100 years ago in Spokane: Speaker pleads for help for Jewish refugees in Europe

From our archives, 100 years ago

Dr. B. Kornblith, Seattle district secretary of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, was in Spokane to plead for help for Jews in war-torn Europe.

In what would prove to be prophetic words, Kornblith said, “No matter who wins the war, the Jew will be the loser.”

“No painter, no artist, no poet and no writer will ever be able to describe the misery and horrible conditions of the Jewish people in the war zone today,” Kornblith told a crowd at Spokane’s Temple Emanu-El. “… Our people there are actually dying of starvation, slowly and gradually. Babies are given wet handkerchiefs to chew on when they cry for milk.”

He said conditions were particularly bad in Poland and Galicia, which had been alternately in the hands of the Germans and the Russians.

“Their homes in the old country have been destroyed; they must start life over again and they are looking to this country as the land of promise,” he said.

Kornblith’s society was actively helping Jewish refugees in Siberian camps immigrate to Seattle. He said 1,300 Jewish refugees had landed in Seattle in the last eight months. The Seattle branch had served 80,000 meals and had found jobs for “every one of them.”

A number were placed in the apple orchards at Wenatchee, and he said they are not only making good, but the apple growers are asking the society to send more of them.

A Spokane collection netted $850 in donations, and further pledges were made.

Kornblith closed by saying that “we in this country have no idea how happy we are, and how unhappy they are.”