Records of the Jewish Relief Committee (Fond 505, Opis 1)

This collection includes bylaws, minutes of the meetings of the Executive Committee and its subcommittees, reports and statistical information, correspondence with Polish government offices and agencies, Jewish organizations (Joint, Jewish Colonization Society, Central offices of the Jewish communities in Warsaw), commercial shipping companies regarding transportation for immigrants leaving for Argentina, Northern America and Africa, as well as financial reports of the charitable (Gmilat Hesed) and coop organizations. The third and largest part of this collection consists of the records of the local branches of the committee (the committee had 14 local offices) related to the relief activities in Eastern Galicia, their correspondence files and various financial and statistical reports (organized in alphabetical order of localities). The Jewish Relief Committee (JRC) was established to provide immediate assistance to the victims of the Jewish pogroms in Lwów and the Eastern Galicia region during the political unrest of November 1918. Later, in the early 1920s, the Relief Committee widened its activities by providing general relief and assistance to the entire Jewish population of the region. The Committee's activities included financial, legal and housing assistance for poor and low-income members of the Jewish community as well as assistance in organizing soup kitchens, orphanages and in conducting emigration. In the late 1920s, the Relief Committee focused much of its efforts towards economic rehabilitation of the impoverished Jewish communities in Eastern Galicia by providing credits to small Jewish businesses and by organizing vocational and agricultural training.