PHILANTHROPY

-Introduction At the close of the 18th century the communal system of fund raising for charity with authority vested in the charity overseers (Gabba'ei Ẓedakah) – to tax members of the community in order to ensure appropriate giving – was on the verge of collapse in many European communities. The situation in Rome was typical. "The enormous indebtedness of the Roman community was, in part, due to these expenses for public welfare, which in the early decades of the 18th century equaled or exceeded the total income from communal taxation" (S. Baron, Community, 2, 346–50). The financial condition deteriorated with the rise of absolute states which imposed ever harsher taxes on their subjects. The spread of secularism and individualism, and the appearance of Haskalah (Enlightenment) and Reform also tended to weaken the cohesiveness of the community and reduce its authority to exact adequate sums for their communal functions. Moreover, there were duplication and waste in fund raising and in social services due to absence of coordination between the community, the benevolent societies, and the individual donors who espoused their own favorite projects – a situation which had grown apace (see Finances, Autonomous ). -State Taxation for Jewish Communal Services In the 19th century states altered the procedures for tax collections for communal purposes. In Russia, which then included Poland, with the dissolution in 1844 of the kahal (the autonomous Jewish community) a Russian government ukase forced the Jewish communities to turn over to the municipalities control of their tax collections and administration of their financial affairs and charitable institutions. A remnant of the authority left to them was the recommendation of tax collectors who frequently bade for these potentially profitable posts. The burden of caring for the needy, the poor, and the sick, and for the education of the children, became increasingly more difficult to bear as the number of expelled Jews and the mass emigration of breadwinners reached vast proportions in the 1880s. Revenue for charity and education became dependent primarily on the share given to the community from government taxes, of which they could never be sure, and on limited income from private donations and payment for synagogue honors. Among the taxes imposed by the government one of the most oppressive was the kasher meat tax (korobka ) and the candle tax (see taxation ). Revenues from these taxes were divided between the state and the community to cover expenditure for social welfare, maintenance of educational institutions, and other communal activities. Frequently the share of taxes due the community was diverted by the authorities to build a road or erect a church, and often an inordinate portion of the funds collected went into the pockets of the Jewish tax collectors. -Voluntary Associations or Benevolent Societies in Modern Times Voluntary associations or benevolent societies continued in modern times to play the important part which they had had in the Middle Ages for raising funds for specific religious, social, and educational services. Where communal charity systems were weakened or broke down completely, voluntary associations filled their place as well as they could and frequently adapted themselves to changing conditions. In England, where plans to introduce state taxation in 1795 and 1802 were withdrawn, many of the voluntary associations in the 19th century were organized on the pattern of voting societies found in the general community. An annual subscription to the association of four or five shillings entitled a subscriber to one vote which could be used to vote for himself or for someone else when benefits were to be distributed. An alternative procedure to voting was drawing the winning ticket from a box or by using a special "wheel," made for that purpose. The Bread, Meat, and Coal Society (Mashvah Nephesh, founded in 1779 and still in existence in 1970) introduced an element of self-help for the poor by arranging that subscriptions could be paid weekly at the rate of one farthing. A total annual subscription of 4s. 4d. gave the subscriber the chance to draw 12 tickets, each of which entitled him to 1s. 9d. worth of bread, meat, and coal. The fraternal organizations or Friendly Societies, all mutual benefit associations, were an important form of voluntary association. Many older voluntary associations ceased to exist, as central welfare and fund-raising agencies took over their functions, and as governments assumed responsibility for direct aid to individuals. Nevertheless, many new voluntary associations rose to provide help to those afflicted by disease, supply funds for research in medicine and other vital fields,   provide care for the children of a growing number of working mothers, support programs for prevention of juvenile delinquency, ensure better facilities and more scientific treatment for the care of the aged, the chronic sick, or the convalescent, and help meet every humanitarian need which a changing world made urgent. -Fund Collectors on the Local Communal Level In the early modern period communal collectors still made their rounds, as they had done in mishnaic and medieval times, to gather the obligatory contribution for the communal charity fund, and congregational collectors visited homes to ensure payment for synagogue honors. As in the Middle Ages, voluntary benevolent societies had collectors to collect dues or donations or the coins deposited in their boxes placed in the homes of members. Collectors for authorized societies were also permitted to use their collection boxes in front of the synagogue on Purim or the Ninth of Av. Burial societies assigned collectors at cemeteries at funeral or memorial services, and this practice is continued in traditional cemeteries. Until the middle of the 19th century the majority of communal collectors appear to have served without compensation, thus fulfilling their obligation to do charity. In the second half of the 19th century many charitable organizations employed collectors, and the practice continued to grow until community leaders in the 1920s recognized its wastefulness. Though in 1970 fund collectors were still working for some local charity organizations, the number had been reduced sharply. -France Coordination in the administration of charity and fund raising was first achieved in 1809 in the emancipated community of Paris, when seven benevolent societies in that city were amalgamated. At the direction of the Consistoire, they created the Société d'Encouragement et de Secours (from 1855 officially named the Comité de Bienfaisance Israélite de Paris). From the beginning the Comité recognized that it could not rely solely on the resources provided by the Consistoire, for although the Napoleonic regime had permitted the Consistoire to tax members of constituent congregations, it had not obligated every Jew to join a congregation and pay taxes to support the charitable and other services of the community. The offerings for the privilege of sharing in the Torah reading, the fees for other synagogue honors, and the collections from the charity boxes in the congregation, proved no adequate supplement to the limited tax revenues. Shortly after its establishment, the Comité undertook to secure annual subscriptions over