In 1923 the World ORT Union conceived a special programme, the aim of which was to assist in every way those individuals in Western Europe and the USA who wished to send, instead of financial support, machines and tools to their relatives in the USSR. The idea of such ‘constructive help for relatives’ was suggested by D. Lvovich, and quickly gained support in the ORT Central Board. S. Frankfurt, chairman of the ORT Union’s purchasing committee, although of the opinion that it was ‘pure illusion to imagine that a credit institute could be set up in Europe to guarantee orders from relatives’, nevertheless acknowledged this similar idea of Lvovich’s as having ‘historic merit’, and noted that it was ‘simply a matter of setting this good idea on the rails and founding the ORT Credit Corporation in America’. In this connection L. Bramson, who had recently returned from the USA, interviewed in Paris by a correspondent of the Russian-language local newspaper Yevreiskaya Tribuna (Jewish Tribune), said: ‘The idea of equipping the Jews in Russia for productive work there is a very popular one in America. Our pointing out of the necessity for professional training, of the need for people who have passed through a vocational school rather than people who live “from the wind” and “from the air”, is attracting particular notice.’

As a result of these proposals the World ORT Union established a ‘Department of Constructive Help for Relatives’, which took on itself the task of solving the many problems bound up with the provision and shipping of necessary technical equipment. A letter has been preserved, with the signature of D. Lvovich, sent by the American section to the ORT headquarters in Berlin, which states that in 1928 alone ‘more than 900 applications were received from American relatives wishing to send machines to the USSR’.

With the aim of attracting the attention of the wider Jewish community in the USA to the difficult situation of the disenfranchised Jews in the USSR, ORT, together with Agro-Joint, organised the so-called ‘People’s Tool Campaign for the Declassed Jews in Russia’, which collected donations for the supply of machines and tools for disenfranchised Soviet Jews. An open letter put out by the Chairman of this organisation B. Vladeck, said: ‘There are in Russia today over a million declassed Jews. These people are deprived of all means of existence: neither are they allowed to enjoy any privileges granted to peasants, workers or employees; their children will not be taken into schools; hospitals are closed to them; they are not allowed to purchase their food in cooperative stores where the prices are comparatively reasonable⁶ — they are practically outcasts and find themselves in the most dire distress.

The only way to save them is to make it possible for them to become producers. Any kind of machine or any set of tools will give them the means to engage in industry and become self-supporting. …

We must save them and we have the means and the will — only we must not delay.’

The ‘active working help’ of the American Jews is shown to be even more timely when one bears in mind that, at the end of 1929, under pressure from Evsektsia, the ORT societies of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia adopted new regulations that prohibited them from accepting disenfranchised persons as members.

As Lvovich remembered: ‘This ORT “action to aid relatives” by supplying machines to the declassed Jews of Soviet Russia … went ahead with great success and enjoyed great support among the Jews of Soviet Russia, the United States and other states’. Such substantial and well-organised help for religious Jews was highly valued by the Lubavich rabbi I.-I. Shneerson, the head of the Khabad movement.⁷

Indeed, in the period 1926 to 1930, as a result of a whole series of fund-raising campaigns in the USA and Western Europe, the World ORT Union collected 4.7 million roubles for the support of Soviet Jews, of which the amount used to provide equipment to Jewish artisans (working either individually or as members of a collective) was 3,225,000 roubles. This money went to purchase 2,946 items of machinery for sewing, shoe-making, hat-making, and the manufacture of wooden articles, which were spread over 152 cities, 163 towns and 16 villages of the Soviet Union; in 132 places of settlement 5,500 work-benches, which had stood idle for years for want of spare parts, were repaired; about 700 productive co-operatives and associations were granted credit for modification and extension of their workshops. In addition the supply of raw materials from abroad was arranged where necessary for Jewish co-operative workshops and studios.

Thanks to this ‘action for constructive help from relatives’, as many as 5,000 imported machines were given directly to the disenfranchised, as a result of which about 4,000 declassed households received the opportunity of joining a co-operative and becoming productive elements in the economy of the USSR and thus of regaining their citizens’ rights.