Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-07-06
Allowances Very Small.

ALLOWANCES very
Many of the native Jewish women
employed by the commission as over
seers in the districts where the or
phans were boarded out told me the
children'S home life was deplor-
able. Half pound Cless than $500
each was allowed the orphans living
with their widowed mothers and a
pound to those with strangers.
The three largest Jewish orphan
ages in Jerusalem were no more en-
couraginG. They had all suffered
from Turkish plundering. Their
buildings and resources had been
sorely taxed by the heavy burdens
imposed by the war.
Members of the Zionist commission
of the American Zionist Medical Unit
of the New Settlement condemned
these three orthodox institutions as
almost utterly unfit.
The commissions orphan asylums
deserved the highest praise. No
where have seen healthier, better
dressed, happier orphans.
Ma-On Livnot Israel, twelve years
old when the Zionists took it under
their control, had always been well
conducted. Jerusalem said. under the
auspices of the German Jewish or
ganlZat1on, the "HilfSverein der
Deutschen Juden." Ranging in age
from three to eighteen years, many
wreckage of Palestine's best families.
The Zionist commission was fur
nlShlnS the institution with clothes
and an allowance of 1925 a month.
Girls Good Singers.
The older girls were skillful home
makers, well bred, and often striking
ly handsome. Their singing was con-
sidered a treat by Jerusalem's new
EVriI
little groups of Sabbath guests would
gather in the orphanage hall to hear
their sweet young voices in Hebrew
songs.
1 visited the three condemned ortho-
dox orphanageS before I left Jerusa
lem. as L had visited the others. 1
could. of course. judge only from ap-
pearances, but since my visit was a
surprise to the managers in each case.
considered such judgment of some
value.
Disagree From Commission.
OF these orphan asylums. Diskin's
the number of Weingarten's General
Israelite Orphans Home" had been
reduced from 108 to Sc girls; while
Blumenthars Zion War Orphanage,"
that at one time was refuge for 250
children, had IS boys.
Conditions in Diskin's orphanage. l
had been told by Zionist doctor who
had investigated the orphan asylums
for the Zionist commission, were
worse than in any other institution
of its kind in Jerusalem
orphanage a Sad Sight.
The Blumenthal orphanage, how
ever, that the Zionists had only just
stopped supporting. and that their
Investigator declared more worthy
than Diskin's. was a sad sight. The
children looked miserable, their
clothes ragged. The squalor was en-
phasized by the pretension of the
been the 100000 home of Russian
citizen who fed before the Turks.
Rabbi David Weingarten's institu-
ton. with its most favorable location.
seemed pasable orphanage.
No Unbiased Investigation.
I came away from these three or
phanages convinced that they needed
a division between their religious and
administrative management.
Palestine's Jewish orphan problem
America Maj Solomon Lowenstein
of New York. an authority on orphan
age administration, who was in Jeru-
salem with the American Red Cross,
mas reported mis- analysis of the sit
uation to the joint distribution COM
mittee, through whose hands millions
have SO efficiently passed from Amer
lean Jewry to the stricken Jews in
the shattered lands AS a result the
secretary of this committee, Albert
Lucas, recently outlined a plan to
Felix NJ Warburg, it's chairman
Palestine's orphans are to be included
in a wholesale project to adopt Jewish
war orphans in all the erstwhile bel
ligerent countries Mr. Lucas sums
up the situation in the Holy Land
with keen fairness in the following
striking statements:
Mr.. Lucas Suggestions.
mo authority at present in Pales-
tine is capable of undertaking the
task of properly raising these chill
dren.
ANY extensive scheme of boarding
out does not merit support at the
hands of American Jewry, unless
found necessary as temporary
measure.
We'll equipped and homelike insti-
tutions such as Woodbine and Pleas
antville, conducted with due regard
for local prejudices and conditions,
would be the proper scheme to
adopt"