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This article explores the welfare services that settled Jews in Britain and the United States provided for the large diaspora of east European Jews between 1880 and the Great Depression. It highlights gender relations, both as proposed for the immigrants and among the welfare workers themselves. How immigrants experienced the services provided for them is seen here through the lens of divergent views of tzedakah-God's commandment to practice charity and social justice in a way that respects the dignity of the recipient. Using evidence from London and Glasgow for Britain, and from New York and Boston for the United States, it explores three overlapping phases of welfare work: scientific Jewish charity organization (1870-1914); new Liberal and Progressive Jewish social welfare (1890-1930); and professional Jewish social services (from 1890 on). The overall story tells of the increasing intention of the welfare providers to bring more understanding and respect to their work, but also of continuing tension with the recipients of their concern.
I first encountered Jewish Social Services (JSS) when my mother was moving into the dark confusion of Alzheimer's disease. My sister and I needed a "spy" to visit her on a regular basis and decide when she had reached the stage of being a danger to herself and others. Despite JSS being underfunded and overstretched in South Florida, a charming social worker, whom, mercifully, my mother liked (she had fired others), came every week and told us immediately when mother had forgotten to turn off gas burners and indeed had forgotten to eat. The experience of working with Jewish Social Services was positive. It was good to deal with social workers on a level of mutual respect. As I began to research the experience of Jewish immigrant families at the turn of the twentieth century, I began to wonder whether my Russian-born grandmother would have had the same kind of experience.
This article explores the welfare services that settled Jews in Great Britain and the US provided for the large influx of east European Jews into those countries between 1880 and the Great Depression. As well as tracking changes in welfare attitudes and activities, I highlight social relations of three kinds. First, I examine the close relations between Jewish and non-Jewish welfare practices....