of Jewish conditions abroad from the men whom they intrust with the business of ascertaining them. They can’t all travel over in Europe and investigate, so they take it for granted that if such men as yourself and Louis Marshall, Cyrus Adler, Solomon Lowenstein, David M. Bressler, Alexander Kahn, and Peter Wiernik take the time and trouble to learn the facts and that in your opinion the conditions warrant further assistance from American Jewry, why, that settles that. Because, if American Jewry could not trust men like you to tell the truth, we’d say that the Jews of America were morally and spiritually bankrupt. Such a condition is utterly unthinkable and requires no further comment.
“Now, you tell us that if we stop the flow of money to foreign Jewry at this time, that all the wonderful work that has been accomplished over there in the past fifteen years will be seriously impaired, if not entirely wasted, and you ask: What Shall We Do?
“We believe the answer of American Jewry to you will be: Go On!”
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.
