Founders, Teachers, Mothers and Wards: Women's Roles in American Jewish Orphanages, 1850-1925

Women's Roles in AmerlcanJewish Orphanages 21 FOUNDERS, TEACHERS, MOTHERS AND WARDS: WOMEN'S ROLES IN AMERICAN JEWISH ORP~AGES, 1850-1925 by Reena Sigman Friedman Reena Sigman Friedman is a member of the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she teaches Modern Jewish History. She is the author of 1bese Are Our Children: Jewish Orphanages in the United States, 18801925 (Brandeis University Press, University Press of New England, 1994), as well as numerous articles. Dr. Friedman is also a Contributing Editor of Lilith, the Jewish feminist magazine. She writes and lectures widely on topics relating to Jewish history, Jewish women, and the contemporary Jewish community. In April 1850, Rebecca Gratz, the well-known Philadelphia Jewish philanthropist, published a brief article in the Occident, a major AngloJewish newspaper of the period, urging the establishment of a Jewish orphanage.l In response to Gratz's plea, a group of well-to-do Philadelphia Jewish women began organizing to assist Jewish orphans and destitute children. The women stated that, until that time, such youngsters had been "left to the precarious chance of strangers' beneficence and most likely, if not altogether, estranged from the religion of their fathers, left with a doubtful morality and with no feeling for the faith of Israel.,,2 'Quoted in S. M. Fleischman, The History of the jewish Foster Home and Orphan Asylum ofPhiladelphia, 1855-1905. Published by the Board of Managers as a Souvenir of the Jubilee Celebration, April 30, 1905, p. 20. 2Address bY'Mrs. D. Samuel at the 1850 organizational meeting. Quoted in Fleischman, p.11. 22 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No.2 Five years later, in February 1855, Jewish women leaders, representatives of the city's various congregations,3 met at the Mikveh Israel Synagogue. Moved by the sight of Jewish children peddling matches on Chestnut Street, they resolved to establish the Jewish Foster Home (JFH) of Philadelphia, one ofthe earliestJewish orphanages in the United States and which, according to its long-time superintendent, S. M. Fleischman, "... had its source in the religious sentiment of the Jewish women of Philadelphia."4 The JFH was one of many Jewish orphanages that sprang up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an era known as the "heyday" ofAmerican orphanages."5 The histories of three representative Jewish orphanages in this period-the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, the Jewish Foster Home of Philadelphia, and the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum-illustrate the importance of these institutions, not only for the children they served but for the larger Jewish community as well. While Jewish orphanages existed throughout the country, a major proportion of the Jewish dependent child population was concentrated in New York City and Cleveland. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum (HOA) was the largestJewish child care institution in the country, located in the largest center ofJewish population. In contrast, the Jewish Foster Home of Philadelphia was a much smaller institution, located in a smaller but major Jewish community. Finally, the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum (CJOA) was a large regional institution, serving Jewish communities throughout the midwest and south. Jewish women took an active part in the work of many Jewish orphanages in this period. Just as Rebecca Gratz and other prominent Philadelphia Jewish women launched the JFH, so women in other cities Yrhe congregations represented were Mikveh Israel, Rodeph Shalom, Beth Israel, and Knesset Israel. "Fleischman, p. 102. The JFH was one of many philanthropic ventures attracting Jewish women in Philadelphia. See Evelyn Bodek, "Making Do: Jewish Women and Philanthropy," in Murray Friedman, ed.Jewish Life iT! Philadelphia, 1830-1940 (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1983), pp. 143-62. 'Catherine Ross, "Society's Children: The Care ofIndigent Youngsters in New York City, 1857-1903," Ph.D. Diss., Yale University, 1977, p. 62. Jewish child care institutions existed in this period in Charleston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York City, Cleveland, San Francisco, Baltimore, Newark, Brooklyn, Rochester, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, . and Cincinnati. Freda Sibulkin, "An Historical Study of Aims and Methods in the Care of Jewish Dependent Children in the United States," M.A. Thesis, Graduate School for Jewish Social Work, 1936, pp. 37-42. Women's Roles in AmericanJewish Orphanages 23 helped...