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"Jews Ask Public To Aid War Victims" -NY Times,

05/02/1920

Non-Sectarian Appeal For $7,500,000 Starts Today With Sermons In All Churches

Poland's Woe Appalling

Campaign to be pressed by 10,000 active workers in the five boroughs

A famished child upon the auction block, a mother in the foreground pleading for aid, death with outstretched arms lurking near and the legend "Shall Death Be the Highest Bidder?"

Such is the pictorial representation of the needs of stricken peoples in the war-devastated zones of Central and Eastern Europe which will confront New Yorkers everywhere today. Back of that representation stands an organization designed to take advatage of every channel to press home to the people of this city the need for contributing toward the $7,500,000 to be raised here this week by the Greater New York Appeal for Jewish War Sufferers.

This fund is but a tithe of that which must be subscribed in the entire country if disaster to whole peoples is to be averted. The world nature of the calamity, which has overtaken men, women and children, deprived not only of life's bare necessities but of all means of rehabilitating themselves without aid from the outside, has led leading Jews of New York and the nation to turn to the public, irrespective of creed, for help.

Heretofore the Jews themselves have contributed many many millions which have been expended by the Joint Distribution Committee through relief agencies of all countries and without regard to the religious beliefs of those in need. This time the burden is too gigantic to be borne by Jews alone.

Millions Racked by War

A pen picture of actual conditions, typical of those in several countries, has been sent to the Campaign Committee by Dr. Boris H. Bogen of this city, now in Warsaw as head of the First Relief Unit, sent abroad by the Joint Distribution Committee. Dr. Bogen writes:

"Hunger, cold rags, desolation, disease, death - Six million human beings without food, shelter, clothing or medical treatment in what now are but the wastes of once fair lands ravaged by long years of war or blighted by its consequences.

"That, in a few words is the actual situation in all those countries that constituted what was known during the conflict as the Eastern theatre of the war.

'Words cannot adequately convey nor can any picture be drawn which can bring home to comfortable, affluent, happy New Yorkers surrounded by their family and friends, riding in their automobiles, enjoying every luxury, the utter, abject, hopeless misery confronting the population of these lands, a population almost equal to that of New York City itself. If you would try to visualize, to realize the situation, place yourself at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.

"The once teeming avenue is all but deserted. Gone are the gay equipages, their bejeweled occupants and liveried attendants. No longer are the sidewalks filled with a surging crowd of gayly dressed men and women. The street is all but still. Laughter and lively chatter are heard no more.

"Instead old men lean for support against the buildings. Mothers, with dying babes tugging vainly at their breasts sit along the curbs. The flower of what was once the young manhood and womanhood of the city is not in the picture, for they, by the thousands and tens of thousands, lie stricken in the overcroded hospitals, laid low by the breath of a pestilence.

Too Weak to Cry for Bread

"Little children with wasted frames and swollen bodies, cling to their mothers' rags, too weak to even cry for the bread that is not to be had.

"A bitter wind sweeps through the avenue from the north. A man - his tatters cannot be called clothes - his face blue and pinched, looks at you with unseeing eyes. You do not at first recognize him. It then dawns on you that you have seen that face before. It is the face of a friend, a man who but a few short months before was well-to-do, a banker, as prosperous, well fed and well dressed as you are now. He reaches out his arms toward you and falls at your feet. You stoop down to lift him up. He is dead!-Hunger did it.

"The scene is not exaggerated. Not overdrawn. It has its exact counter part in hundreds of cities, towns, and villages throughout Central and Eastern Europe at this very moment. The call comes from one human being to another, from those who have less than nothing to those who have much. It is the call of humanity.

"At no time during the war, in any land, not either in Belgium or Northern France, was their a situation more critical, a need more great, a demand for sacrifice and help more insistent than now comes from Eastern and Central Europe. Both the present and future existence of an entire people are at stake."

The campaign is receiving the active cooperation and support of archbishop Patrick J. Hayes of the Roman Catholic Diocese, Bishop Charles S. Burch of Episcopal diocese, Bishop Luther B. Wilson, President of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Miss Evangeline Booth, Commander of the Salvation Army.

