The second partition of
Poland in 1793 had resulted in a sharp increase in the number of Jews in Russia, so that in 1794 Empress
Catherine the Great decreed that the majority of them would henceforth be restricted to living and working in the
Pale of Settlement. The Jews were not allowed to leave the Pale or own land outside it. They were removed from their homes and villages and once resettled, barred from all but a handful of professions. The crowded conditions and legal barriers to self-sufficiency led to deepening poverty for the Pale's four million inhabitants. After the reforms of
Tsar Alexander II in the 1860s, the situation improved for some Jews but those in the Pale remained trapped by economic hardship and dismal conditions. In 1880,
Samuel Polyakov,
Horace de Gunzburg and
Nikolai Bakst petitioned
Tsar Alexander II for permission to start an assistance fund which would improve the lives of the millions of Russian Jews then living in poverty. The fund would provide education and training in practical occupations like handicrafts and agricultural skills and would help people to help themselves. Permission was granted and the appeal was sent out, signed by Poliakov and de Gunzburg as well as Abram Zak, Leon Rosenthal and Meer Fridland, leading to the establishment of the Society for Trades and Agricultural Labor among the Jews in Russia. In its first 25 years, ORT raised educational standards and provided training to 25,000 Jews across the
Russian Empire. People trained as artisans in glass-blowing, learned sewing and gardening, trained as mechanics, cabinetmakers, and furniture designers The first programs created by ORT were dictated by the demands of the market. In 1909, the industrialization in Russia created a need for artisans, so ORT developed courses for electricians in
Vilna where electric streetcars were being introduced. They offered automotive courses in
St. Petersburg when the automobile began taking root there in 1910. ORT's training programs varied to meet the needs of Jews depending on where they lived and what the gaps in the workforce were. That flexibility and diversity meant that ORT became an established educational leader in many fields within only its first few decades of existence. After World War I, ORT opened agricultural schools to provide tools and training for agricultural enterprises. ORT headquarters moved to
Berlin in 1921, after the Bolshevik Revolution. Initially, the Berlin office dealt mainly with fundraising and support for Jewish education in other countries where the Jews were less well-off. When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, Jewish children were expelled from German schools. ORT sought to open a school in Berlin but encountered difficulties due to the ban on selling property to Jews. Using its international ties, the British branch of ORT purchased a school building and dormitory in the
Moabit quarter of Berlin. It received authorization to open in April 1937 after promising that all graduates would leave the country upon graduation. Later ORT headquarters moved to
France and finally to
Geneva. Local groups such as
American ORT and Women's American ORT, ORT Canada and British ORT were formed to support the growing network of programs. In 1938, Stalinist purges forced the closure of ORT programs in the
Soviet Union. During World War II, ORT continued to serve Jewish communities, including those under Nazi occupation. In the
Warsaw Ghetto, the German authorities gave ORT permission to open vocational training courses. Those courses continued throughout the war and until the liquidation of the ghetto. They served as a template for similar ORT programs in other Jewish centers like
Łódź and
Kaunas. After the end of World War II, ORT established rehabilitation programs for the survivors. The first one in Germany was started in August 1945 in the
Landsberg DP camp. Vocational training centers were set up in 78 DP (Displaced Persons) Camps in Germany, and nearly 85,000 people acquired professions and the tools they would need to rebuild their lives.
Jacob Olejski, a
Dachau survivor who had previously organized ORT in
Lithuania, was the driving force behind ORT's revival in Germany. After 1948 he organized ORT in the newly founded state of
Israel. ORT operations in
Israel started in
Jaffa and
Jerusalem, and although the
Iron Curtain forced the closure of ORT's activities in Eastern Europe, in the 1950s ORT activity increased in Western Europe,
Algeria,
Morocco,
Tunisia,
Iran and
India. During the second half of the 20th century, ORT continued to provide education and relief services to Jewish communities in Israel, Africa and Asia while opening new programs to serve the Latin American Jewish communities in Argentina (
ORT Argentina), Brazil and Uruguay (
ORT Uruguay). In the early 1990s ORT returned to the former Soviet Union and the Baltic States, where it now serves 27,000 students in 58 schools and educational institutions every year. In 2000, World ORT celebrated its 120th anniversary. The educational services provided through their network continues and has now been supplemented by programs intended to deliver basic nutrition, clothing, books and school supplies, counseling and other services designed to meet the growing emotional needs of students as well ==Current and ongoing programs==