Letter to Editor

Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin

Dear Sir:

May I be permitted to call the attention of your readers to a very serious situation which has arisen in connection with the relief work for the Jewish unemployed and homeless carried on by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

During the past eight months, that is from January 1st to August 31st of this year, the Society provided 312,276 meals and 29,612 nights’ lodging to the Jewish unemployed and homeless. The extent of this relief and what it has meant to the Jewish sufferers from the depression may best be understood when I state that in these eight months Hias has provided 10,785 more meals than during the entire preceding three years of 1929, 1930 and 1931 the figures for which respectively were 65,908, 79,982 and 156,301 or a grand total of 302,191 meals. As to the nights’ shelter provided the total for these three years was 44,234 so that in the period from January 1st to August 31st of this year, the 29,612 nights’ shelter furnished are more than half of the total for 1929, 1930 and 1931.

With the Jewish Holy Days approaching this relief work will undoubtedly have to be extended. Hias has undertaken this work realizing that the hungry and the homeless have to be taken care of. However, there is every danger of this activity coming to an end unless adequate financial support is forthcoming. The Society has no endowment fund and is entirely dependent upon voluntary contributions.

May I, through you, appeal to your readers to make possible for Hias to go on with its relief work among the hungry and the homeless who look to it for food and shelter in these critical times.

Very sincerely yours,

Abraham Herman, President.

September 21, 1932.