This introduction opens with a story about a Jewish relief worker writing home. The reader is then introduced to the vast suffering of Jews in the Great War. Together, the war experience, American ascendancy, the Balfour Declaration, the Russian Revolution, the new states of East Central Europe, and new migration restrictions completely transformed Jewish life across Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The chapter then provides a European, American, and Jewish genealogy for the emergence of American Jewish humanitarianism prompted by the war. It summarizes the narrative arc of the book, chapter by chapter, from relief to the Eastern war zones during American neutrality, to postwar emergency relief with other American organizations, to the development of several thematic forms of long-term relief across East Central Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Several characteristics of international Jewish humanitarianism in this era are explained, such as its grounding in American pluralism, welfare state Progressivism, and diaspora connections. This history is both a Jewish intervention into the field of humanitarianism history and a rethinking of the master narrative of humanitarianism via the Jews.

By 1921, peace was returning to Europe and the League of Nations was formed in Geneva. The catastrophe seemed to have passed, and the Joint Distribution Committee was ready to rehabilitate Europe’s Jews before making a quick exit. That same year, however, would bring new crises, pushing Jewish security into the ever-receding distance. American Jews could not ignore their duty to help their still-suffering Jewish kin; the international Jewish humanitarian effort became a permanent fixture of interwar Jewish life. Hias, the JDC, and a loose network of European organizations were invested in the cause of refugee relief. With Fridtjof Nansen at the center of the intergovernmental interwar refugee regime, and the United States closing its borders in an antisemitic campaign, Jewish organizations argued over definitions of refugees and other migrants and devised solutions accordingly. Ultimately, the refugee crisis that had its origins in mass expulsions along the Eastern Front could not be solved and remained a stubborn human crisis across Europe that persisted into the 1930s.

As the 1950s progressed, emigration acquired a new international dimension, affecting Israel’s relations with other countries and harming the ability of Israelis to travel freely in Europe.

From 1951 to 1953, emigration from Israel amounted to more than double the number in the preceding three years. Many of the emigrants intended to go to Canada, but due to Canadian procedures, many migrants got stranded in Europe en route from Israel to Canada. The complications reached their apogee in the Foehrenwald DP camp in Bavaria, which was closed only in 1957 and thus became a magnet for Israeli remigrants seeking sanctuary from the troubles they had encountered in Europe. The illicit movement into Foehrenwald was an impediment to the German efforts to close the camp and terminate the Jewish refugee problem in Germany. It also led to the ironic situation whereby Israeli remigrants were threatened with deportation from Germany to Israel. Their status developed into a diplomatic issue between the Israeli and West German governments. Other European governments also imposed restrictions on immigration from Israel.

Israeli emigration now drew negative international attention from government officials, relief officers, and Jewish community leaders, tuning it into a source of political embarrassment for Israel.