Soon after Baron de Hirsch embarked on his great scheme, experience showed that his dream of virtually emptying Russia of Its Jewish population was not a practical possibility. To bring much-needed help to those who remained, several measures were adopted.
Assistance
to Jewish Education and Vocational Training
ICA established a network of trade schools to train qualified craftsmen. By 1914, there were 48 of these schools in Russia and Poland, with 3,600 pupils. A scholarship scheme for apprentices in private workshops; technical courses to improve the skills of adults; assistance to cooperative workshops; maintenance of farm schools; all these activities, together with the regular trade schools, constituted a vast system of vocational training, financed by ICA. In addition, 98 primary schools were opened and maintained with ICA's support, serving more than 10,000 children.
Assistance
to Jewish Agricultural Settlements
From the beginning of
the 19th century, there had existed in the Ukraine a number of Jewish
agricultural colonies. Their inhabitants lived, however, in a state of extreme
poverty, barely able to extract a meager living from their impoverished soil. In
1897, these colonies had a population of more than 63,000. ICA undertook the
great task of providing financial and agricultural resources for their
rehabilitation.
Loan Banks
In
the towns and villages, artisans and small tradesmen had difficulty in obtaining
credit at a low interest rate. To fill this need, ICA pioneered a network of
cooperative loan and savings banks, thus starting a movement which became a
feature of supreme importance in the life of the poorer elements of Eastern
European Jewry. At the outbreak of World War I, there existed on Russian
territory 680 such institutions, organized and financed by ICA, with 450,000
members.
Immigration
More than one million persons left Russia during the great wave of Jewish emigration at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Committees were established by ICA in the main centers of Jewish population and hundreds of information offices were opened in small towns and villages. Assistance afforded to the emigrants included information on the countries of destination, help in obtaining documents and reception at transit centers and ports of destination. World War I put an end to most of these ventures. As soon as the War was over, ICA renewed its efforts. Its loan banks developed quickly when the JDC began to collaborate with ICA, and the network covered now 12 different countries. This work came to an end only with the upheaval of World War II. Help to Jewish farmers, of whom there were still a considerable number in Poland, Lithuania and Rumania, also continued on a large scale after World War I. In Soviet Russia Itself, ICA resumed its aid to the Jewish agricultural settlements, and in 1926, signed an agreement with the Soviet government providing for agricultural settlements in the Ukraine of Jews from the tradesman class who had lost their means of livelihood as a result of the Revolution. By 1930, more than 2,500 such families had been settled.