Central Committee for the Relief of Jews Suffering Through the War

The Central Relief Committee (CRC) was founded in October 1914 by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations. Its immediate goal was to provide help to Jews in Europe and Palestine, in danger because of the First World War. The CRC was just one of several other similar organisations, cooperating under the auspices of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. After WWI, the focus of the CRC shifted to cultural work, in order to help the Jewish communities in Europe safeguard their religious and cultural identity – see for instance its support for Talmud Torahs, Jewish high schools and yeshivot. The CRC provided relief to rabbis, students and their families who found refuge in Lithuania after the invasion of Poland (1939). During the Second World War, the CRC once again focused primarily on emergency relief. The organisation would also heavily support schools in Palestine. After the war the CRC supplied the devastated Jewish communities in Europe with necessary religious materials such as books, tefillin and Torah scrolls. In decline since the end of the 1940s, the CRC permanently ceased functioning in 1950.