THE END OF 1947 and the beginning of 1948 marked an important turning point in the post-war history of the Jewish communities of western Europe. Over two years had passed since the cessation of hostilities. The pressing problems of hunger, sickness, and lack of shelter that had defined the daily life of Jews in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands had become far less urgent. In the latter two countries, repatriation and declining birth rates among survivors and refugees had resulted in a further loss of population, thus easing the burden on local relief agencies. Increased agricultural and industrial production meant that aid organizations also had access to cheaper food and materials. By the end of 1947 the great migration of Jews from Poland and the American zone in Germany to western Europe that had begun a year earlier had slowed considerably.

Though the JDC continued to provide physical relief to thousands of orphans, the elderly, and the chronically ill in western Europe well into the 1950s, by early 1948 it was directing much of its local activity towards ensuring the long-range stability of communities. In attempting to ensure greater autonomy and self-sufficiency within local populations, the JDC slowly replaced its staff of on-site relief workers servicing the neediest members of each community with a small group of administrative directors, social workers, educators, and fundraisers. Their role was to create a cadre of professionals within each community and to generate local financial support. The new direction was accompanied by a noticeable decline in aid. Between 1947 and 1948 the JDC's allocation of funds for material assistance to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands decreased by nearly 30 per cent. A year later, funding had declined by another 10 per cent.

Plans for the post-war reconstruction of European Jewish communal life developed by the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress in the first months of the war stressed the central role of American Jewry. The contribution of the Jews of the United States would not be solely financial, nor would their support represent simply the obligation that Jews living across the Atlantic felt towards the communities into which many of their parents and grandparents had been born.