(End note 1:
Most of this introductory chapter is based on an
unpublished manuscript by Herman Bernstein, "The History of
American Jewish Relief", written in 1928, now in the JDC
Library. Oscar Handlin: A Continuing Task (New York, 1964) and
Herbert Agar: The Saving Remnant (New York, 1960), have also
been used).
[Palestine 1914: Persecution
of the Jews - ask for help by Henry Morgenthau for 50,000 $
at Jacob H. Schiff]
In August 1914 a cable arrived in the office of Jacob H.
Schiff, head of the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. It
had been sent by the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Henry
Morgenthau, Sr., and it asked that $ 50,000 be sent to the
Jews of Palestine, who were threatened with persecution and
hunger as a result of the hostile attitude of the Turkish
rulers of the country. The effect of World War I on the Jews
of Europe and the Middle East was coming home to American
Jewry.
[American Jewish Committee
AJC 1906 - Jacob H. Schiff organized the 50,000 $ for
Palestine]
Schiff brought the matter to the attention of his friends at
the American Jewish Committee (AJC), founded in 1906 and
dedicated not only to the protection of Jewish civil and
religious rights all over the world, but also to an effort "to
alleviate the consequences of persecution and to afford relief
from calamities affecting Jews, wherever they occur." On
August 31 the money was collected, with Schiff and the Zionist
Provisional Committee (in effect, Nathan Straus) giving $
12,500 each, and AJC voting the remaining $ 25,000.
[Jewry in the "USA": Spanish,
Portuguese, German and East European Jews]
American Jewry was more deeply divided in 1914 than it was to
be in the coming two generations. Apart from the old division
between the descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese
(Sephardic) Jews and their German Jewish (Ashkenazic)
brethren, there now existed the deep cleavage between German
Jewry - from the (p. 3)
middle and upper class, liberal, speedily adapting itself to
the American way of life - and the masses of East European
Jews who had been arriving in the New World since 1882. The
latter were largely proletarian or lower middle class, and
their spiritual outlook tended to be either Jewish Orthodox
or, at the other extreme, socialist and antireligious. There
was very little in common between those different kinds of
Jews, except for the uncertain and ill-defined feeling that
their common origin and cultural background should mean more
to them than it actually did.
[German Jewish leadership in
the "USA"]
The German Jewish leadership of American Jewry was a highly
sophisticated, intellectual group of men and women. The social
elite at the top was made up of bankers, merchants, judges,
lawyers, and doctors; they were well-bred, well-read, patrons
of the arts and of sports, supporters and furtherers of a
well-ordered democracy. Their philanthropy was sincere and
well-meant. Most of them - there were some notable exceptions
- kept some of the religious observances of their ancestors,
or rather those of them that had not been discarded by the
Jewish Reform movement. However, it appeared that their
religion meant less and less to them as time went on.
[German Jews in "USA" help
European Jews with
funds for
assimilation]
In a sense their social obligation to their brethren (whom
they awkwardly called "coreligionists", to emphasize the fact
that there was really nothing in common between them except
religion, or vestiges of it) was a kind of inherited trait. It
had been transmitted to them from the customs and usages of
their ancestors in the ghettos of Germany [in 14th to 18th
century], where, a scant three generations before Morgenthau
sent off his telegram to Schiff, life had produced the same
kind of Jew as Eastern Europe did. In their efforts to
"assimilate", that is, to become citizens of the world in
which they lived, they often rationalized their aid to Jews as
part of their concern for humanity as a whole. The common past
put a moral obligation on them to help those Jews in backward
Europe to reach the happy stage of equality - and therefore
prosperity - that they themselves had attained. That, it was
hoped, would be the end of the Jewish problem for Europe's
Jews; it would also be the end of their own (p.4)
problem qua Jews, and it would no longer bother them. But in
the meantime the obligation existed, and it had to be met
honestly and openly.
[German Jews in "USA"
supporting more general human projects than the Jews in
Europe]
The concern of German Jews in America for humanity in general
and for Jews in particular was no pretense; on the contrary,
their whole liberal background and education had developed in
them a strong feeling of responsibility toward the poor and
the underprivileged. Often the proportion of their money spent
for general nonsectarian philanthropy exceeded the amounts
reserved for their "coreligionists"; but even this was part of
their strong, typically Jewish sense of a social and moral
imperative, which appears to have set them apart as a group
from other rich men in America. Their emphasis on
nonsectarianism made their Jewishness stand out. Not that they
hid it; they were aware of it, and most of them saw it
distinctly as a matter of honor not to run away from it.