Members of the executive committee include Cleveland H. Dodge, Treasurer of the Committee for the Relief in the Near East: President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University. George Gordon Battla, Otto T. Bannard, John C. Agar, the Rev. Dr. David J. Hurrell, Robert Grier Cooke, Paul G. Cravath, Francis D. Gallatin, Charles H. Sabin, President of the Guaranty Trust Company: former Attorney General George W. Wickersham, Judge Joseph F. Mulqueen, Judge William H. Wadhams and Alfred E. Marling.

The appeal is to be brought home forcibly to the people of New York in many ways. Today is Church Sunday, and there will be special sermons in churches of all denominations. The Rev. Dr. S. Parkes Cadman has prepared a model sermon for Protestant churches. Vicar General Joseph F. Mooney has written a message to the Roman Catholic churches, and Dr. Nathan Stern, rabbi of the West End Synagogue, prepared an appeal to be read to the Jewish congregations.

Children in the public schools, through the cooperation of the Board of Education, are to hear the story of the sufferings of the children in other lands. In theaters, moving-picture houses, clubs, hotels and restaurants. In short, wherever people are gathered together, the conditions they are asked to alleviate will be made clear to them.

It is estimated that not fewer than 10,000 active workers have been enlisted in the cause in the five boroughs. The organization for the campaign has been divided into these parts: The organization of the trades and industries, so that not a single business or profession in the city has been overlooked: the women's division, embracing 3,000 women workers under the leadership of Mrs. I. Unterberg. Mrs. Samuel C. Lamport and Mrs. S.S. Prince, which has divided the city into districts: the women organized the schools and churches and will make a direct appeal to the homes and to the neighborhood store-keepers; the third organization is is that of the boroughs, each borough, Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Richmond, having a borough organization.

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"The Sad Plight Of Jews" -NY Times 11/12/1919

Felix M. Warburg says that they were the worst sufferers in war

Felix M. Warburg, Chairman of the Join Distribution Committee of American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers, who returned several days ago from a trip to Europe for that organization, made public yesterday some of his findings.

"The successive blows of contending armies have all but broken the back of European Jewry," he said, "and have reduced to tragically unbelievable poverty, starvation and disease about 6,000,000 souls, or half the Jewish population of the earth.

"The Jewish people throughout Eastern Europe, by sheer accident of geography, have suffered more from the war than any other element of the population. The potential vitality and the capacity for self-help that remains to these people after the last five years is amazing to me."

"The people are deeply moved by the help given them by America, Mr. Warburg said, but it would be fatal to lessen the emergency aid now while millions are in tragic need. The $30,000,000 spent by the committee, he said, has fed and clothed more than a million children and has renewed the hope of five million parents and elders.

"For more than four years," he said, "The war on the Eastern front was fought largely in the congested centres of Jewish population. A straight north and south line from Riga, on the Baltic, to Salonika, on the Aegean Sea, will touch every important battle area of the Eastern war zone and every centre of Jewish population. After the cataclysm of the last few years it is too much to expect this Jewry to become self-sustaining in a short twelve-month."

Mr. Warburg is concerned over the program soon to be started for the discontinuance of of emergency relief. This plan, he said, calls for the formation of a $10,000,000 reconstruction corporation.

"This organization," he said, "would afford facilities for constructive aid to Jews abroad in the way of loans and credit at nominal interest rates. The value of this sort of assistance as a substitute for pure charity is apparent."

"Other relief projects recommended by Mr. Warburg include the establishment of an express company to forward money and packages from Jews in this country to relatives and friends abroad; the distribution of $120,000 worth of fuel in sections of Poland where destitution is greatest; the purchase of $300,000 worth of cloth in the bolt whereby unemployed workmen of Poland may get new material, and a plan to reunite those Jewish families that have relatives in the United States and those who have become separated abroad.

