The Jewish Guild for the Blind dedicated its new 12-story headquarters here today. The $7.5 million structure, built largely through voluntary contributions, will enable the Guild to expand its vocational training programs and other services for sightless persons, according to Aubrey Mallach, executive director. Mallach told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that there would be no increase in the Guild’s staff which numbers 170 who formerly worked in a four story building. Nor did he anticipate an increase in the 500 individuals who make use of the Guild’s services each week. The additional space however will permit the Guild to inaugurate food service and hospital service training programs, among other things, which will prepare blind people for a wider range of jobs. Mallach said that about one-third of the people availing themselves of the Guild’s services have mental or physical handicaps in addition to being sightless. These do not include the aged infirm but they do include children, adolescents and young adults. The Guild maintains a home for the aged in Yonkers which receives financial aid from the State.
But the bulk of its $4 million annual budget comes from voluntary contributions, returns on investments and income from the sale of articles manufactured by the blind, Mallach said. The Jewish Guild for the Blind is non-sectarian. It was founded in 1914 and presently provides service for about 2,000 people each year. Today’s dedication marked the beginning of a full week of dedication events, it was announced by Howard A. Newman, Guild president. Speaking at the ceremony, Rev. Dr. Nathan A. Perilman, senior rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, said the building was dedicated to the late Estelle R. Newman, founder of the Guild’s Women’s Division, “who spent her too brief life, from her childhood on, to make life better for everyone.” Also speaking at the ceremony, Newman stated that the new Guild home “will be the fulfillment of a goal toward which so many of us have been working for the past five years.”
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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.