[Leader Louis Marshall until
1929 - AJC is splitted into fractions: Zionists and
anti-Zionists]
The American Jewish Committee [AJC] was
the organized expression
of the German Jewish aristocracy of spirit, culture, and
money. Its head was the undisputed leader of American Jewry
until his death in 1929, Louis Marshall - lawyer, statesman,
and thinker. The AJC that he led was by no means homogeneous
in its political outlook.
Apart from differences emanating from the American political
scene, there were also divisions into Zionists and
anti-Zionists. Judges Louis D. Brandeis and Julian W. Mack
were to become the mainstays of American Zionism during the
war. Others, especially Julius Rosenwald, the head of Sears
Roebuck [a chain of stores for housewares], followed German
Jewish liberal tradition in seeing Judaism as a religious
creed only, and rejecting all the implications of Jewish
national identity. The majority of AJC tended to follow
Marshall in his support of building up Palestine, whose great
spiritual importance in Jewish history they admitted - as
a place of refuge, not
necessarily
the
place of refuge, for those Jews who wanted or were forced to
go there.
[Before 1914: AJC-leaders
hope that nationalism will disappear with liberalism]
At the same time, they did everything they could to help Jews
become nationals and equals in the countries of their
residence, so that they would not have to look for places of
refuge (p.5)
at all. Sooner or later, it was hoped, the dangerous notion of
nationalism would disappear altogether.
[Supplement: Herzl
nationalism and the Arabs
The Jewish leaders have no idea of the Arab existence, and up
to then the Arabs had no weapons and racist Herzl says in his
book "The Jewish State" of 1896 they could be driven away like
the natives in the "USA", and perhaps there is gold to be
exploited like in South Africa. But since 1915 the Arabs get
weapons by World War I. and this is never considered by Jewish
Zionist policy. So, the "Zionist movement" is a pure racist
and capitalist movement].
[1914-1918: First World War
lets come up new nationalism - 10 of 15 mio. Jews affected
by war]
These beliefs were held very sincerely, and yet this was the
time - the summer of 1914 - when the whole structure of
nineteenth-century liberalism collapsed. The collapse was
accompanied by a disaster that struck the Jewish people in the
eastern and southeastern parts of Europe and the Middle East.
Three empires and a kingdom - Russia, Austria-Hungary,
Germany, and Romania [England?] - were involved in a deadly
conflict, and out of the more than fifteen million Jews of the
world, ten million lived in these countries.
[1914-1918: Jewish refugees
in Eastern Europe between the fronts]
Within a very short time there were five hundred thousand
Jewish refugees in the Russian interior, driven there by the
czarist armies. Four hundred thousand more fled before the
advancing Russians into the interior of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Then German armies overran large areas of formerly
Russian Poland. Some eight hundred townships and villages
where Jews lived were hit and severely damaged, and about
eighty thousand Jewish houses were destroyed.
(End note 2: Bernstein: History of American Jewish Relief,
p.161)
Yet, significantly, the action of American Jewry was triggered
by the alarming news that reached the U.S. regarding the fate
of the eighty-five thousand Jews of Palestine.
[4 October 1914:
Orthodox Jews found the Central Committee to help suffering
Jews]
The first to act were the Orthodox Jews of overwhelmingly East
European origin. On October 4, 1914, they founded the Central
Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering through the War.
The main officers of the committee were Leon Kamaiky, Harry
Fischel, Harry Lucas, and Morris Engelman. But Orthodox Jewry
could hardly carry the burden by itself.
[25 October 1914: American
Jewish Committee (AJC) founds the American Jewish Relief
Committee (AJRC)]
The leadership of the American Jewish Committee therefore
convened a meeting of forty organizations which took place in
New York on October 25, 1914. There a committee of five was
elected: Oscar S. Straus, Louis D. Brandeis, Julian W. Mack,
Harry Fischel (of the Central Committee), and Meyer London (of
the socialists). This committee in turn asked one hundred
prominent Jews from all walks of life to select officers for a
new committee: the American Jewish Relief Committee (AJRC).
Louis Marshall was chairman, Felix M. Warburg, treasurer, and
Cyrus L. Sulzberger, secretary. (p.6)
[27 November 1914: Body to
distribute the funds: Foundation of the Joint Distribution
Committee (JDC)]
Contrary to expectations, however, the Orthodox group decided
in the end not to join AJRC, and so on November 27, 1914,
another body was established to distribute the funds collected
separately by the two committees. At the suggestion of the new
committee's comptroller, Harriet B. Lowenstein, Felix M.
