Waging relief: the politics and logistics of American Jewish war relief in Europe and the Near East (1914–1918)

Abstract

This article examines the work of private American Jewish associations during the First World War. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in particular created complex, dynamic international networks in order to find information about suffering Jews on both sides of the Eastern Front and in Palestine and to channel funds for their relief during the war. It forged alliances with officials in the US State Department, foreign governments, Jewish organizations operating in the war zones, and relied on familial banking ties and their own commissioners who travelled throughout the war-ravaged regions to render humanitarian assistance. This article demonstrates the complexity of maintaining these aid networks and also the challenges American Jewish relief organizations encountered while attempting to maintain multi-governmental sanction for their aid services in the volatile sphere of wartime diplomacy.