2 - The Hungry

Summary

After the armistice on the Western Front in 1918, the United States provided major food aid programs across Central and Eastern Europe. The American Relief Administration and the American Red Cross rushed into these fragile new nation-states where violence was ongoing with programs aimed largely at children. The JDC jumped aboard other American emergency relief efforts, which helped it reach Poland and later Russia, where Jews were in greatest need. Deployed around Europe, American Jews distributed emergency food relief, medicines, sanitary supplies, and clothing during harsh winters. Much like American postwar diplomacy carried out by the ARA and through private loans with tacit and direct support from the US government, Jewish “diplomacy” was carried out by the JDC, a private humanitarian association. American Jews led the way for American humanitarians of all kinds: as food remitters and as the first American organization in Soviet Russia. American Jewish relief paradoxically appeared as a peripheral humanitarian undertaking and as a central partner in the main humanitarian projects of the day.