Organization of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Creator(s)
- S. Arons (Supervisor)
- Morris C. Troper (Supplementary Photography)
- Lem Kennedy (Supervisor)
- General Business Films, Inc. (Producer)
- National Center for Jewish Film
Scope and Content
Includes title of the film and intertitles. From opening credits of the film (Foreword): "American Jews at the outbreak of the World War in 1914, organized the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to aid the Jewish masses overseas suffering from war, pogroms, famine and pestilence. The following episodes depict the activities in Russia only." Brief shots of Felix Warburg and Julius Rosenwald, to whose memory the film is dedicated. Stills of other JDC officials and footage of the members of the JDC relief unit sailing for Russia. Dr. Rosen, organizer of Agro-Joint. Scenes of the terribly poor conditions the mission found in Russia. Ragged, dirty people (especially children), muddy streets and ramshackle houses. Shelters used by war refugees. Shots of the JDC headquarters in Moscow. Children eating food provided by the Joint. Orphans who have been housed an clothed by the JDC. Children at work in trade schools: sewing, carpentry, shoemaking. Home for the aged and poor. Agro-Joint officers Rosen, Grower, Lubarsky and Troper in Moscow. Views of land in southern Russia where Jews were settled through a program of the Agro-Joint and the Soviet government. Colonists in temporary homes. Settlers make bricks and dig a well. First farming activities, aided by agricultural instruction. Women and men plant seeds, till soil, harvest and thresh grain. Lumber provided by the government for the colonists; homebuilding.
Note(s)
See Film IDs 522 and 2309 for complete copies of this film. See Film ID 400 for Morris Troper's film about his 1936 trip to the Russian colonies in the Crimea. Some of those scenes appear in "Founding a New Life."
Subjects
- ORPHANS
- DESTITUTION
- SHTETLS
- EATING
- JDC (JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE)
- JEWS
- POVERTY
- FARMERS/FARMING
- SEWING
- PEASANTS
Places
- Moscow, Soviet Union
- , Soviet Union
- , Crimea
- , Ukraine
Genre
- Film
- Propaganda.