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"The Jewish War Sufferers" -NY Times 05/03/1920

The non-sectarian character of the drive on behalf of the Jewish war sufferers was emphasized in the appeal which marked its formal beginning yesterday. An accompanying letter was signed by Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army, Bishop Burch, Archbishop Hayes and many other representatives of Christian churches. A statement of the nature of the crisis was prepared by the Rev, Dr. S. Parkes Cadman and sent to every Protestant minister in the city to serve as a basis for an announcement from the pulpit. A similar statement for the Catholic churches was sent out by Mgr. Joseph P. Mooney.

Hitherto the Jews have financed their own charities, and with a liberality and skill that have been universally recognized, The present need transcends the means of any single sect and centers in a catastrophe which threatens the entire world. In Russia and the neighboring countries the Jews have been subject to a particularly malignant persecution which has not ended with the war. Without any national organization of their own, they have no central organization to appeal to. Living in segregated and generally impoverished communities, their misery is cumulative to an extent unknown among other sufferers. It is estimated that more than five million are are actually starving or on the verge of starvation, and a virulent typhus epidemic is raging among them and is already spreading among the neighboring populations. Both in the intensity and the extent of present suffering and in the menace it holds out for all Europe, the situation is one which directly concerns the public spirited of all races and creeds.

The quota of New York City is $7,500,000. On the American Joint distribution Committee are Professer Harry Fisher of Chicago, Professor Israel Friedlander, Max Pine, and Maurice Kass. In their work of distributing food and medical aid through the ghettos of Central Europe they are obliged to proceed without the protection of the government of the United States, which has no diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. Ample precautions will be taken, however, to make sure that the supplies will be used for the purposes in hand. It is a work of mercy that makes a peculiar appeal to both the hearts and the interests of a common humanity.

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"A Work of Mercy" -NY Times 04/21/1921

Hitherto the Jews have financed their own philanthropies, and with a liberality and skill which has been universally recognized. In behalf of those of their religion who are still suffering in the war-ridden districts of Europe they are now for the first time seeking oustide aid.

With the fate of Belgium and Serbia it was easy to sympathize. A nation's territory was invaded and its citizens were making a united stand. The Jews have no fatherland, no means of uniting in the common defense. Yet from the outset, wherever the call came, they fought, and fought bravely, for the allied cause. Meantime, in the widely scattered lands the folk at home suffered as perhaps those of no other people, and their suffering has has in many localities long outlasted the war.

In Europe there are today more than 5,000,000 Jews who are starving or on the verge of starvation, and many are in the grip of a virulent typhus epidemic. An appeal has been issued throughout the world. The quota of New York City is $7,500,000. The drive will occupy the week of May 2-9, and will be based wholly upon the principle of sympathy and a common humanity.

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"Germans let Jews Die" -NY Times 08/10/1917

Women and Children in Warsaw Starving to Death

Through the intelligence Department of the Mayor's Committee on National Defense, the Provisional Zionist Committee last night made public a letter describing the conditions among Jews in Warsaw under German rule. The name of the writer of the letter is not divulged for obvious reasons. The veracity and authenticity of the letter is vouched for by the Zionist Committee, of which Dr. Stephen S. Wise is Chairman, and Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis honorary chairman. The letter says, in part:

"Death from starvation is a real fact. It is witnessed here all over, in every street, at every step, in every house. Jewish mothers, mothers of mercy, feel happy to see their nursing babies die; at least they are through with their suffering.

"Our wealthiest people cut off their daughters' hair and sell it to be able to buy the indispensible things like bread for their dying children. Four and five-year old children have become so weak that they must be carried in the arms like babies. Fathers should they return from the battlefield will meet of their five and six children they kissed good-by when they left for the war two or probably one or more.

"How long yet will this suffering last? From where will our help come? A committee has been sent to Switzerland to maintain our soup kitchens, but I doubt the success of the mission. Help us, help us. Awaken, America. This is our only hope. Should America not aid us we will be lost."

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"1,500,000 RUSSIAN JEWS REPORTED STARVING" -NY Times

11/01/1915

British Coreligionists are Exhorted to Raise $5,000,000 to succor them.

