The JDC went further to improve conditions for the Jews living in the Ukraine by bringing 86 tractors from America to the Ukraine. They used these tractors to help reconstruct Jewish agricultural colonies. Many of these colonies in which Jews were living had been destroyed during the war, and were not of optimal living conditions. Furthermore, Dr Joseph Rosen, the director of the Russian branch of the JDC, devised a plan to further assist Jews living in shtetls, Jewish towns where the majority of the population speaks Yiddish.