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Russian Ort Reorganized to Cooperate with Soviet in Land, Industrialization

February 23, 1928
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(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

The Russian Ort, the society organized at the close of the nineteenth century under the Czarist regime to further agriculture and trades among the Jewish population in Russia, was given a new lease of file in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics by reason of a reorganization which was effected here last night.

The new Russian Ort will replace the organization of a similar name which has hitherto been functioning in Soviet Russia. The new agency will however, have the advantage that it will enjoy the cooperation of the Soviet government agencies and other bodies which are engaged in the state-favored endeavors to ameliorate the situation of the Jewish population in Soviet Russia.

A new administration was elected including a number of leading Jewish Communists. Among those elected Tchemeriski, Merezhin, head of the Jewish section of the Communist party J. Golde, Gran, Zak and Zegelnick New statutes were approved which provide for the enlisting of a large membership. Members in the new Russian Ort, however, will have to be recruited only among those individual who have the right of franchise in Soviet Russia, that is proletarians.

The new statutes apply only to the organization in Russia proper. Separate Ort societies will be organize in other Soviet republics which will then be linked up in an all-Soviet Ort Societies Federation.

In outlining the program of the reorganized Russian Ort, Mr. Tchemeriski, who takes a leading part in the Jewish colonization movement in Russia, stated in his address at the organization meeting that there will be no duplication of efforts on the part of the Ort and the Ozet, the society for settling Jews on the land. Both the Ort and Ozet will work through the Comzet, the Government department for settling Jews on the land; the Ozet along the line of land settlement work and the Ort with the industrialization problem. As to the land settlement work, the Ort will confine itself to such settlements as adjoin townships, while the Ozet will concentrate on the settlement of compact Jewish masses on the land.

This view was embodied in a resolution which was adopted, declaring that the Ort’s function is to participate in the measures being taken by the Soviet Government toward changing the social position of the Jewish population by developing technical training and strengthening productive cooperation among the Jews. The Ort will develop new crafts among the Jewish population.

Another resolution adopted by the reorganization meeting stated that it was the consensus of opinion at the meeting that it will be necessary for the Russian Ort to work in cooperation with both the Ozet and the foreign Ort societies which conduct their work in Russia through the Russian Ort.

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