By Jewish Funders Network and The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation

The number of people living in low-income Jewish households in New York has doubled over the past two decades. And many more Jewish families around the country say they are struggling to make ends meet.

The challenges posed by Jewish poverty are substantial (click here to access an overview of what we know about Jewish poverty in the United States). The question that we have been asking at the Jewish Funders Network (JFN) and The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation: what can we do about it?

Even the most advanced Jewish philanthropic portfolio, should have an allocation of “vintage Tzedaka”, which is earmarked to sustain the weakest and neediest of our communities. 

(An installment in the series Spotlight on Poverty, a partnership between JFN and eJewish Philanthropy.)

There is an enormous opportunity for the Jewish community to bring new energy, power, and cohesion to the work of our non-profit sector and, especially, of our philanthropy, to address the needs against which our neighbors and often our community are struggling. 

By Alex Roth-Kahn, Managing Director, UJA-Federation of NY’s Caring Department and Jeffrey A. Schoenfeld, President, UJA-Federation of NY

(An installment in the series Spotlight on Poverty, a partnership between JFN and eJewish Philanthropy.)

Fifty-four years ago, President Lyndon Johnson first uttered the now famous phrase “the war on poverty” in his State of the Union address.  When he spoke in 1964, a staggering 19% of Americans were considered poor, equaling 36 million Americans at the time. Today, the poverty rate may have dropped to 12.7%, but with our much larger population, that translates to more than 40 million Americans living in poverty.

The more local statistics are no less startling.  One in five New York–area Jewish households is poor.  One in 10 are near poor.  Moreover, 45% of all children in Jewish households live in poor or near-poor households.

We can do better than that.

By Eric S. Goldstein and Andrés Spokoiny
eJewish Philanthropy

Poverty is about other people, not American Jews.

That’s not something we hear out loud, but it does seem to be a subconscious assumption underlying too many American Jewish conversations – and actions  – about poverty.