‘Community Driven Philanthropy’. Jewish Voluntary Associations and Social Service Institutions in Eretz-Israel 1880s-1948 Paula Kabalo
The different values and methods of communal giving for “the benefit of the public good” are mentioned in Jewry’s most ancient texts. Some are phrased as binding religious rules, while others have gradually become familiar and widespread social patterns among Jewish communities worldwide.1 The term ‘philanthropy’, however, has never been translated into Hebrew. Since the inception of modernity and upon the awakening of the Jewish national movement, ‘philanthropy’ carried a negative connotation among the movement’s leaders due to its association with Jewish diasporic ‘weakness’, which they believed led to an economic and political dependency on ‘others’.2 The new national movement they championed was an attempt at eliminating such dependencies. Ben-Gurion, for instance, directly linked philanthropy with other characteristics of Jewish behavior that he believed led to the disintegration of the Jewish people, such as assimilation and dispersion. In 1941, as head of the Jewish Agency, he openly objected philanthropy “… as a system, as an attempt to solve the Jewish problem”.3 1 Kabalo, ‘Philanthropy and Religion – Judaism’, Entry, International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, NY: Springer, 2010: 444 2 A famous article reflective of this approach was written by the prominent Zionist Philosopher – Ahad Ha’Am (Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg) ‘The Yishuv and its Patrons [Ha-Yishuv Ve-Epitropsav]’ Ha’Shiloach 9:2-6,1902. 3 DBG, Minutes from JA meeting in Jerusalem, May 16th 1941, BG
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