In August 1914, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., then U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, cabled Jacob Schiff, the New York philanthropist, asking for $50,000 to help sustain the Jews of Palestine (then under Turkish rule) who were caught in the agony of World War I. The money was raised within a month, and, in late November, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (more commonly known as JDC or the Joint) was established to channel funds being raised to aid Jews both in Europe and Palestine by the American Jewish Relief Committee and the (Orthodox) Central Committee for the Relief of Jews. The People's Relief Committee joined this effort early in 1915, thus reinforcing JDC's early and enduring role as a cementing force in North American Jewish communal life.

Relief officials at a milk distribution center for children in Iasi, Romani, circa 1921.
Photo: JDC Archives