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3 unusual facts about American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee


American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

The thawing of the Cold War and subsequent break up of the Soviet Union yielded a formal invitation from Mikhail Gorbachev for JDC’s return to the region in 1989; 50 years after Joseph Stalin brutally expelled the organization, killing several JDC members in the process.

The episode was dramatized in the 1975 feature film, Voyage of the Damned.

United Service for New Americans

In 1954 the national organization merged with the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and the migration services of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in forming the United HIAS Service, while the NYANA remained an independent organization.


Imre Hercz

After being hospitalized in Amberg for five and a half years, he recovered and emigrated to Norway in 1952 as one of several Jewish Holocaust-survivors of lesser health accepted to Norway with substantial grants from Joint to the Norwegian government.

Jonah Wise

In January 1939, Rabbi Wise and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee joined with Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of the United Palestine Appeal and William Rosenwald of the National Coordinating Committee Fund, to form the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs.

SS Navemar

In 1941, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (known as "The Joint") were desperate to rescue Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia escaping Nazi persecution.

William Rosenwald

In January 1939, Rosenwald's National Coordinating Committee Fund joined with Rabbi Jonah Wise of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of the United Palestine Appeal, to form the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees and Overseas Needs.


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