Increased employment opportunities for Hassidic Jews have resulted from the efforts of Federation Employment and Guidance Service, the placement and job facility affiliated with Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. FEGS president Robert Rau announced that eight young Hassidim from the Brooklyn area have been accepted by Consolidated Edison to undertake orientation and training as account analysts. Among the eight is Howard Wang, 19, who lives with his parents in Boro Park and is an honor student at Brooklyn College. During the war, his father, from Eastern Europe, was an inmate in the Auschwitz and Trebinka concentration camps. Mr. Wang has been denied employment in his native New York for the same reason, because he and his family are Hassidic Jews. “Not long ago,” he related, ” I was told that I had fully qualified for a computer training program in one of the city’s big financial institutions. But when I said I could not work after sundown on Friday nor on Saturday because of my religion, I was informed that I could not have the Job. It was as simple as that,”
Mr. Wang’s friend, Saul Kessock, 23, also of Brooklyn, has had similar experience. Mr. Kessock, who attends New York City Community College, bad been told by telephone that Jobs were available at another large New York City firm. “But when I applied in person and explained my religious vows, I suddenly found there weren’t any openings after all,” he said. “I also learned that no one leaves the office before 5 at night – long after sundown during the winter – and you often must work on Saturday.” The FEGS program, which is sponsored Jointly by Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the Baron de Hirsch Fund, was initiated in response to the great difficulty encountered by Hassidic Jews in obtaining employment because of the strictures of their religious beliefs concerning such matters as observance of early Sabbath and various holidays. FEGS. a non-sectarian placement agency founded in 1934, had previously cooperated with the Williamsburg YM-YWHA in enabling young Hassidim of the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn to obtain employment with the First National City Bank.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
