Jewish bread lines and soup kitchens are unnecessary in New York City, the Hias being equipped to supply all needs, Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, Executive Director of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, has declared here.
Dr. Lowenstein issued his statement as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Co-ordinating Committee on Unemployment of the Welfare Council, whose function is to co-ordinate the services of all agencies now engaged in helping the unemployed, so that their work may be done systematically.
In spite of the fact that not one homeless Jewish individual was turned away without a bed and meals, our facilities have not yet been employed to the fullest extent possible, the Hias declared, according to Dr. Lowenstein’s statement. Should a greater demand for service develop, the Hias is equipped with additional facilities for the extension of this work. Under these circumstances, Dr. Lowenstein says, the Jewish community of New York has no need for bread lines or soup kitchens, and since both these forms of aid are both humiliating and demoralising, it would be highly advisable to rid the community of them.
At the same time, reports received from Talmud Torahs and Jewish weekday religious schools in Greater New York made public by the Jewish Education Association indicate that the number of pupils in those schools requiring free tuition has increased by about 2,500 as a result of the prevailing unemployment. The number of schools dealt with in the reports is 282 with a register of 49,000 pupils. This increase means an added communal burden of 125,000 dollars, the cost per annum of instructing a child in a Talmud Torah being 50 dollars.
An appeal has been addressed by Mrs. Joseph E. Friend, President of the National Council of Jewish Women, to the 50,000 members of the organisation, to co-operate with all local efforts for unemployment relief.
The Social Justice Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Social Service Commission of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America and the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, are joining in a Conference on “Permanent Preventives of Unemployment”, which is to be held on Monday, the 26th. inst.
The Chicago Jewish Charities, for the first time in its history, has closed the year with a deficit, the books showing a shortage of 119,376 dollars. We began to feel in our employment service and in our relief service, the coming of an economic depression shortly before the crash in the stock market last year, and we have continued to feel the actual depression all through this year, the President, Mr. A. K. Foreman, states in making this fact public. In families that we have hither to supported and have begun to make economically self-sufficient, unemployment came like a blight and forced back into greater dependency a group which was on the road to independence. We have had to spend more relief not only on new families coming to us, but a good deal more relief on old families that we have nurtured through the years and in whom we had great hopes.
We have suffered a decline of income, Mr. Foreman says, and at the same time we have had to carry an increased burden.
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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.