Warburg's secretary, it was called the Joint Distribution
Committee.
[August 1915: The socialists
found the People's Relief Committee - the "Joint" gets
common]
In August 1915 the socialists set up a third cooperating body,
the People's Relief Committee, led by Meyer London, Sholem
Asch, and others.
More than half a century later, although the three original
components are long since defunct, the organization's official
name still remains the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee; a tradition had been established and no one would
think of changing the awkward name. "The Joint" had become a
household word for many millions of Jews.
[Demands of the Jewish war
victims 1914-1918 - 1.5 mio. $ on steamer "Vulcan" for
Palestine - steamer "Des Moines" for Palestine]
The demands on the young organization during the war years of
1914-18 were enormous. Local and state committees were
organized in the U.S. and speakers such as Judah L. Magnes,
Reform rabbi, pacifist, enfant terrible, and - later -
president of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, one of the
great orators of his time, were sent to raise funds. By the
end of 1915 some $ 1.5 million had been raised. This money was
sent to Palestine aboard the coal steamer U.S.S.
Vulcan in March 1915,
along with nine hundred tons of food and medicines (55 percent
of which went to the starving Jews, the rest being destributed
on a nonsectarian basis under the supervision of the American
consul).
After long delays a second mercy ship, the U.S.S.
Des Moines, reached
Palestine in September 1916.
[Help for Austrian Jews in
Russia]
The Jewish aid society in Russia, EKOPO, received money from
JDC to look after the refugees from the war areas, especially
the ones who came from enemy (that is, Austrian) territory,
who were forbidden by czarist government to receive help from
Russian Jewish institutions.
[Help of the German Jewish
aid society for Jews in German occupied Poland]
As for German-occupied Poland, the German Jewish aid society -
Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden - established a special branch
to aid the stricken Jews in that area. They served as JDC's
agents (p.7)
there until America's entry into the war in 1917.
[JDC-inspections to control
the distributions]
JDC also sent Magnes and Dr. Alexander Dushkin to Poland to
check allegations about the unjust distribution of funds (the
two commissioners cleared the Hilfsverein committee). Both the
accusation and the investigating commission were the first in
a long line of similar events during the coming decades.
[President Wilson declares
the Jewish Sufferers Relief Day for 27th January 1916]
In the meantime, at the urging of friends of the Jewish people
in the United States Senate, President Wilson set aside
January 27, 1916, as Jewish Sufferers Relief Day. On that day
about $ 1 million was collected.
[Collection of the JDC
1914-1918: Over 16.5 mio. $ - fund-raising by Jacob
Billikopf]
By the end of 1918 JDC had managed to collect over $ 16.5
million. This was done by perfecting fund-raising techniques,
largely through the work of Jacob Billikopf, of the Kansas
City Federation of Jewish Charities. The money was very
carefully distributed in the areas of greatest suffering. As
the war proceeded, large sums had to be sent to Austria and,
after 1917, to those parts of Romania that could be reached.
[Money channeling after
America's entry into the war 1917-1918 by neutral Holland -
Boris D. Bogen, Max Senior]
After America's entry into the war the major problem was how
to transfer money to areas under enemy control. From the start
JDC insisted on full legality and cooperation with the State
Department. Every step it took "had been taken only after
consultation with and the approval of officials of the
government, especially of the State Department."
(End note 3: Ibid. [Bernstein: History of American Jewish
Relief], p.178)
With government approval a committee was set up in neutral
Holland by the head of a Dutch bank; JDC sent Boris D. Bogen
and Max Senior from America to represent it on the committee.
This group then transferred the money received from the United
States to Dutch diplomatic representatives in the stricken
areas, who distributed it according to guidelines received
from New York via Holland. Close to $ 2 million was thus
channeled into German-occupied territory between the spring of
1917 and March 1918.
[Since 1918: New national
states and new nationalism makes Jews a propaganda victim
every time]
Despite all its efforts, especially in Russia, JDC was
confronted with tremendous suffering when the war ended.
Probably over a million Jews in Poland alone were homeless and
were, quite literally, starving. Moreover, the creation of new
nation-states - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia,
Romania, Yugoslavia, (p.8)
Hungary, and Austria - and the Bolshevik Revolution caused
further dislocation and local wars. The Jewish minorities, not
knowing with whom to side and occupying an unenviable
middle-class position in this postwar struggle of nations and
revolutionary masses, became the butt of every slander and
persecution.
