The Rarity of Homelessness in Judaism

After two years of learning about homelessness, next month I’ll start writing a book, with columns week by week showing chapter-by-chapter development. But before leaving my week-by-week miscellaneous approach, I want to mention that Christmas Eve this year is also the beginning of Hanukkah, an eight-day Jewish festival — and Jews are less likely to be homeless than non-Jewish Americans.

That’s not a new phenomenon. Between 1880 and 1914, about 1.5 million Jews (including my grandparents) emigrated from czarist Russia to North America. They lived apart from the mainly Christian charity networks, yet observers at the time noted very little Jewish homelessness. Why? One reason: The deeply engrained work ethic within Jewish culture made a big difference. Another: Men needed to be literate to participate in synagogue worship, and the ability to read and write was useful in job-seeking.

That emphasis was traditional. Jewish leaders said a person unwilling to work could not justify his conduct even by citing a desire to study the Bible. They quoted a Talmudic saying: “All study of the Torah that is not accompanied by work must in the end be futile and become the cause of sin.” Within the Talmudic tradition, avoiding dependency was so important that even work on the Sabbath was preferable to accepting alms. Rabbi Jochanan said, “Make thy Sabbath a weekday and do not be reduced to need the help of human beings.”

The growth of Jewish charitable organizations was a second barrier to homelessness. In New York, the United Hebrew Charities (UHC) offered job and medical help. An employment bureau helped to find jobs for 4,176 people, and even provided an alternative job site for a recent immigrant cited for “violation of Sanitary Code, killing chicken in tenement house.” UHC detectives and lawyers tracked down and brought into court husbands who abandoned wives and children. The UHC medical bureau in 1899 facilitated 20,000 appointments with nurses and doctors.

Jewish teaching emphasized the pursuit of righteousness through the doing of good deeds, particularly those showing loving-kindness (gemilut chasadim). At the same time, though, the UHC emphasized the importance of challenge. One annual report noted that only seven percent of individuals helped five years before were still on the rolls, since “many of those whom this organization had aided, had become self-supporting.” The American Hebrew declared that “heart and hand should work in unison,” for charity requires “disciplinary force as well as a free hand. It must find out the defects of an applicant and try to build up character.”

Many New York groups were active along these lines. The Achnoseth Orchim Association provided temporary lodging for Jewish immigrants and helped them find jobs and learn English, as did the American Committee for Ameliorating the Condition of Russian Refugees. I’ve read annual reports and directories that describe the employment bureaus, sewing schools, day nurseries, “working girls’ clubs” and other organizations set up by the sisterhoods of nine Jewish congregations.

Other cities also had active Jewish associations. United Hebrew Charities of Chicago’s 1890 report noted that it helped 549 men get jobs (201 as laborers and porters, 61 as clerks, 26 as butchers, 16 as shoemakers, 15 as cabinet makers, and 23 as tailors). In Baltimore, the Hebrew Benevolent Society and the Hebrew Ladies Sewing Society helped widows and provided job leads and challenge to the able-bodied. When Orville Horwitz of Baltimore established the Horwitz Benevolent Fund, he stipulated that money “would not be distributed among political idlers or bummers.”

Personal help was key. Nathaniel Rosenau of the United Hebrew Charities noted that good charity could not be based on the “overworked and somewhat mechanical offices of a relieving society.” One UHC annual report argued that provision of relief to the “unscrupulous and undeserving” would lead to “pauperizing on a wholescale scale.” Rosenau noted that “if every person possessing the capability should assume the care of a single family, there would not be enough poor to go around.”

The American Hebrew in 1898 told of how one man was used to dependency, but volunteers “with great patience convinced him that he must earn his living” — soon he was, and had regained the respect of his family and community. Similarly, a woman had become demoralized, but “for months she was worked with, now through kindness, again through discipline, until finally she began to show a desire to help herself.” “Knowledgeable counsel” and avoidance of “insane anticipations of easy prosperity” made Jewish homelessness rare.