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Refugees And Relief: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee And European Jews In Cuba And Shanghai 1938-1943, Zhava Litvac Glaser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Traditionally, pre-modern Jewish communities sensed an obligation to bind together to provide aid to Jews who found themselves in catastrophic situations; however, with the advent of modernity and the dissolution of Jewish communal authority, the fragmentation of Jewish communities, and the unprecedented stresses of the Holocaust, communal dynamics grew far more complex. The Jews of Cuba and Shanghai were two small and relatively remote communities overwhelmed by Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. At their request, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee stepped in and provided both the funding and leadership that both of these locations so desperately needed.

The Jewish …