[Pogroms in Galicia and
Poland - civil war in Ukraine - epidemics]
Bloody pogroms instigated by Poles occurred in eastern Galicia
and northeastern Poland. Even worse was the situation in the
Ukraine, where Bolsheviks and their anti-Semitic White Russian
opponents were struggling for control. Probably more than two
hundred thousand Jews were killed or died in the 1918-21
epidemics in eastern Poland and the Ukraine; seventy-five
thousand more were wounded.
[1920-21: Polish-Soviet war
with Jewish victims]
Suffering was especially grim during the futile Polish-Soviet
war of 1920-21, fought over areas with large Jewish
populations.
[1919-1921 Eastern Europe:
Jewish orphans - tuberculosis - abandoned communities -
desperate parents leave their children]
The results were terrible. In Poland the total number of
orphans after the war was estimated at seventy-five thousand.
In the Ukraine it was said to be two hundred thousand. Sixty
percent of the surviving children in Galicia alone suffered
from tuberculosis. In the Ukraine five hundred Jewish
communities had been abandoned, and about half a million Jews
were economically ruined. With the suicide rate growing
alarmingly and parents driven to desperation at the sight of
starving children, some children were abandoned on the
doorsteps of the relatively prosperous.
(End note 4: In:
-- Jacob Lestschinsky: Crisis Catastrophe and Survival
(London, 1946)
-- Mark Wischnitzer: Die Juden in der Welt (Berlin 1935),
p.225)
[The First Holocaust
1914-1921 has been forgotten after 1945]
The destruction of European Jewry during World War II has
obliterated the memory of that first holocaust of the
twentieth century in the wake of the first world conflict. Yet
in pre-Auschwitz terms the experience was bad enough.
[1915-1921: Help actions by
the JDC - American Relief Administration - Herbert Hoover -
Boris D. Bogen]
Humanitarian groups such as JDC tried to respond in a suitable
manner. After some misunderstandings had been cleared up, JDC
joined in the efforts of the $ 100 million effort by the
American Relief Administration (ARA), under Herbert Hoover,
set up by Congress to help the people of Europe. JDC
contributed $ 3.3 million, and in return JDC workers such as
Boris D. Bogen were allowed to undertake aid missions to Jews
in Eastern Europe as officials of ARA.
[1915-1921: Actions of the
Joint in Eastern Europe: Kitchens - hospitals - food convoys
- offices - schools]
Financed by a tremendous fund-raising effort that yielded a
total (p.9)
of $ 33.4 million for 1919-21, JDC established soup kitchens
on a large scale, reconstructed and reequipped hospitals,
established orphanages, and sent food in convoys of trucks to
hundreds of towns and villages in Poland. It set up a tracing
bureau to reunite families scattered by war and pestilence; it
helped reestablish schools and institutions of higher
learning, religious and secular.
[1919: U.S.S. food steamer
"Westwar Ho" in Poland - food distribution to Jews and
Poles]
In 1919 the U.S.S. [steamer]
Westward Ho arrived in Poland with food; at
the insistence of the Poles, the food was divided and handed
out separately to Jewish and Polish recipients. Much of the
money was spent on nonsectarian missions to the Polish
countryside, because JDC was afraid of arousing anti-Semitism
if it supplied only Jews (despite the fact that ARA did a
great deal to save masses of Poles from the aftereffects of
the hostilities).
[June 1919: Joint gets
recognition as a social agency in Poland]
In June 1919 the U.S. ambassador in Poland arranged for
official Polish recognition of JDC as a social agency
operating in that country.
[End of 1919: Joint nominates
Dr. Julius Goldman for European director - Goldman
principles for acting]
After the first two years of what was essentially emergency
relief, the time came to take stock of the situation and
decide on future policies. JDC had nominated Dr. Julius
Goldman as its first European director at the end of 1919.
Goldman tried to put some order into the operations and set
down guiding principles for work in the various countries.
[1919-1920: Bogen organizes
social workers in the "USA" for Poland and Russia]
Bogen, responsible for Poland and Russia, asked for and got
the New York office's agreement to recruit social workers in
America to help in Europe.
[1920-1921: Failure of Bogen:
Foundation of local Joint committees in Poland not possible
- collection of 20,000 $ in Poland]
In February 1920 Bogen arrived in Poland with 126 members of
the first JDC Overseas Unit. Bogen also tried to bridge the
deep ideological differences within East European Jewry and
demanded that local committees be set up, from which he hoped
a central committee for social work in Poland would ultimately
emerge. This, unfortunately, did not happen, though in January
1921, when the Relief Conference for Congress Poland (the
central part of that country) met in Warsaw, Bogen seemed well
on the way to success.
