The Early Years

Jewish Family & Children’s Service traces its roots back to 1864. In January of that year, Nathan Strauss, a Boston businessman, called a meeting to organize what would become the United Hebrew Benevolent Association (UHBA), a precursor to JF&CS. “Twenty-six men, assembled in Synagogue Adath Israel, laid the foundation…and included in their by-laws the purpose of the organization as giving temporary relief to the poor and needy.”

“Board members were assigned to meet once weekly to receive applications from those requiring assistance, which was limited to two dollars per week.”

In the late 1800s, the UHBA began to focus on the issues that JF&CS would continue to address throughout its entire 150-year history — immigration, family life, children, and the aged. It began to shift from the simple distribution of relief to the needy to the embrace of a social work perspective, earmarked by concern for the individual and family within the society they inhabit.

Jacob and Lina Hecht, a prominent Boston couple, were both extremely involved in Jewish philanthropy and communal work in the late 1800s. When Jacob became the president of UHBA in 1876, he was instrumental in revamping the methods of relief disbursement. It was at this time that record keeping was begun. These collective changes created a framework that can be seen as the forerunner of the casework model. It was Lina Hecht, however, who enlarged the scope of relief by revitalizing, in 1878, the Hebrew Ladies Sewing Circle which had been founded in 1869 as an adjunct to UHBA. Immigrant women were paid to sew clothes and blankets that were then given to those people who needed them. In this way, relief was not simply distributed, but people were engaged in improving the lot of the Jewish community. Her involvement also marked the entry of women into the arena of Jewish philanthropy.

In 1875, there were 3,000 Jews in Boston. Beginning in the 1880s, a large number of refugees fleeing persecution in Russia began to arrive. By 1895, the Jewish population had grown to 20,000. In 1890, Lina Hecht created the Hebrew Industrial School, appointing Golde Bamber, “probably the first professional Jewish social worker in Boston,” to be in charge. “At the end of five years, the Industrial School had taught 1,200 children to be ‘wage earners, breadwinners, and self-respecting intelligent citizens.’ ”

In 1922, the Hebrew Industrial School changed its name to Hecht Neighborhood House, and Golde Bamber remained as its director until 1930. During those years, she furthered her own education as a social worker by taking courses; she introduced one of the first nursery schools in the country; and she became a beacon for her pioneering work that “influenced settlement house, vocational, Jewish, and nursery school education well beyond Boston and well beyond her lifetime.”