a three-year period, with a minimum requirement of 18 francs payable monthly from regular members and 30 francs from those known as honorary members. After a good effort the first year, the campaign lagged, and it was only when the community began to see the benefits of coordination, substitution of preventive social techniques for palliative measures, training of the young for productive work, and building of essential institutions such as an almshouse, a hospital, and an orphanage, that an increasingly larger number of members of the community began to subscribe more generously to the appeals of the Comité. Among the many new subscribers were those in the new voluntary associations founded after the Comité had been organized. When finally given representation in the Comité, they proved to be among the most enthusiastic contributors and workers. A lottery for raising funds from the general community was instituted in 1843, but this device became less significant as fund raising began to depend on annual subscriptions, large-scale donations, trusts, endowments, and legacies. Two significant endowments were made by the Rothschilds, one for the acquisition and maintenance of a hospital in 1841 and another for an orphanage founded by the family in 1855. Other Jewish philanthropists followed their example and made large-scale donations and endowments in succeeding years. After the liberation of France in 1944, the american jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), with the cooperation of French Jewish leaders, established the Comité Juif d'Action Sociale et de Reconstruction (COJASOR); most of the resources were supplied by JDC. In 1946 the Comité de Bien-faisance resumed its full activities, including fundraising, but was still dependent in largest measure on the JDC and other foreign Jewish agencies. In 1949 the Fonds Social Juif Unifié de France was created as the national fund-raising and distributing body. Until 1964 the Fonds received additional large financial support from the Material Claims Conference and steadily diminishing aid from the JDC. In 1966, 1,600 heads of families in France contributed $1,600,000. After the Six-Day War in 1967 the Fonds Social combined with Aide à Israël (keren hayesod ) to form the Appel Juif Unifié, a single national fund-raising agency to help meet the budgets of both the Fonds Social and the Jewish Agency. -England The Sephardi community was the first to coordinate its charity work in England and established its Board of Guardians in 1837. In 1966 the name was changed to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue Jewish Welfare Board. This board acted independently of the Ashkenazi community and relied for its funds on a portion of the Finta (a tax levied on the class of membership known as Yehidim) and on donations, trust funds, and legacies. In 1859 the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor (renamed the Jewish Welfare Board in 1963) was established in London to coordinate charity work for the immigrant poor of the three oldest Ashkenazi congregations: the great synagogue (1690), the Hambro (1706), and the New Synagogue (1761). To prevent poverty the Board immediately introduced new measures by granting loans to help poor Jews become self-supporting and by providing training for young Jews to work in handicrafts and industry. Conduct of the Board was gradually placed in the hands of professionally trained workers. The Board was subsequently called upon to supervise the work of a number of institutions, which in turn   made subventions to it. Aid societies, the first of which was the East End Aid Society (1902), budgeted either all or part of their income to finance the Board's operations. In 1968 there were 15 such societies. Despite its efforts to achieve coordination on a total community level, the Board had not succeeded by the end of 1969 in securing the assent of the voluntary associations and the many institutions which conducted independent campaigns, to the establishment of a fully centralized metropolitan fund-raising and distributing agency, or a fund-raising and distributing agency on a national basis, as in France. -Germany Founded in 1869, the deutsch-israelitischer gemeindebund (Union of German-Jewish Congregations) was Germany's first federated but not all-inclusive body devoted to advancing Jewish education and performing charitable work, combined with guidance and material support to its member congregations. While its revenues were basically derived from the taxes which the government required every Jew to pay for support of his congregation's religious, educational, and social programs, it also benefited from private donations, etc. Simultaneously, Unterstuetzungsvereine (aid societies) and institutions raised funds and individual contributions for their special projects. World War I reduced the capability of the German Jewish community to give adequate aid to its members and to refugees from eastern European lands. Inflation wiped out the fortunes of many wealthy contributors, income from congregational taxes was reduced by 50%, and the coffers of the benevolent societies and institutions were emptied. Aid by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was forthcoming, but limited by its commitments elsewhere. To meet the crisis, the Zentralwohlfahrtstelle (Central Welfare Office) was established in 1917 as a roof organization covering many but not all social welfare agencies, voluntary associations, and institutions. Substantial savings resulted nevertheless from elimination of duplication in services and competition in fund raising. Following coordination, there were larger grants from synagogue tax funds (e.g., in 1926, 52% of the total congregational budgets in Berlin was allocated to charity and education) and greater contributions from individuals, institutions, and associations. Hitler's rise to power in 1933 altered the situation drastically. The Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden ("National Committee of German Jews"), formed in 1933, founded the Zentralausschuss fuer Hilfe und Aufbau ("Central Committee for Relief and Reconstruction"), as an all-embracing welfare organization, but the sharply reduced capacity of German Jewry to support its work is indicated by its revenue for 1936, namely $1,287,500 of which $737,500 came from JDC and other welfare agencies. In 1938 the congregations which had been a primary source of funds were deprived of their privileges as public, legal corporations with authority to tax their members for upkeep of religious requirements, education, and social welfare, and were denied the tax exemption previously enjoyed by all religious institutions. Voluntary membership dues and donations were their only source of income. Moreover, with emigration of the affluent, and increasingly vast requirements for relief and emigration, the congregations rapidly lost their capability to share significantly in bearing the communal burden. In 1938, both in Germany and occupied Austria, $12,000,000 was spent on relief and emigration; a large share came from foreign Jewish sources and the remainder from the sale of communal and institutional property. In 1939 the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden was compelled to change its name to Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutsch-land, and