Local fund raising was also initiated in the spring of 1920;
although financially insignificant (about $ 20,000 was raised
in Poland in 1920), this was valuable in buttressing the
morale of the population and preventing them from becoming the
demoralized recipients of doles.
[Since 1920: New Jewish
relief groups]
Due largely to (p.10)
Bogen's efforts, some local groups began to assume
responsibility for palliative aid at the end of 1920.
[1920: Joint installs money
transfer service under Isidore Hershfield - 5,250,000 $ to
Polish Jews in 1920]
Another vital service performed by JDC in Eastern Europe,
especially in Poland, was the institution of a bureau for
private remittances under Isidore Hershfield (who was
succeeded by Samuel Golter). American relatives of Polish Jews
could now transfer small sums of money to them and be
reasonably sure that it would reach the desired destination.
In addition to the considerable financial aid thus extended to
Polish Jewry - $ 5,250,000 during the first eight months of
1920,
(End note 5: In:
-- Bernstein: The History of American Jewish Relief, p.257
-- articles from Zosa Szajkowski with the problems of JDC
remittances; In: American Jewish Historical Quarterly 17, nos.
1-3)
which was much more than the money spent on JDC's behalf in
Poland - the effect on the morale of Polish Jews was
tremendous.
[Work of Joint for orphans -
orphan organization CENTOS in 1923 - medical organization
TOZ in 1921]
Special efforts were devoted to child and orphan care, the
settlement of the refugee question, and the development of
medical facilities. In 1923 JDC founded an orphan care group
called CENTOS (Federation of Associations for the Care of
Orphans in Poland), which later developed into a general child
care society.
TOZ,
(Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia Ludnosci Zydowskiej (Society for
Safeguarding the Health of Jewish Population)
the medical society, had been founded in 1921.
Both these organizations tended to become less and less
dependent on direct JDC aid, though they never became
completely self-supporting.
[1921-1922: Joint can install
homes and local societies for Jews]
During 1921 and 1922 JCD also managed to liquidate most of its
work for the hundreds of thousands of refugees, arranging for
the reception in temporary or permanent homes and helping
establish local societies to deal with the problem.
[Since summer 1920: Cultural
work supported by the Joint under Cyrus Adler]
In the cultural field, the JDC Cultural Committee in New York,
under the chairmanship of Cyrus Adler, recommended in the
summer of 1920 that schools in Eastern Europe be supported by
allocating one-third of the monies raised by the Central
Committee and the People's Relief Committee in their separate
efforts.
[Cultural support: Split
between anti-Zionist Yiddishist schools and Zionist schools]
However, this arrangement was likely to give rise to a great
deal of resentment, because the American Jewish socialists
tended to support the secular, anti-Zionist Yiddishist
schools, whereas the Orthodox (p.11)
of course, supported their own school system in Poland. This
would have discriminated against the Hebrew and Zionist
schools (the Tarbuth schools) which were then growing in
strength and importance. Since AJRC was practically defunct by
that time, JDC itself took over the responsibility of paying a
suitable proportion of the monies to support schools and
institutions that the Orthodox and the socialists did not wish
to subsidize.
[1921: JDC help carloads in
Poland and in Polish Ukraine - Ukrainians murder Cantor and
Friedlander on 5th July 1920]
The end of the Russo-Polish war of 1920-21 also marked the
last stages of emergency relief by JDC. Two Americans then in
Poland, Dr. Charles D. Spivak and Elkan C. Voorsanger,
supervised the dispatch of carloads of supplies to the
stricken areas. JDC representatives on mercy missions also
ventured into Polish-occupied areas in the Ukraine. On one
such journey two JDC workers, Bernard Cantor and Prof. Israel
Friedlander, were murdered by Ukrainians on July 5, 1920.
[Since 1919?: Creation of a
JDC European Executive branch under Dr. Goldman]
The approaching end of the period of emergency relief was
marked by disagreements on the future organizational setup of
JDC in Europe. Dr. Goldman, the European director, wanted to
create an overall European Executive which would supervise JDC
committees in the various countries. Bogen, on the other hand,
preferred centralized control from New York and the
administration of JDC funds by American country directors. In
the end Goldman's concept was accepted and became the standard
practice in the period between the wars.
It was only later, after 1945, that nominating American
country directors was adopted again, though without abolishing
the European Executive, a basic JDC organizational tool that
exists to this day.
