The business reports of the
Aid
Organization of German Jews
were published annually since 1902 and documented in great detail the emigration trends
among
eastern
European and especially Russian and Galician Jews. In the
appendix to the sixth business report presented here, the
Aid Organization gives an overview of Jewish
emigration from eastern Europe for the calendar year 1907 and illustrates the
association’s extensive
support for Jewish emigrants by means of statistics, tables, and reports.
Between 1901 and 1918, the
Aid Organization became the leading organizer of
Jewish emigration from
eastern European and, as part of the network of Jewish aid
organizations cooperating internationally, primarily took charge of Jewish
emigrants’ transit through
Germany. In addition to a description of the activities of its
Berlin
headquarters and the
Berlin-based
Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration
founded in 1904 (pp. 103-105; p. 116f.), there are sections in the
appendix to the business report dedicated to the
Aid Organization’s Hamburg (pp. 113-115)
and
Bremen (p.
115f.) chapters, which clearly emphasizes their importance within the
association’s structure. The
local
Hamburg
chapter was headed by Paul Simon Laskar (1857-1926), who had been a
member of the
Aid
Organization’s executive
committee since 1901. As one of the
largest North Sea ports,
Hamburg was an important transit point for Jewish emigrants
from
eastern
Europe on their way to the
United
States.
Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland [Aid Organization of German Jews], from Annual Report, 1907 [Excerpt] (translated by Insa Kummer), edited in: Key Documents of German-Jewish History,
<https://dx.doi.org/10.23691/jgo:source-155.en.v1> [October 11, 2024].