the government decree of July 4, 1939, forced upon it the responsibility, among others, for expediting emigration and providing social welfare assistance, a responsibility it bore until 1941, with the greatest difficulty, despite help from JDC which was permitted to carry on its relief and emigration work during this tragic period. The relief, rehabilitation, and emigration of the remnants of German Jews in the concentration camps after World War II, and of other displaced persons, were made possible by foreign agencies. In the late 1960s there were approximately 38,000 Jews in the Federal German Republic and West Berlin. A central welfare office in Frankfurt handled the requests for help of the very few needy ones. -Russia In August 1914, a coordinated fund-raising body, Yekopo (Yevreiski Komitet Pomoshchi Zhertvam Voiny; "Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Sufferers") was formed in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) to bring relief to Russian Jews, mainly those forcibly evacuated from the front areas to the Russian interior. In its first three years of operation it raised 32,000,000 rubles through contributions from 300 communities which taxed their members, individual donations, government subsidies, and in later years through assistance from JDC. With these funds it aided 250,000 Jews and, before ceasing its operations in 1921, had raised and spent over 50 million rubles to provide for the needs of most of Russia's charity-supported 1.5 million Jews, such as health services, social and economic assistance, educational programs for children, homes for refugees, and support of institutions. Yekopo cooperated with ort and ose in many of their endeavors. Yekopo ceased to exist in Soviet Russia in 1921, but a branch office functioned in Vilna until 1924. (Morton Mayer Berman) -United States The promise made to Peter Stuyvesant by the first boatload of 23 Jews who arrived at New Amsterdam in 1654, that they would care for their own poor, meant simply that they would act as did the other religious denominations in the village. The charitable activities of the few American Jews during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries were centered in the synagogues. They consisted of the maintenance of cemeteries, aid to transients and a few needy local cases, and the freeing of Jewish   redemptioners and indentured servants. The few known instances of Palestinian emissaries (meshullaḥim) visiting the colonies and the early republic exemplify aid to Jews overseas. The first charitable institution was the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Charleston, South Carolina, established in 1802. During the German Jewish immigration of the mid-19th century, the scope of Jewish charity expanded and became structurally separate from the synagogue. Almost every local community had a Hebrew Relief Society, or Hebrew Benevolent Society, and a feminine counterpart. Fraternal orders such as B'nai B'rith, Brith Abraham, and Kesher shel Barzel provided scheduled assistance to ill or bereaved members and their families. Several institutions, such as B'nai B'rith's Jewish Orphan Asylum in Cleveland, reached beyond local boundaries, and there were occasional appeals for emergency aid in the U.S., and for overseas Jewry, especially from sir moses montefiore ; but before 1900 Jewish philanthropy was local. The great historic coincidence was the encounter of the European Jewish tradition with the American idea of voluntarism. Early observers of the American scene commented on a distinctive characteristic of Americans, that voluntary groups take into their hands the creation of voluntary organizations to meet their own needs. Jewish communal traditions of autonomy and mutual assistance found fertile soil for growth in American voluntarism. The great underlying force which created the distinctive American Jewish philanthropy was large-scale immigration from eastern Europe. Beginning in the 1880s, the immigrants coming in the tens of thousands yearly, with their special needs and their problems of adjustment to American life, molded American Jewish philanthropy. Its institutional structure derives from the expansion of earlier charitable organizations and the establishment of new ones. Thus, the numerous local Hebrew Relief Societies raised and spent far more money than earlier, and one by one changed their name to Jewish Social Service Association (or Bureau), reflecting the greater refinement and professionalization of their operations. The American impulse toward efficiency and the Jewish conviction of communal responsibility coalesced disparate and often rival institutions into combined effort. This began with the establishment of the first Jewish philanthropic federation in Boston in 1895. It was a strikingly simple concept: funds would be raised and disbursed jointly to the agencies to meet the needs. The agencies, invariably supported by federations, included services to families and children, hospitals, free loans, settlement houses, and sundry aid groups. Jewish philanthropic federations were established in most American Jewish communities; New York City's was the largest and one of the last to be established, in 1917. The few local agencies in the first federations joined on the common platform of efficiency in fund raising and coordination of local services. But the federation idea contained seeds of future development. The early federations began rudimentary social planning for the Jewish community, designed to explore the need for new services and old ones which could be dispensed with. The founding and expansion of federations occurred during a period of professionalization of the art of helping and the emergence of social work as a new profession. Jewish social workers provided the professional skills for the expansion of services. During its existence from 1927 to 1936, the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work in New York City trained professional social workers for service in the Jewish community. The National Conference of Jewish Social Service (later Welfare), founded in 1899, became the professional organization. Professional journals were published, beginning with Jewish Charities (1910) and progressing to the Journal of Jewish Communal Service (1956). The National Conference of Jewish Charities, established in 1900, became the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in 1932, providing planning and statistical data and recommendations. The "Great Depression" of the 1930s marked a watershed in American philanthropic history. The magnitude of impoverishment forced the government into granting material relief, and the voluntary agencies gave up this function. