At the end of 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, Magnes became involved in collecting funds for the Jewish population in Palestine. The following year a greater crisis arose with the war on the Eastern Front devastating the Jews of the Pale of Settlement. Magnes devoted all his energies to this issue. Firstly he set about coordinating the three bodies that had been set up to face the catastrophe. These were the American Jewish Relief Committee, associated with the Kehillah and the American Jewish Committee, the Central Relief Committee from the Orthodox community, and the People's Relief Committee set up by labour organisations. The result was the creation of a single body called the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. In December 1915 a fund-raising effort was launched at the Carnegie Hall, at which he delivered an emotional appeal which raised a million dollars in donations. By the end of 1915 around five million dollars had been raised. In the spring of 1916 Magnes visited Germany and Poland to organise the distribution of the funds. The visit, via Scandinavia, started in Hamburg and Berlin, from there, with the assistance of the German authorities, he visited Poland and Vilna. He had to overcome the suspicions of the Zionist leadership in Europe who suspected him of bias. Despite this he was able to organise the distribution of funds bridging the gulf between the Central and Eastern European Jewish communities. Amongst the leaders he met were Max Warburg, head of the German Jewish Society ("Hilfsverein"), and Rabbi Leo Baeck, then Jewish Chaplain in the German Army. He returned to America in the winter of 1916 and launched a fresh relief appeal to raise ten million dollars. At one meeting he was again able to raise a million dollars in donations and pledges in a single evening. With President Wilson's decision to enter the war he switched his attention to anti-war campaigning.