[7] World Jewish Relief was originally called the Central British Fund for German Jewry (CBF) and was founded in 1933.
[10][failed verification] Laski and Montefiore were co-chairmen of the Joint Foreign Committee, which pooled the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association's resources.
[14][15] Weizmann would later convince Harry Truman's administration to abandon its trusteeship plan for Palestine paving the way for America's recognition of Israel,[16] and would eventually become its first president.
[17][2] Another leading member, Sir Osmond d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, felt that through the CBF, 'Jews of every shade of belief and political thought have united in their efforts to assist German Jewry'.
[2] Furthermore, it funded institutions such as Hebrew University, the Technion, and the Maccabi World Union which provided immigrants with the skills and experience needed to become functional members of Palestine's nascent Jewish population.
[21] In 1936, Robert Waley Cohen and the members of the Women's Appeal Committee were alarmed by the placement of Youth Aliyah emigrants into non-Jewish or atheist communities in Palestine.
[23] A notable group of German Jewish intellectuals, who were committed Zionists and had immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s, played a crucial role in supporting the incoming refugee scholars and professionals after 1933.
Furthermore, the CBF allocated funds to various organisations, including the Women's International Zionist Organization, the Palestine Corporation, and the World Maccabi Union.
The remaining funds were largely directed towards projects aimed at aiding refugees in Palestine and developing the Jewish infrastructure in the region.
[26] Osmond d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, a prominent figure in the CBF, supported the organisation's focus on Palestine as the primary destination for German-Jewish refugees.
In a meeting at the Henry Street Settlement in New York, d'Avigdor-Goldsmid emphasised the practical benefits of directing funds to Palestine for the resettlement and reconstruction of the lives of refugees, based on the outcomes observed rather than theoretical approaches.
The two programmes placed more than 200 refugees at universities, including Ernst Chain, who was part of a research team led by Howard Florey that developed Alexander Fleming's Nobel Prize-winning work on penicillin.
The Council for German Jewry, represented by Norman Bentwich, attended the Évian Conference in France to push world leaders for less restrictive immigration policies.
[30] In August 1945 the organisation flew three hundred and one child concentration camp survivors to the United Kingdom's Lake District.
Additionally, it set up unused summer camps on the south coast of England to house refugees waiting for homes, and coordinated with Dutch organisations to transport children from Germany to the UK.
The CBF's investments in land purchases, housing construction, and training programmes, along with grants to institutions like the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion in Haifa, played a pivotal role in building the Jewish infrastructure in Israel.