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed severe disputes between pro-Zionist advocates of higher allocations to Palestine, and non- or anti-Zionists dominating the Joint Distribution Committee and providing most of the funds, whose views prevailed that most of the money go to European relief and to projects in Soviet Russia. Yet it was during the 1930s that the scope of organized Jewish philanthropy expanded both geographically and functionally. As the world emergency grew with the rise of Nazism, disparate agencies aiding Jews were brought together in the united jewish Appeal and subsequently made the desperate condition of eastern European Jewry the dominant cause in local campaigns of Jewish federations. After 1941, the European Holocaust and the struggle of Israel brought about ever closer agreement on the allocation of funds overseas. At the same time most federations broadened to include within organized Jewish philanthropy the support of Jewish education, community relations activities, Jewish vocational services, and national agencies that served the entire American Jewish community. New York City remained the exception and maintained a separate Federation and United Jewish Appeal. This period's expansion of the budgeting and planning activities of local federations necessitated constant assessment of priorities, and required decisions on new programs. At the close of World War II in 1945, when the full dimensions of the European Holocaust were revealed, American Jewish philanthropy faced its greatest challenge – to provide the vast sums required to rescue the survivors and to build up the Jewish state for the redemption of the Jewish people. It responded with funds unequaled in the history of philanthropy anywhere. In 1946 the United Jewish Appeal raised approximately $100 million, in 1948, $150 million, in addition to approximately $31,265,000 and $43.6 million in the respective years for the needs of the larger federations. Between 1939 and 1968 the United Jewish Appeal raised $2,035 billion for Israel   and overseas Jewry, largely through allocations from combined campaigns in local Jewish communities throughout the United States. The Federation's role broadened to the point where it was widely recognized as "the organized Jewish community." Philanthropy began to serve as the organizing principle for the voluntary Jewish community, especially in cities where the federations and Jewish community councils merged during the 1950s and conducted a single campaign for local, national, and overseas needs. Debate mounted during the 1960s over the proper proportion of local funds to be divided among hospitals, social services, and recreational institutions on one hand, and Jewish educational and cultural services on the other. In 1968 the range of concerns stretched across the spectrum of local, national, and international Jewish needs, ranging from services to the individual and family to programs designed to insure the survival of Judaism. The dollar figures reflect the vastness of scope. In 1969 the annual campaigns of Jewish federations totaled $266 million (including $104 million in the Israel Emergency Fund). In addition approximately $40 million were raised in endowment and capital funds campaigns. Not all of American Jewish philanthropic endeavor in 1969 was within the federation orbit. Substantial groups remained outside either from choice or tradition; in 1969 these groups raised approximately $100 million. They included institutions of higher learning, many national agencies, pro-Israel organizations and others, but not synagogues which collected and disbursed millions of dollars annually themselves. The funds allocated by federations represented only a fraction of the money disbursed by the agencies which receive them. In addition, these agencies' expenditures derived from other sources of income: dues; tuition; fees; and various governmental bodies and third-party payments. Therefore, the Jewish gross national philanthropic product, inclusive of all of these funds, was substantially in excess of a billion dollars in 1969. Contemporary philanthropic services under Jewish auspices utilized the highest professional skills of American society in medicine, social work, public relations, and other areas. The collection and disbursement of funds to support these services was elevated to a high art by the Jewish group in the U.S. Concepts of fund-raising became sophisticated, and efforts were skillfully elaborated to raise maximum sums. The result, however, was ultimately based on fundamental Jewish commitments to philanthropy and the growing affluence and homogenity of the Jewish population which made possible a broad consensus on the needs. One of the distinctive Jewish contributions to philanthropy in America was the recognition that federated fund-raising produced greater results for all participants. The general community also recognized this and the Community Chest movement used the Jewish Federation as its model. Fund-raising goals were raised by the continuous education of the Jewish community to the dimensions of the needs and their responsibility to meet them. The capstone of the structure resides in the development of the responsibility of leaders. Achievements in the philanthropic campaigns have been based on the willingness of leadership to elevate the levels of giving by setting the pace through their own contributions. When this "leadership by example" takes place, matching contributions follow. In this way the Jewish group has demonstrated that it can implement its high ethical imperatives with pragmatic programs. For Federation and other activities in the last third of the 20th century, see foundations . (Charles Zibbell) -Canada The first central fund-raising campaigns in Canada were conducted in 1917–18 by montreal 's Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (renamed the Federation of Jewish Community Services and the Allied Jewish Community Services) and by toronto 's Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (now known as the United Jewish Welfare Fund of Toronto). Funds at that time were raised exclusively for local social welfare, health, and recreational services (Jewish centers and children's camps). In 1937–38 the United Jewish Welfare Fund of Toronto began to campaign also for local Jewish education, the national work of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society ("HIAS"), as well as for the operations of a number of overseas agencies, including those in Ereẓ Israel. In 1951 the United Israel Appeal and UJRA of the Canadian Jewish Congress combined their fund-raising activities in the United Jewish Appeal which then joined with the welfare funds in Toronto, Montreal, and other communities for raising funds in which they were to share. For this purpose Toronto and several other communities adopted the name of the United Jewish Appeal, and Montreal called its campaign the Combined Jewish Appeal. -Argentina The Ashkenazi Hebra Kadisha ("The Holy Society"), founded strictly as a burial society in 1892, had evolved by 1949 into the Buenos Aires Kehillah, the central communal body. In 1956, it was renamed the Asociasión Mutual Israelita Argentina-Communidad de Buenos Aires (briefly AMIA) which became the community's central fund-raising and distributing agency, financing nearly all its religious, social, and cultural activities. Half of its 1967 budget of $2,350,000 was devoted to support the Buenos Aires' Jewish educational system, in which 60% of the pupils were children of parents who paid low dues and were not enrolled in AMIA's membership of 42,000. Its main income, however, came from the sale of burial plots in its cemetery, over which it had exclusive control. While always generous in serving the needy, AMIA demanded of the wealthy what they could afford to pay and, in the case of individuals who had failed in their obligation to support the community, its