In England alone, there are three million girls of marriageable age who have hardly any prospect of getting married because the female population in that country surpasses the male by three million. And now that the war is annihilating the youth, this condition is becoming even worse. The scarcity of bridegrooms creates another problem, an economic problem. At a time when men are on the battlefields, the women occupy their jobs in the factories as well as in the fields. At present there are in England millions of women who wear trousers and do all masculine work: shoveling coal, heating furnaces, making bombs and gunpowder, working in foundries and machine shops.

What will become of all these women when the men return and demand their jobs? And what will become of the men when they return and find women doing their work at wages which are lower than those ever received by the men; women doing 2the work just as well [as men], and wanting to hold on to their jobs?

The census in Germany, prior to the war, showed that there were 800,000 more women than men; in France the ratio of women to men is certainly greater than in England or Germany. And whereas the problem is sufficiently difficult for nations that have their own land which encompasses millions of people, it is much more difficult and terrible for us Jews. At least one hundred thousand young Jewish men of Russia will perish on the battlefield. The number of women among Jews, prior to the war,exceeded the number of men. Now an additional 100,000 women will have little prospect of finding a husband. What will they do?

In Russia the industries are not sufficiently highly developed so that women can work in them and support themselves.

This is one of the most difficult problems that the Jewish people will have to solve immediately after the war is over.