ABSTRACT
This chapter is an analysis of what the author calls an ecosystem of humanitarian aid designed for Jews placed in refugee camps in Austria-Hungary during the First World War. This entailed the intertwining of state policies of assistance, the establishment and rise of philanthropic Jewish organizations (i.e., Israelitische Allianz zu Wien, Baron Hirsch Stiftung), and the mobilization of transnational actors, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The chapter traces the genesis and dimensions of this ecosystem of humanitarian aid. More significantly, it highlights the arguably paradoxical ways assistance for Jewish refugees functioned within and, at times, reinforced the containment and segregation that encampment entailed in wartime Austria-Hungary.