demands were extremely high. -Israel In the State of Israel with its state financing of religious needs (of all denominations), as well as its social services as an evolving   welfare state, fund-raising of the usual Jewish Diaspora type became marginal. In 1970 there was no central local or national fund-raising body in Israel, with the result that much costly overlapping and duplication occurred in fund-raising campaigns. The Tel Aviv Council of Social Agencies, a consultative body, and the Israel Fund Raisers' Association in 1969 undertook, but without success, to coordinate the separate fund-raising efforts along the lines followed in western communities. -Fund-Raising by International Organizations The traditional concern and sense of responsibility of Jews for the well-being of their people wherever they dwell prompted them in modern times to establish organizations which devoted themselves on an international level to one or more of the following activities: (1) seeking emancipation of Jews or protecting their rights; (2) helping them to overcome their economic and social plight by building schools for educating their children and training them vocationally, and giving immediate relief in grave situations; (3) facilitating their emigration when they suffered persecution from pogroms and insurmountable poverty. The outstanding international organizations founded in the mid-19th century were the Alliance Israélite Universelle , the anglo-jewish association , the israelitische allianz zu wien , and the hilfsverein der deutschen Juden. The Alliance Israélite Universelle organized committees in western Europe and the United States, and later in the local communities where it carried out its programs, as well as in Jewish communities in other parts of the world. With the help of these committees it raised funds through dues or annual subscriptions, special appeals for donations, trusts, legacies, and endowments. For nearly four decades the principal sources of support were Baron Maurice de hirsch and his wife, Baroness Clara. The Alliance received from the baron 4,595 shares (at £100 per share) of the capital stock of the jewish colonization association (ICA) which entitled it to a voice in the direction of ICA's program, but these funds were used only for the work of ICA. The anglo-jewish association (London, 1871) adopted aims similar to those of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Its income came from dues, donations, trust funds, legacies, endowments, and earnings from an annual ball. Four dominant organizations established in Europe set themselves one specific goal in their service to deprived, sick, or oppressed Jews. ort (St. Petersburg, 1880, with headquarters subsequently in Berlin, 1921, where it became the World Ort Union; Paris, 1933; and Geneva, 1943), directed its efforts initially to rehabilitating and retraining Russia's impoverished Jewish masses. The Russo-Jewish Committee for Relief of Jewish Refugees (London, 1882) was organized to deal with the large-scale influx of immigrants after the outbreak of pogroms in 1881 and the May Day Laws of 1882. The Committee required funds for settling a number of refugees in England and making it possible for a larger number to migrate to the United States and Canada. Other funds were raised by the Russo-Jewish Committee in cooperation with the Board of Jewish Guardians to deal with immigrants who settled in London. In 1891, with the outbreak of pogroms in Russia, funds especially raised for immigrant work were virtually exhausted. Another meeting was convened at the Guildhall and $486,000 were donated to be used primarily but not exclusively for sending Jews westward. ICA provided additional resources to assist the Russo-Jewish Relief Committee, principally for the resettlement of immigrants in countries on both the North and South American continents. From 1890 to 1905 funds were raised for immigrants fleeing from famine in Galicia in 1890, economic and social restrictions in Romania in the early 1890s, and from pogroms in Russia in 1903 and 1905; but a year later when the Alien Act of 1905 went into effect, England ceased to be a transient center for mass Jewish immigration, and activity on behalf of immigrants was limited almost exclusively to help those who had reached English shores to be absorbed into the economic and cultural life of the United Kingdom. The Jewish Health Society ose (St. Petersburg, 1912) moved its central committee to Berlin in 1922, where it was connected with ORT, embracing committees established in Berlin and London (1920) and in other communities in 1921 and 1922, Paris, 1934, and Geneva, 1943, and returned to Paris after World War II. It was founded to promote the health of Russian Jews by using preventive medical measures and giving instructions in hygiene, but was forced by the Soviet government in 1919 to liquidate its work in Russia. After World War I, it extended its work to Poland (where the organization was called TOZ), Lithuania, Latvia, and Romania, and secured additional support from its branches in those countries and from supporting committees which it established in a number of countries, but the largest measure of aid came from JDC. The central british fund for German Jewry (since 1944, the Central British Fund for Jewish Rehabilitation and Relief) was organized in London in 1933 to raise funds to help German Jews meet the crisis in Nazi Germany. It engaged in operations to help them emigrate and reestablish themselves in England, Palestine, and other countries open to immigration. From 1933 to 1935 the fund campaigned under its own name; from 1936 to 1939 as the Council for German Jewry; from 1940 to 1943 as the Central Council for Jewish Refugees; and from 1939 to 1943 again under the original name of the Central British Fund for German Jewry. In 1944, the Central British Fund became the Central British Fund for Jewish Relief and Rehabilitation, extending its help to destitute Jewish communities in Italy and Greece, and made use of radio and television as well as other publicity media to bring its appeal to the community. Organizations which devoted themselves to one specific area of service but did not conduct independent campaigns for their work included:   (1) Emig-direkt (Berlin, 1921, the United Committee for Jewish Emigration) which was organized by the World Relief Conference (Carlsbad, 1920; this organization raised limited funds for relief and reconstruction work in central, eastern, and southeastern Europe), and HIAS. Emig-direkt drew its major financial support from JDC, ICA, and other organizations. It was succeeded by (2) HICEM (Paris, 1927, a name formed from the initials of the three agencies which established it, HIAS, ICA, and Emig-direkt, the last of which associated itself in 1934). HICEM gave assistance to Jews emigrating from Europe and found places for them in various countries. (3) American Joint Reconstruction Foundation (1924), a joint operation of JDC and ICA for economic rehabilitation of Jews in central and eastern Europe through provision of loans and other constructive measures. Also treated as an American organization is Agro Joint (American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation, created by JDC in 1924 and liquidated in 1951) for resettlement of Jewish tradesmen and businessmen