Dayton , Ohio
Where did Laura Margolis Jarblum live from 1907 to 1908?
Laura Margolis Jarblum Laura Margolis Jarblum ( 1903-1997 ) was the first female overseas representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ( JDC ) and the JDCs first female Country Director . Life . Laura Leah Margolis was born October 19 , 1903 in Constantinople ( now Istanbul ) . Her father , Herman Margolis , was a halutz and agronomist and her mother Cecilia was the daughter of Dr . Solomon Schwartz , the personal physician to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire . Herman Margolis moved to Dayton , Ohio in 1907 and Cecilia , Margolis and her younger brother , Otto , joined him in 1908 , eventually settling in Cleveland , Ohio . Margolis received her Bachelor of Science from Ohio State University in 1926 and a professional degree in social work from the School of Applied Social Sciences at Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1927 . In the 1930s , Margolis worked for various Jewish social service organizations , including the Jewish Social Services in Cleveland , Jewish Social Service Association in New York City and the Jewish Welfare Society in Buffalo , NY . Wartime career with the Joint Distribution Committee . In January 1939 , Margolis became the first female field agent of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee when Cecilia Razovsky of the National Refugee Service , an agency associated with the JDC , hired her to go to Cuba . In Cuba , she worked closely with American consular officials to help the approximately 5,000 refugees who had arrived from Europe , mostly Germany and Austria . When the MS St . Louis with its 900 passengers was approaching Havana harbor in May 1939 , Margolis tried to find a port of entry in either Cuba , the United States or Canada , but the ship was forced to return to Europe . In light of Margolis’ overall success in Cuba , officials from the United States State Department requested that the JDC send her to Shanghai in May 1941 in order to assist United States consular officials . Of the approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria then in Shanghai , around 8,000 refugees received at least one meal each day from JDC soup kitchens . In the months before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese occupation of Shanghai , Margolis modernized the soup kitchens , making them more efficient and better able to serve the refugee community . Margolis was interned as an enemy alien by the Japanese from February 1943 through September 1943 , when she was released as part of a prisoner exchange . Even during her internment , she ensured that the soup kitchens remained open . Margolis returned to the United States in December 1943 , where she found out for the first time about the extent of the extermination of the Jews in Europe and the existence of the concentration camps . She insisted that she be sent to Europe , although JDC officials were hesitant to send a woman into an active war zone . She arrived in Lisbon in March 1944 and then traveled to Spain , where she was active in arranging a home for children smuggled over the Pyrenees Mountains from France . She then traveled to Sweden , where she organized sending relief supplies from Stockholm to Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps . She traveled to liberated Belgium in January 1945 , where she was the JDC representative in Belgium and where she first encountered concentration camp survivors returning from Germany and Eastern Europe . She worked with survivors , childrens homes , homes for the aged , and aided Palestine Jewish Brigade members helping survivors travel through Belgium to Palestine . She also traveled to the Netherlands to aid the Dutch Jewish community , entering Amsterdam twenty-four hours after the Germans had left . She was decorated by the Belgian government for her work . Post-war career . Margolis was sent to France in 1946 as the JDCs first female Country Director , where she helped rebuild the French Jewish community , including setting up children’s homes , establishing vocational training programs , providing aid for the sick and elderly , and aided people working on illegal immigration to Palestine . In 1950 , Margolis married Zionist leader Marc Jarblum ( 1887–1972 ) . Jarblum was the editor of two Poale Zion Yiddish newspapers in Paris and was also active in the Resistance during World War II . The Jarblums immigrated to Israel in 1953 where Margolis served as the Director of Social Services for Malben , an organization set up in 1949 by the JDC as a system of services and organizations to care for elderly , chronically ill and handicapped immigrants to Israel . At the end of 1955 she was drafted by the Jewish Agency to work with new immigrants in the new development towns , where she remained until 1958 , when she returned to Malben as Director for Special Projects , working with handicapped children and adults . Marc Jarblum died in 1972 . Laura Margolis remained at Malben until 1974 , when she retired , after which she returned to the United States . Laura Margolis Jarblum died on September 9 , 1997 at the home of her nephew , James A . Margolis , in Brookline , Massachusetts at the age of 93 . External links . - JDC New York Office Records , 1933-1944 at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee , New York Archives - JDC New York Office Records , 1945-1954 at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee , New York Archives - JDC Geneva Office Records , 1945-1954 at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee , Jerusalem Archives