[JDC European directors
1919-1938: Goldman - Becker - Rosenberg - Kahn]
Julius Goldman resigned at the end of 1920 and was succeeded
by James A. Becker. Becker in turn was followed in 1921 by
James N. Rosenberg, who served for one year. In 1924 Dr.
Bernhard Kahn took over the post of JDC European director,
which he was to hold for 14 years.
[End of October 1920:
Decision for an end of emergency relief by Goldman proposal
- and protest in Poland]
Before he returned to America, Goldman proposed to JDC in New
York that a decision be made to discontinue emergency relief,
which was done on October 28, 1920, by the JDC Executive
Committee. (p.12)
The date for the final liquidation of emergency programs was
set for July 1, 1921. As expected, the decision caused a great
uproar. A conference of representatives of Jewish aid
committees meeting in Warsaw on February 20, 1921, protested
the new policy and asked for a postponement, at least as far
as eastern Poland was concerned, of six months. A decision to
close down the JDC remittances department in Warsaw was also
protested.
[1921: Situation of the Jews
in Europe differs from country to country]
The situation in 1921 varied from country to country. There
was no practical possibility of stopping emergency relief in
Poland on the date determined in New York; but the trend was
set, and though JDC never did actually stop emergency relief,
its scope was very sharply reduced as the year drew to an end.
[1919-1921: Situation in
Lithuania with two opposed committees - 35,000 refugees from
Poland - Jewish People's Bank]
Lithuania was a different case altogether; JDC entered there
only in 1919, when Sholem Asch, the famed Yiddish writer, went
there on its behalf. He was followed by a committee from the
German Hilfsverein, with whom JDC continued a very close
relationship, composed of Dr. Bernhard Kahn, Dr. Arthur Hantke
(a well-known German Zionist leader), and Dr. Meier
Hildesheimer. A Lithuanian Jewish National Council was opposed
there by a left-wing workers' committee. Successive American
representatives tried to settle the local differences and help
the suffering Jewish population, especially the thirty-five
thousand refugees from Poland. Finally, with JDC's help, the
Jewish People's Bank was developed, which in 1921 boasted of
77 branches that granted loans at low rates of interest.
[Since February 1920: JDC
action in Latvia for Jews fled to the country side]
In Latvia, JDC operations started even later, in February
1920, when the first possibilities of transferring money there
became known. JDC sent emergency relief to stricken Latvian
Jews, many of whom had left the cities and had gone to the
country because of lack of food.
[Henry G. Alsberg in the
Prague committee]
In Latvia and Czechoslovakia a resident JDC representative,
Henry G. Alsberg, was for a time in practical control of the
Prague committee (Hilfskomité) of wealthy Jews.
[1920: Slovakia and
Subcarpathian Jews get independent from the Prague
committee]
Under a new director, Slovakia and Subcarpathian Russia (in
Czech initials, (p.13)
PKR), the easternmost, poorest, Ruthenian-speaking section of
the country, were made independent of the Prague committee in
1920. This was quite logical, because the Jews of Bohemia and
Moravia, the western sections of Czechoslovakia, recovered
very quickly and soon needed no more help.
[1919: JDC action for 120,000
Jewish refugees in Vienna: 1 mio. $ - Viennese social aid
committee]
In Austria the main problem was the close to 120,000 Jewish
refugees crowded into Vienna at the close of the war. JDC sent
Meyer Gillis and Max Pine to the starving city at the end of
1918. Before JDC help became effective, however, many of the
refugees trekked home to Poland on their own initiative. The
old Viennese social aid committee, the Israelitische Allianz
zu Wien, did whatever it could to help those that remained.
JDC sent close to $ 1 million to Vienna in 1919, to subsidize
soup kitchens and provide medical and child care.
[Hungary 1919-1921: Action by
ARA - Jewish Kun government - reactionary government -
anti-Semitic laws - deportation of Polish Jews - JDC stops
actions in 1921]
In Hungary the situation was still different. There, ARA's
[American Relief Administration] effective program for
providing a minimum of aid was very cautiously supplemented by
JDC funds for specific Jewish aims. A Hungarian Jewish
committee, set up - as in other countries - with the full
blessing of JDC, slowly took over specific Jewish tasks.