declassed by the Soviet government in agricultural colonies in Crimea and Ukraine. -Old Type Fund Collection for Ereẓ Israel On the international level, old-type emissaries and fund collectors for Ereẓ Israel were known as meshullaḥim (see Sheliḥei Ereẓ Israel ). The excessive costs in the employment of meshullaḥim and their uneconomic use in Palestine of the funds collected by them have been reported on exhaustively (Proceedings of the U.S. National Conference of Jewish Charities, Cleveland, 1912). The costs were not less than those which had prevailed in earlier centuries. Some communities accepted responsibility for collecting the funds themselves. After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 the number of old-type fund-raising emissaries fell to a vanishing point. The state's program for social welfare, health, education, and social security, and the supplementary services of such agencies as the Jewish Agency, Hadassah, WIZO, Histadrut, Moeẓet Ha-Poalot, Malben-JDC, and others drastically reduced the need for old-type fund-raising for Ereẓ Israel's philanthropic needs. The few meshullaḥim now turned their efforts chiefly to capital fund-raising for new buildings and expansion of their programs. Many local committees abroad continued to collect funds for maintenance of yeshivot, talmud torahs, orphanages, homes for the aged, hospitals, and other institutions and sent their collections directly to the institutions in Israel. Other committees abandoned their fund-raising in return for an allocation to their institutions by a community welfare fund agency. JDC, which is a partner in the united jewish appeal , for some years made a sizable allocation through its Cultural Committee for Israel Institutions in Jerusalem for the support of yeshivot in Israel, refugee rabbis, scholars, and their dependents. It has also subsidized various research and publication projects on biblical and talmudic subjects. In 1969 JDC spent close to one million dollars to aid 132 yeshivot in Israel, with an enrollment of over 18,000 students. The charity box (kuppah of mishnaic origin) and the charity plate (ke'arah) were still in use in modern times. It was reported that in 1900 there were more than 250,000 ḥalukkah boxes bearing the name of Rabbi meir baal ha-nes in homes, synagogues, and communal gathering places. From it evolved in the Zionist era the most widely used box in the Jewish world: the Jewish National Fund blue box for land purchase in Palestine (later, in Israel) which was introduced after the founding of the JNF in 1901. -Zionist and Modern Israel Fund Raising The bilu , organized in the 1880s by a group of young Russian Jewish students committed to pioneer and settle on the land in Palestine, made the first modern effort to raise funds for Zionist purposes. They succeeded in establishing 25 branches with a total of 525 members, but achieved very little success in fund raising which depended on membership dues, earnings from literary and musical evenings, and meager donations. The Ḥovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion"; Russia, 1882), members of the Ḥibbat Zion movement, met relatively greater, but not startling, success in fund-raising. The Ḥovevei Zion organized societies – first in Russia and Poland and later in Germany, England, and the United States – to help existing settlements and establish new ones in Palestine. Their membership consisted of middle-class and poor Jews and was not able to provide large sums; some sold their belongings to add to the funds which would make possible their own settlement in Palestine. The Ḥovevei Zion collected dues, canvassed for donations in homes and shops, and, when permitted by the few not antagonistic rabbis, made appeals in the synagogues. Wherever possible they collected funds in the synagogue, on the eve of the Day of Atonement and the Ninth of Av. They established congregations of their own where they were free to propagate their ideas and raise funds, but fared no better than the Bilu in their efforts to persuade wealthy Jews to support their cause. The situation improved through the intercession of Rabbi samuel mohilever , founder of the first Ḥibbat Zion movement in Warsaw, and after Baron Edmund de rothschild began to provide funds on a munificent scale to save struggling older settlements. Some of these had been founded by Ḥovevei Zion and new ones were organized. In 1890 came another favorable turn for the Ḥibbat Zion movement, when the Russian government gave its approval for the formation of a society for the support of Jewish tillers of the soil and artisans in Syria and Palestine (see odessa committee ), a step that made it easier to get some help from those who had been concerned about supporting the illegal movement. It was not until the 1890s that Ḥovevei Zion was able to win the support and leadership of men of status in England like Elim d'Avigdor , who in 1891 joined the Ḥibbat Zion movement and became its head; his kinsman, Colonel A.E.W. goldsmid , who succeeded him in the leadership; and others, among them Reverend simeon singer , Sir joseph sebag-montefiore , and Lord Swaythling. These men, who contributed themselves, were able to persuade other well-placed people to do so.   The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet le-Israel), the world zionist organization 's first instrumentality for fund-raising, was founded in Basle in 1901 by the Fifth World zionist congress . It was created to raise funds for the purchase of land in Palestine and its development for settlement and agriculture. In its first decade the JNF introduced the blue box for coin collections in homes, synagogues, and wherever Jews met publicly; the Golden Book in Jerusalem for inscription of the names of men and women in return for specific contributions, or of individuals in whose honor contributions were given; stamps, of which there have been over 4,000 varieties, sold for use on letters, synagogue tickets, contract documents, and even used for postage in Israel immediately before the State of Israel postal system was established in 1948; and flags, tags, and flowers which contributors received as gifts on special occasions. The "sale" of trees for planting in Israel has proved to be one of the JNF's most productive fundraising methods. The keren hayesod -united appeal was created in London in July 1920 at a Zionist conference convened by Chaim Weizmann to raise funds for the World Zionist Organization. The Zionist Executive and later the Jewish Agency Executive were responsible for the conduct of the activities generally performed by states, including security, until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, when the operations of the Jewish Agency were limited chiefly to immigration, absorption, and settlement. The Keren Hayesod, which had first functioned directly under the aegis of the World Zionist Organization, became the financial arm of the Jewish Agency in 1929, with the formation of the enlarged Jewish Agency which included non-Zionists as members. At one time there were branches in 70 countries, and in 1970, owing to political changes in certain countries, there were 54, but this number did not include the U.S. where UJA campaigned independently of the Keren Hayesod. In the years between 1920 and 1948 total Keren Hayesod UJA income in the United