London, Monday, Nov. 1. - At a meeting held here yesterday in behalf of the fund for the relief of Jewish victims of the war in Russia it was announced that 1,500,000 Russian Jews were starving.

Leopold de Rothschild presided, and Lord Swaythling, Chief Rabbi Hertz, Israel Zangwill, and other prominent Jews were present.

Rabbi Hertz described the task before those raising the fund as vast and urgent. The response to the appeal for funds from the British Jews, he said, was not nearly adequate, mainly owing to their ignorance of the real state of affairs. For nearly a year there had been a sinister silence in the general press, broken only occasionally by a sneer at the Jews on the part of the preachers of race hatred and apologists for reaction. The Jews, he added, were face to face with a tragedy unparalleled in the history of Jewish agony.

The Petrograd authoritiesm Rabbi Hertz concluded, expected a million pounds ($5,000,000) from the British Jews, and only $300,000 had been raised. He said the present call was for sacrifice and and self-taxation.

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Jews Indifference to War Aid Rebuked

Louis Marshall Denounces Apathy Toward Suffering of Co-Religionists

MILLIONS IN DIRE DISTRESS

Jacob H. Schiff, Meyer London, and Dr. Enelow Plead with the Rich to Give

Louis Marshall, speaking at a meeting in Temple Emmanu-El last night, deplore what he termed the failure of the Jews of America, particularly of New York, to realize the terrible calamity that has overtaken the millions of Jews whose homes are in the Eastern Theatre of the European war.

The meeting was held in the interest of the American Jewish Relief committee, of which committee Mr. Marshall is President. Besides Mr. Marshall, congressman-elect Meyer London, and the Rev. Dr. H. G. Enelow of Temple Emmanu- El spoke. Like Mr. Marshall, each deplored the fact that the Jews of America have not given the assistance they should to their suffering co-religionists. Further emphasis on the same subject was contained in a letter from Jacob H. Schiff, read by Mr. Marshall.

"It is discouraging," said Mr. Marshall, "to those who have devoted so much time and energy to this work that that there has been so small a response from Jews in New York, a city which is so great a Jewish centre. It seems to me that the people are so dazed by the European cataclysm that they are unable to realize that it is their duty to aid those who are suffering through the calamity.

In the world today there about 13,000,000 Jews, of whom more than 6,000,000 are in the very heart of the war zone; Jews whose lives are at stake and who today are subjected to every manner of suffering and sorrow, and the great American Jewish community is not doing its duty toward these sufferers. In the United States there are between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 Jews, nearly all able to do something and yet, after months of work, we have not raised more than $300,000. In New York there more than 1,000,000 Jews, some of them persons of great affluence, but many of them seem to think if they give a few hundred dollars they have done their duty.

We hear of pogroms in Russia, in Poland, in Galicia, and yet we sit indifferent. In Palestine starvation stalks through the land. Shall we selfishly enjoy ourselves and say we would like to, but cannot help because of hard times and think we are doing our duty? No. The time has come for every man woman and child to do his duty, and we must fulfill that duty quickly or it may be too late in hundreds of thousands of cases."

At this point Mr. Marshall read Mr. Schiff's letter. Mr. Schiff said his own interest in the work was intense, and that it should appeal to every Jew. Private reports he has received, Mr. Schiff said, showed conditions in Russia, Palestine Poland, and Galicia the frightful nature of which could not be pictured.

He said that the Emmanu-El congregation is the largest and wealthiest in the United States and hoped that its members would give in proportion to their means. He further suggested a committee to canvas the congregation for a Temple Emmanu-El fund, and said he would contribute. Mr. Marshall put the suggestion in the form of a motion which was unanimously carried. Mr. Marshall will name the committee soon.

Mr. London said this was the "worst period in Jewish history," and that the saving of millions of Jewish people depended on the generosity of more fortunate Jews of the United States.

Dr. Enelow emphasized what Mr. Marshall had said and, added that never before were the Jews of this country confronted with so great a duty.