The problem in Hungary was largely political. After the
failure of the short-lived Communist regime under Béla Kun, a
Jew, the White Hungarian government took a definitely
anti-Semitic line, though in fact the Jews had perhaps
suffered more than anyone else under Kun's government. The new
reactionary regime deported 22 trainloads of Polish Jewish
refugees back to Poland. In 1920 Hungary was the first postwar
European government to institute a numerus clausus law,
permitting only a low percentage of Jewish students to
register at the universities. JDC, at any rate, ceased its
operations there in 1921.
[Romania 1919-1921: Chaos in
new Romanian territories Bessarabia, Bucovina and
Transylvania - JDC action by Hettie Goldman]
The situation of the Jews in Romania in the postwar period was
even more complicated. While Jews had suffered relatively
little in Old Romania (Walachia and Moldavia), complete chaos
reigned in Bessarabia, Bucovina, and Transylvania, all of them
provinces annexed by Romania from her Russian, Austrian, and
Hungarian neighbors. Pioneer work was done there for JDC by
Hettie Goldman (p.14)
and James A. Becker in 1919-20. The main results were setting
up of provincial central committees in Bessarabia, Bucovina,
and Transylvania and the provision of emergency relief.
[Romania: Joint help actions
under Alexander A. Landesco - Joint help actions under Noel Aronovici for 15,000 Ukrainian Jewish
refugees]
After Becker, Alexander A. Landesco, himself a Romanian-born
American Jew, was instrumental in establishing loan
kassas - small
cooperative banks lending money at very low rates of interest.
Fifteen thousand refugees from Ukrainian pogroms also had to
be supported, and this problem was dealt with by a local
social worker, Noel Aronovici, who entered JDC service and was
to become one of the central figures of JDC work in the whole
interwar period.
In February 1921 Landesco left Romania, having provided for
the cessation of relief.
[1921: Jews expelled from
Dniester river to Old Romania by Romanian army - new Joint help actions]
Yet soon after his departure JDC had to intervene again when
forty thousand Bessarabian Jews living within seven miles of
the Russian border on the Dniester River were brutally
expelled into Old Romania by government troops. In
Transylvania the reduction in relief aid by JDC was made
possible only through an increase in the remittances sent
there by relatives in the U.S.
[1914-1918: JDC action in
Turkey via the embassy of Holland - Aaron Teitelbaum since
1918]
As we have seen, JDC was founded in response to a cry for help
emanating from the Middle East. During the war Turkish Jewry
received help via the Dutch Embassy at Istanbul, and after the
war Aaron Teitelbaum of JDC supervised the administration of
relief there
[Greece 1917: Fire in
Salonika - help by the Joint]
and in Salonika, Greece, where an ancient Jewish community had
been hard hit by a devastating fire in 1917.
[Palestine 1914-1918: 1.5
mio. $ transferred for uprooted Jews by Turkish rulers]
In Palestine a committee under Eliezer Hoofien, a Dutch
Zionist who later was to be the head of Palestine Jewry's
foremost banking institution, the Anglo-Palestine Bank,
distributed funds under the auspices of the sympathetic
Spanish consul, Señor Ballabar. During the war over $ 1.5
million was transferred by JDC, to deal with the problems of a
community physically uprooted and evicted from their homes by
the Turkish rulers. After the conquest of the country by the
British, JDC asked David de Sola Pool, a member of the Zionist
Commission then visiting Palestine, to act as its
representative. Orphan committees, aid to a Zionist medical
unit, support for the religious groups and their institutions,
loan banks - all these swallowed (p.16)
very large funds: over $ 3.2 million for the period 1918-21.
[Siberia 1919-20: Joint
actions for Jewish prisoners of war under Dr. Frank F.
Rosenblatt]
Additional efforts, smaller in scope but no less decisive for
those involved, were made to help tens of thousands of
stranded Jewish prisoners of war in Siberia in 1919-20. Dr.
Frank F. Rosenblatt, the JDC representative, was the moving
spirit in setting up a Siberian War Prisoners' Repatriation
Fund, in which a number of organizations, including the
American Red Cross, participated. 700,000 dollars was spent
there by JDC.
[Japan 1919-20: Jews in
Yokohama]
Other Jews stranded in Yokohama, of all places, were also
helped to emigrate by a cooperative effort of JDC and the
great Jewish emigration agency, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
(HIAS).
[Jews are helped in Iraq and
Iran - Jews in Abyssinia / Ethiopia]
Others were helped in Iraq and Iran, and a group of scientists
working with the Abyssinian Falashas, who are by some believed
to be a lost Jewish tribe, were supported in their efforts.