States amounted to $143,000,000, of which UJA raised 70% and Keren Hayesod 30%. From 1948 to 1970, both organizations raised $1,990,000,000 of which 65% came through UJA and 35% from other countries through Keren Hayesod. Other fund-raising for Israel was conducted by various organizations such as WIZO and the histadrut (General Federation of Labor, Israel). Fund-raising was also done in Diaspora countries by Israeli schools of higher learning, yeshivot, hospitals, general health and social welfare agencies, orchestras, museums, and many other groups. The principal schools of higher learning in Israel, namely, The Hebrew University, Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), Tel Aviv University and Bar Ilan University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science do their fund raising through societies of friends or committees set up for this purpose. magen david adom ("Red Shield of David," Tel Aviv, 1930) is Israel's equivalent of the Red Cross. It meets its own maintenance and operating costs with income from an annual lottery and from subsidies from the government of Israel and local authorities, which together provided from 15 to 16% of its budget. Support from societies of friends, committees, and individuals in many countries took the form of contributions in kind (ambulances, medical supplies, and equipment) and contributions in cash for Magen David Adom's building program, which envisaged completion of 17 new structures early in the 1970s. -The Modern Campaigns and Their Goals There are various kinds of major fund-raising campaigns, all of which are conducted annually, except for the biennial campaigns of the Israel United Appeal and the United Communal Fund in South Africa, which occur in alternate years. These include: (1) The independent campaign conducted by a communal federation or welfare fund for local social welfare agencies, other local institutions, and at times also certain national organizations. The goals for these campaigns are set by the local federation or welfare fund. (2) The independent campaign conducted by authorized representative local committees on behalf of national or international organizations (Keren Hayesod, Jewish National Fund, WIZO, ORT, Histadrut, and others). The goals set for an independent campaign in a community are determined by agreement between the authorized committees located in a country and the national or international organizations. The time of year to be devoted to the independent campaign is decided upon after consultation between the local federation or welfare fund and the local committee representing the national or international body. In Australian communities the Board of Jewish Deputies allots appropriate periods to various national or international campaigns. (3) The combined campaigns for local, national, Israel, and overseas needs conducted by local federations and welfare funds or through their fund-raising agencies (e.g., United Jewish Appeal in Toronto, Combined Jewish Appeal in Montreal). The principal parties to these campaigns are the local federations or welfare funds and the Keren Hayesod. Allocations to national organizations and overseas agencies are made upon application. The goal is set by the local fund-raising body in consultation with the national committee representing the Keren Hayesod acting for the Jewish Agency (in Canada the national committee is the United Israel Appeal of Canada, Inc.), after taking into account the allocations to be granted to other beneficiaries whose applications have been approved. (4) The Joint Campaign, which is limited strictly to Israel's needs, conducted in Great Britain and Ireland (Joint Palestine Appeal-JPA) and in Israel (United Appeal in Israel-Ha Magbit ha-Me'uḥedet be-Yisrael). Partners in these campaigns are the Keren Hayesod and the Jewish National Fund. In the JPA campaign, a limited number of allocations to other Zionist fund-raising agencies is made by the Keren Hayesod from its share. The campaign goal is set after consultation   between the administrative committee of JPA in London and the Keren Hayesod, the Jewish Agency, and the Jewish National Fund head offices in Jerusalem. For the Israel Joint campaign the goal is set by the two partners (the Keren Hayesod and the JNF) and neither makes any allocation to any other agency. (Morton Mayer Berman) -Women and Philanthropy The Hebrew Bible establishes the precedent for women's charitable work, both in its commandments to help the needy and in narratives highlighting female acts of gemilut ḥasadim (loving kindness). Rebekah's kindness toward Eleazar, for example, results in her marriage to Isaac (Gen. 24: 12–27). Proverbs 31:21 praises the ideal wife who "gives generously to the poor;/Her hands are stretched to the needy." According to the rabbis, women are naturally compassionate (Meg. 14b); they are also said to be more responsive to the needy than men (Ta'an. 23b). Dedications and inscriptions in ancient synagogues provide early evidence of Jewish women's communal donations. Although these inscriptions give little insight into whether leadership and positions of power accompanied female philanthropy, they demonstrate that women, often independently, helped determine the financial life of their communities (Brooten). The Cairo Genizah preserves the bequests of wuhsha , a 12th-century businesswoman. Her donations (10% of her estate) were designated for Cairo synagogues, Jewish charitable institutions, and needy individuals. Both in the Middle East and in Europe, medieval and early modern Jewish women of means contributed Torah scrolls and other sacred books to the synagogue, as well as funds for oil and upkeep. Although major donations may have come from prosperous women, often widows, women of more modest means regularly donated ceremonial objects and needlework in the form of Torah binders and Torah curtains. dulcea of Worms (d. 1196) is described as preparing thread and gut to sew together books, Torah scrolls, and other religious objects. She is also said to have bathed the dead and to have sewn their shrouds, a quintessential act of loving kindness in Jewish tradition. At the end of the 17th century, organized groups of women assumed responsibility for preparing deceased members of the community for burial, mirroring already established male associations (see Ḥevra Kaddisha ). In the 19th century, middle class Jewish women in Europe formed charitable organizations, a shift from the largely individual nature of earlier women's philanthropy. These groups, which ranged from patrons of orphan asylums to free loan societies, to dowry clubs for poor brides, mirrored the social and philanthropic patterns of non-Jewish bourgeois women. The early 20th century saw the establishment of national women's organizations for philanthropic purposes, including the juedischer Frauenbund in Germany (1904) and the Union of Jewish Women in England (1902). Its predecessor, the Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women, was established in 1885. Jewish women in the United States followed American models in defining their charitable organizations. The first formal American Jewish women's association, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia, was founded by rebecca gratz , with her mother and sister, in 1819. Later, synagogue-based "Sisterhoods