London Board of Jewish Guardians Marks Seventieth Birthday

“We have just completed the seventieth year of the Jewish Board of Guardians’ existence. It has grown during those years from a tiny and insignificant body to a charity as important as any in the Kingdon, and I think it is today regarded both in Jewry and outside as a model of what a charity should be,” Arthur Stiebel, President of the Jewish Board of Guardians, said at the seventieth annual general meeting. He believed, he continued, that if they were to ask any Christian what was the most admirable characteristic of the Jew, he would tell them that it was his charity and particularly his charity to his co-religionists. If you pressed him for chapter and verse his answer would be: Look at the Jewish Board of Guardians. That was not the occasion to speak of their work throughout the period. That day would come when in the autumn, he followed Mr. Baldwin’s example and went to the country. Were he to ask only for votes, he knew all Jewry, with scarcely a dissentient, would vote for the Board. He could not doubt that they (Continued on Page 4)

The only trades which showed a really considerable increase in the number of applicants for relief, he went on were the tailoring and clothing trades which showed an increase of 66-but this was more than offset by a decrease of 77 in hawkers and costermongers. It was notable that the trades of 337 in 1928, 254 in 1927, 196 in 1926 and 147 in 1925 could either nor be ascertained or such applicants, comprising chiefly women and old men had no occupations.

It appeared to him that the true solution of their problem was that the really helpless are in the stress of modern life becoming less and less employable. One more point: the natives of this country relieved showed a falling off of 22-from 653 to 631. On the other hand the foreigners showed an increase of 77 from 1795 to 1872. They had to go back as far as 1924 to find an equal number of foreigners relieved.

Donations had increased from £12,921 to £13,133. Mr. Stiebel said. They included £1,000 allotted by the Bernhard Baron Charitable Trust-Mr. Baron gave a similar sum in 1927 and in previous years-and Mr. Claude Montefiore gave £1,000 out of the moneys given to him to distribute on his seventieth birthday. It was a proud moment, he remarked, for me when I found that such a pre-eminent judge of Jewish charities had chosen us and his own pet charity-as the two among whom he proposed to distribute this fund. At the Hove Convalescent Home for bigger boys Mr. Louis P. Jacobs had undertaken to meet the cost of considerable improvements at the home. He was also taking a great interest in the boys.

He wanted to call attention to one thing-there had been a falling off in the number of those who gave to the Board this year. This figure had fallen from 4,553 to 4,473. The decrease was not a big one, but this was the first time since he came into office that there had been any set-back, and it was disappointing, especially to him personally. He did hope that when next year came and he made what would be his last speech from the chair to an annual general meeting, the community would have allowed him to tell a very different tale.

The Health Committee, he proceeded, was still striding forward with vigor. The Muller Home was probably the finest convalescent home of its kind in existence.

So great was the waiting list for children that in the past year they made arrangements with the Jewish branch of the Children’s Country Holidays Fund, by which 40 of the less serious short period cases were sent to selected homes by that body but at the expense of the Board. This arrangement worked so well that they had decided to increase the number of children so to be sent away in the present year. What they did want was a Children’s Country Home where they could sent heart and other cases which could not stand the strong seaside air. Would not some donor come forward and help in this?