[Germany 1919: 60,000
immigrated East European Jews - 1923: Hyperinflation and
Joint help actions for Jews and for German children]
In Europe, meanwhile, under Becker's directorship relief aid
had been more or less terminated in 1921. The exception to
this general rule was Germany, where 60,000 East European Jews
had immigrated, most of them after the 1918 armistice. Then
Germany underwent its catastrophic economic decline and
runaway inflation, in 1922-24, JDC had to come to German
Jewry's help. Its aid was concentrated on child care, and its
contributions went partly to nonsectarian American efforts to
aid German children generally.
[Cooperation Joint - Quaker
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Germany]
In this activity a very close and friendly cooperation
developed between JDC and the American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC) of the American Quaker community; this
friendship between the two aid organizations was to yield
important results during the catastrophes of the 1930s and the
1940s.
[New European Advisory
Committee under Louis Marshall - inspection in Europe by
Felix M. Warburg, Goldman and Becker - starting of help for
self-help actions]
In New York, JDC set up a European Advisory Committee, headed
by Louis Marshall, to cooperate closely with its European
director. In its behalf Felix M. Warburg went to Europe in
1921 to investigate the situation. His report, together with
the views submitted by Goldman and Becker, finally moved JDC
to embark on a new policy in Europe: an attempt to help
European Jewish communities to help themselves by supporting
what was termed "reconstruction" activities. This was to be
achieved by establishing (p.16)
each central committee in Europe on a secure, self-supporting
basis. Where there were no central committees, functional
organizations dealing with different aspects of social work
would have to be made independent. This would finally allow
JDC to withdraw and terminate its activities.
On June 17, 1921, Herbert H. Lehman, chairman of the new
Economic Reconstruction Committee, outlined these proposals to
the JDC Executive Committee.
[Joint: Sub-committees]
Parallel to Lehman's committee were other special committees,
set up to deal with refugee problems (under David M.
Bressler), orphans (under Solomon Lowenstein), and medical
care (under Bernard Flexner); these now joined the older
Cultural Committee under Cyrus Adler and thus a new
organizational structure of JDC emerged, actually designed to
lead it to the desired dissolution as speedily as possible.
Budgets were itemized according to the different functions,
and discretionary funds for the European director were cut to
a minimum. A proper accounting system was supervised by the
accounting firm of Loeb and Troper.
[Joint: Authority of the
laymen - policy determination by others]
What was significant in this whole structure, beyond the
practical technical points, was the complete and unquestioned
authority of the laymen who provided the funds or directed
their collection from others. Marshall, Warburg, Lehman,
Lowenstein, Bressler, Flexner, Adler - these men determined
what should be done. The professionals like Bogen or Senior,
Dr. Rosen in Russia (of whom we shall speak later), and even
Jacob Billikopf in America were important; they were treated
in a gentlemanly way and listened to carefully and
sympathetically, but in the end they were not the ones who
determined policy.
[Poland 1921-24: Joint sends
over 20 mio. $]
In 1921-24, JDC collected over $ 20 million, hoping thereby to
help Europe's Jews in a "once and for all" effort.
[Poland 1924-1925: Recession,
harvest failures and anti-Jewish government measures -
starving Jews]
But when Warburg went on another investigating trip in 1925,
he found that JDC just could not abdicate its responsibility,
at least not yet. An economic recession in Poland had caused
the government there to founder in a series of contradictory
economic policies, some of which were expressly directed
against the Jews. A series of crop failures in Bessarabia and
Bucovina did not improve the situation. (p.17)
In the winter of 1925/6, 83 percent of the Jewish laborers in
Warsaw were unemployed.
(End Note 6: Handlin: A Continuing Task (New York, 1964),
p.52)
[Jews of Europa 1926-28: JDC
actions of 12.5 mio. $]
Warburg, returning from his investigation, suggested the
creation of an "overseas chest". JDC and the Zionists
cooperated in this venture at first (1925), but then the
different aims of the two groups reasserted themselves. Faced
with a Jewish American community that was becoming
increasingly indifferent to disaster appeals, JDC nevertheless
raised some $ 12.5 million in 1926-28 to continue its work in
Europe.
[1929: JDC cannot be
dissolved]
At the end of the first decade after the war, 15 years after
its founding, JDC was still alive, though very reluctantly. It
had always seen itself as a purely temporary organization to
help the "coreligionists" in foreign parts get back on their
feet economically. American Jews had to help the Jews abroad,
certainly, but the proper place for philanthropy and social
work was in the United States. Somewhat to its surprise, in
1929 JDC found itself in a world that had turned it into a
permanent institution. (p.18)
