Jewish War Orphans*
Several times of late I have read articles in newspapers and magazines dealing with civilian war relief, in which the writer has referred to the need to record harrowing incidents or to illustrate a narrative with pictures telling a sad human story, in order to make the conviction for the need of help “carry over” to the reader. Some of the relief commissions that have gone abroad have been accompanied by official photographers, whose purpose it was not only to substantiate the written reports of the commission, but also to heighten the emotional effect of whatever verbal appeal might thereafter be made. Although the subject before us is one whose mere mention conjures up pictures of woe and desolation, it is not my wish, nor would you wish me to describe those images which our minds, without external assistance, present to us of the hosts of little ones, wandering forsaken through a devastated world. Not even in a matter-of-fact way shall the attempt be made to describe conditions, for we all know more or less about the state to which the war has reduced all peoples. I shall present no long array of specific facts, no precise figures; indeed, I have no clear survey over actual conditions as they vary from country to country. But I know, and I know that you know, that in most parts of the world there are now thousands upon thousands of motherless, fatherless, poor children, and that in those countries which are most densely populated by Jews, the Jewish orphans must needs form a large proportion of the total number. Why then do I claim your attention? I venture to do so because I have begun to give considerable thought to the subject of the Jewish war orphan, and my thinking has brought me to conclusions which, if communicated to others, may lead to a profounder study of the problem, and may result in remedial action on a large scale. I believe it will be seen that, no matter how the circumstances in different lands vary, yet the needs and the methods of relief that can be applied will fall into a few easily defined categories. These methods we can discuss, and if the discussion does no more than educate us to take the right stand when the time for action comes, it will nevertheless accomplish a good purpose. It may even hasten action. A discussion of this kind may give an impetus to the creation of what someone has called “the machinery of misery,” but what might better be termed an instrument of salvation.
Perhaps, before we enter into an analysis of the problem before us, we ought to satisfy ourselves that it is a problem with distinctive Jewish obligations. Does not the obligation rest upon each country to provide for all its orphaned children, Gentile and Jewish? Why then upon the Jews in particular, too? It is granted that the care of the Jewish war orphan is incumbent upon the land for which the father fought. Therefore in large part our discussion of our topic will apply to the care of all orphans. But the problem becomes a special Jewish problem too, because a state
* A paper read before the Baltimore Federation of Jewish Women's Clubs, November 27, 1917.
never assumes entire charge of all its dependents, young or old; its relief work is supplemented by, or is often merely a supplement to, private charity. Perhaps some day, when the world has become socialized, the people as a whole will provide adequately and mater- nally for all who are in need, somewhat, as in America today, the Government, though not yet with a mother’s care for individuals, provides education for rich and poor alike. Even if the day had arrived when public aid would be adequate, the probability is that the education and maintenance of special racial, religious, and national groups of dependents would still be left to corresponding private agencies, subsidized by public moneys. For the present, whether we think it just or not, we must assume the largest part of the burden of providing for our own people, because State aid, when granted, is not adequate. But I think that all who are here will agree that not only of necessity, but by choice, do we wish to provide for our own. We regard them and ourselves as parts of one great Jewish family; and just as we, as individuals, should not willingly let our parents or our children depend on strangers for love and care, so, as members of the great Jewish family, we are not content to have the destitute adults or the orphaned children of our people live without, and outside of, beneficent Jewish love. There is another reason why the Jewish children bereaved by this war are precious to us as Jews. As aged parents who have lost many sons cling to their grandchildren with every fiber of their being, seeing in them the hope of the survival of the family, so our aged people, deprived of many sons by the war, will foster with utmost tenderness and care the young children of these sons, in that they embody the future of the race.
We may go back a step to the argument of expediency, and say that on the Jewish children in the countries devastated by the war, will depend in large measure our own position in the Gentile world. Our credit will rise or fall, ten or twenty years hence, according to whether these children make good and intelligent citizens in the lands of their birth or adoption; and whether or not they are regarded as desirable immigrants. Every incoming tide affects those Jews who have already taken a place on the shore. But, as I see it, the disposition that is made of these children will affect not only us in America, but our whole Jewish people; and it is with the well-being of our people as a whole that we must be chiefly concerned. Unless we believe that the Jews should merge completely with the Gentiles, and disappear as a distinct entity, we must, in these days when the Great Powers of the world are summoning us forth to take a place in the world again as a people, at last realize that in 100%- ing for a solution for our problems, we must take into account not only our own community, but all the scattered legions of our people. So with the problem of the care of Jewish war orphans. We must try to work out a plan that will be for the benefit not only of a group here and there, or for all the detached groups; this is not enough; our plan, to be a good one, must be made for the
best interests of our whole people, in their relations with the other nations of the world, and in the perpetuation of our own Jewish national life. But, before we look at the problem in its vaster aspects, let us examine it in detail.
4b 435 UVEGII. It would seem that, with reference to the care of destitute children, the warring countries may be divided into three categories: first, countries highly organized, which, with or without financial help from outside, will probably be able to care for all their own children within the boundaries of their own land; second, greatly impoverished countries, socially less resourceful, from which some part of the juvenile population may have to be removed to better equipped lands; and third, one impoverished but under-populated country, to which, for special reasons, we may wish to send some of the children withdrawn fram other landc.
THE PROBLEM IN AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE FIRST GROUP
In the first category we should place countries like our own, like England, 1186 France— I name only a few—where the solution of the problem will depend mainly on money and on social vision. Leaving the question of money aside for the time being—I shall come to it later—it may be well for us to pass in review some of the methods now in use for taking care of dependent children, and some of the ideals to be kept in mind when we begin to provide for the children for whom the Jews in America will be especially 16- sponsible, viz., the children of American Jews killed in the war. There are in this country three systems of caring for the orphan or half-orphan. Under the first, where the child’s mother survives and is a proper guardian, the mother receives a stipend for the maintenance of the child; under the second method, even when the child’s mother is living and is a respectable woman, the child is boarded out with a foster mother, so cruelly is destitution punished; under the third, the orphan or half-orphan is placed in an institution. In the administration and financing of these various systems, we find again that three methods are practised. The whole undertaking may be handled by the state or city alone, or by a private agency alone, or by the two jointly, i. e., by subsidies from the public charities to the private, and a degree of supervision and standardization by the state or city.
_ The fundamental issue in child-caring work today is the question whether institutions or private foster homes are better for children who have no natural home. The tendency is to give the preference to the placing of children in private homes, The final solution of the question depends both on the sort of orphan asylum we can develop and the type of foster home we can find. You may say, this is entirely a money question; you may say, given enough money, we can develop cottage system institutions which will be most desirable for some types of child, and may find excellent homes of intelligence and refinement for other types. But it is far from being wholly a question of money. It may, in part, be the question of the age of the child and