of Personal Service" were founded in response to the needs of the massive influx of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe. In 1893, the national Council of Jewish Women became the first body to link local chapters into a national organization. Taking on women-centered issues like immigration, settlement, education, and the battle against white slavery, the NCJW connected middle class Jewish American women, primarily of central European descent, to their eastern European coreligionists. In 1995, more than a century after its founding, NCJW absorbed a feminist organization (U.S. Israel Women to Women) in an effort to expand its work in Israel. By the end of the 19th century, when professional social workers increasingly assumed responsibility for serving the needy, earlier, local organizations gave way to more inwardly-focused synagogue sisterhoods or auxiliaries, where tasks were domestically linked and less public. Women raised funds for synagogue furnishings and education and were charged with expanding the reach of synagogue life. Reform leaders established the national Federation of Temple Sisterhoods in 1913. The Conservative (women 's League) and Orthodox movements followed suit in 1918 and 1926, respectively. hadassah , the Women's Zionist Organization of America, was founded in 1912. Focusing on health initiatives in Palestine, Hadassah raised more funds and engaged more members (heavily eastern European) than any other American women's organization. In 1925, the predecessors of amit and pioneer women (now Naamat) also formed Zionist groups. ort (Organization for Rehabilitation through Training), established in 1927, focused women's funds and voluntarism towards international education initiatives. During World War I, American Jewish women formally became part of local Federation work. Women's Divisions were created in Boston (1917, reestablished in 1930), Philadelphia (1918), and New York (1920), paralleling the Businessmen's Divisions. Throughout the 20th century, Women's Divisions thrived nationwide, raising a large percentage of Federation, and eventually United Jewish Appeal, budgets. Despite their successes, these divisions were commonly considered a source of "plus giving," providing funds over and above the male partner's gift. The 1970s witnessed a rejection of the parallel power structure represented by Women's Divisions; approximately ten Federations closed these fundraising vehicles, but all were reinstated in the 1980s. Federation funds raised by Women's Divisions are ordinarily included in general allocations. During the late 1990s, concluding that issues important to women and girls were not being appropriately funded by community allocations, female   philanthropists established Jewish Women's Foundations. In their first ten years, more than 20 such funds have raised over $35 million to fund services that are specifically directed to the needs of girls and women. U.S. women's philanthropic impact also reaches beyond single gender organizations, although women remain poorly represented in the upper echelons of Jewish philanthropic leadership in the first decade of the 21st century. While a number of individual women were substantial contributors to the Jewish community, women accounted for only 25% of board memberships and 12% of presidents in North American Jewish communal organizations. See also charity . (Deborah Skolnick Einhorn (2nd ed.) -BIBLIOGRAPHY: GENERAL: B.D. Bogen, Jewish Philanthropy (1917), 38–58; E. Frisch, A Historical Survey of Jewish Philanthropy (1924); I. Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (19322), ch. xvii–xviii; Baron, Social, 3 vols. (1937), index S.V. Charity; Baron, Community, 2 (1942), 290–350; C. Roth, Jewish Contribution to Civilization (1938), ch. on "Charity," 287–315; Elbogen, Century, index S.V. Philanthropy; I. Chipkin, in: L. Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews, their History, Cult and Religion, 2 (1949), 713–44. COUNTRIES: ARGENTINA: J.X. Cohen, Jewish Life in South America (1941); J. Shatzky, Communidades Judias en Latinoamerica (1952); AJYB, 69 (1968), 394–404. CANADA: L. Rosenberg, Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada 1760–1960 (= AJYB vol. 62, 1961); F. Hutner, Fund Raising in Canada (1969). ENGLAND: L. Wolf, Essays on Jewish History, ed. by C. Roth (1934); C. Roth, The Great Synagogue London 1690–1940 (1950); V.D. Lipman, Social History of the Jews in England 1850–1950 (1954), index; idem, A Century of Social Service 1859–1959 (1959), index; S.D. Temkin, in: AJYB, 58 (1957), 3–63. FRANCE: L. Berman, Histoire des Juifs de France (1937); L. Kahn, Histoire des écoles communales et consistoriales israélites de Paris (1809–1884) (1884); J. Kaplan, in: AJYB, 47 (1945/46), 71–118; 49 (1947/48), 319–22; Z. Szajkowski, Analytical Franco–Jewish Gazetteer (1966). GERMANY: J.R. Marcus, Rise and Destiny of the German Jew (1934), index; A. Ruppin, Jewish Fate and Future (1940), index; H. Schwab, A World in Ruins (1946). ITALY: Vogelstein-Rieger, passim; Roth, Italy, index S.V. Charity. PALESTINE AND ISRAEL: H. Szold, in: National Conference of Jewish Charities, Proceedings (1910–12); R. Gottheil et al., ibid.; A. Greenbaum, The American Joint Distribution Committee and the Yeshivot in Israel (1964). RUSSIA: L. Greenberg, The Jews in Russia, ed. by M. Wischnitzer, 1 (1944); 2 (1951), index; H.L. Sahsovich et al., in: National Conference of Jewish Charities, Proceedings (1908). U.S.: H.L. Lurie, A Heritage Affirmed; the Jewish Federation Movement in America (1961); R. Morris and M. Freund (eds.), Trends and Issues in Jewish Social Welfare in the United States (1966); S.P. Goldberg, Jewish Communal Services (1969); AJYB, passim. ORGANIZATIONS: See also articles on individual organizations. ALLIANCE ISRAÉLITE UNIVERSELLE: Les Cahiers de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, esp. no. 168 (Jan. 1969). ANGLO-JEWISH ASSOCIATION: Annual Report, 13 no. 1 (March 1969). BILU: N. Sokolow, Ḥibbath Zion (Eng., 1935), ch. 42. BOARD OF GUARDIANS (Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue Jewish Welfare Board, London): Report (1969). BOARD OF GUARDIANS AND TRUSTEES FOR RELIEF OF THE JEWISH POOR, LONDON (Jewish Welfare Board, London): Annual Report (1968) and Letter, Public Relations Officer (Oct. 8, 1969). DEUTSCH-ISRAELITISCHER GEMEINDEBUND: Wilhelm, in: YLBI, 2 (1957), 61–63; Sandler, ibid., 76–84. HEBREW UNIVERSITY: B. Cher-rick, Report on Fund Raising (1969). HICEM: M. Wischnitzer, Visas to Freedom. The History of Hias (1956). HILFSVEREIN DER DEUTSCHEN JUDEN: Z. Szajkowski, in: JSOS, 13 (1951), 47–70; 19 (1957), 29–50; 22 (1960), 131–58. ḤOVEVEI ZION: A.M. Hyamson, Palestine. The Re-birth of an Ancient Nation (1917), 5–123. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (1982); S. Chambré, "Parallel Power Structures, Invisible Careers and the Changing Nature of American Jewish Philanthropy," in: Journal of Jewish Communal Service 76:3 (2000); idem, "Philanthropy," in: P.E. Hyman and D.D. Moore (ed.), Jewish Women in America (1998), K. Goldman. Beyond the Synagogue Gallery (2000); M. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany (1979); idem, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class (1991); L.G. Kuzmack. Woman's Cause (1990); F.M. Loewenberg. From Charity to Social Justice (2001).