Jewish nurses’ training school established by the Joint

Training schools for nurses, like this one in Vilna, readied medical professionals to assist in the revival of Jewish healthcare facilities. Even after the destruction and dislocation of World War I came to an end, the situation for Jews in Eastern Europe remained bleak. Civil war in Russia and the Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920 caused further hardship; for Jews, there was additional danger from pogroms. Famine and disease were widespread and the economy lay in ruins. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (“the Joint”), a humanitarian relief organization, developed an array of medical and sanitary programs to safeguard Jewish health in the interwar period. By 1921, the JDC moved strategically from an era of emergency relief to one defined by reconstruction.