ASSISTANCE FOR JEWS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22347, 10 March 1938, Page 16

ASSISTANCE FOR JEWS

EXTREME POVERTY IN EASTERN EUROPE

MEASURES TAKEN FOR RELIEF

The efforts to assist the Jews in Eastern Europe, who are faced by poverty and distress, were described by Dr. Maurice Laserson, of Geneva, in an address to members of the Jewish community in Christchurch. Dr. Laserson is a member of the executive of the Central Jewish Relief Organisation, "Ort-Oze," and he previously visited New Zealand in 1936, when committees were set up in Australia and New Zealand.

Ort, a union of societies for the promotion ofjrades and agriculture among Jews, and Oze, a union of societies for preserving the health of the Jews, were non-political, purely humanitarian relief organisations, said Dr. Laserson. Their activities were chiefly among the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe (Poland. Rumania, Lithuania, and Latvia), where they maintained professional schools, training workshops, model farms, and medical welfare institutions of all kinds. Ort and Oze were not institutions of charity but institutions of sound, constructive relief. There were about 3,250,000 Jews in Poland alone, and more than 1,000.000 in Rumania, Lithuania, and Latvia. Causes of Distress The causes of the present situation were not only the general crisis and vicious anti-Semiticism. General economic advancement was breaking up the old Jewish Ghetto callings. Tens of thousands of co-operatives, syndicates, and Government monopolies were forever ousting the small trader. Many thousands of Jewish shopkeepers and middlemen had become superfluous, and historical and economic exigencies called the Jews to, industry agriculture, and all kinds of technical crafts. "Ort prepares the younger generation for a productive life in Europe, Palestine, and other countries," Dr. Laserson continued. "In its 136 training institutions, spread throughout the various cities of Eastern Europe, Ort introduces new crafts and up-to-date methods among Jewish artisans. More than 7000 Jewish boys and girls attend trade schools, training factories, and farms of Ort. Nowadays Jewish parents are happy to make of their children skilled workers. Owing to lack of accommodation. Ort schools can only accept a portion of the many juveniles and adults knocking at its doors. Of the more than 50,000 persons trained by Ort during recent years, more than 80 per cent, have found work in their own country, the rest in Palestine and other countries. Training: in Trades "Preparatory courses for workers in the larger industries are established by Ort in special training factories. Five such factories-are to be found in Lodz, the chief industrial centre of Poland, and 4500 persons So trained have obtained employment in the larger factories of Lodz. More than 25,000 poor craftsmen engaged in home industries received machinery on easy credit from Ort. Wherever circumstances permit, Ort establishes co-operative factories, of which 114 have been equipped with plant by Ort in Russia and Poland. "The economic and political interests of the Jew demand that in agrarian countries the number of Jewish farmers shall ever increase. Ort was the pioneer of the new agricultural movement among Jews in all Eastern European countries. It gives the Jewish farmer and vegetable gardener credit facilities and expert advice. With its aid, 129 Jewish colonies as well as 621 vegetable farms were brought into existence. In accordance with the scheme worked out by Ort, vegetable gardens near towns in Poland could be established for; the benefit of many thousands of Jews. Ort is actively helping the German Jews, too: it has opened six training workshops in Germany, 11 in Paris, and two large training farms in Lithuania; it has put at the disposal of Jewish German juveniles four special departments for mechanical and electrical engineering in its trade schools in Lithuania and Latvia.