6o LEE K. FRANKEL 



an acquaintance with his previous environment. And here 

 the international phase of the question comes in. 



Roughly speaking, it may be said that there are no Am- 

 erican bom Jewish poor. Of the 10,061 famihes who appHed 

 for assistance to the United Hebrew charities of New York 

 during its last fiscal year, 2 per cent were bom in the United 

 States. And of these the majority of heads of famihes were 

 of the first generation. Jewish dependents who have an an- 

 cestry in the United States of more than two generations are 

 practically imknown. Nor can it be stated that there have 

 ever been enough native born dependent Jews to make an 

 issue, since the Stuyvesant episode. In the report of the pres- 

 ident of the above society for the year 1881, the statement is 

 made that during no time since the formation of the society 

 had there been less want than during the first six months of 

 the fiscal year just ended. It must have been gratifying to 

 those present at the meeting to leam that after all the poor 

 in the city had been given adequate relief, there was still in 

 the society's treasury a comfortable balance of over $14,000. 

 During the following year, so large were the receipts of the 

 society and so small the demands of the regular recipients, 

 that the balance in the treasury at the end of the year had 

 swelled to nearly $19,000. 



In the year 1881 began that great wave of emigration 

 from eastem Europe, the end of which is not yet. Driven by a 

 relentless persecution, which endangered not only their homes 

 but frequently their lives, thousands of Jews were compelled 

 to flee from their homes to seek new residence on these shores. 

 The Russo-Jewish committee which originally undertook the 

 work of caring for these immigrants tumed it over very shortly 

 to the Hebrew Emigrant Aid society, which came into existence 

 in December, 1881. In one year this society spent $250,000, 

 $50,000 less than had been spent by the United Hebrew char- 

 ities of New York in the seven years of its existence. In the 

 first and only annual report of the Emigrant Aid society, its 

 president outhned as tersely as possible the efforts that had 

 been made to provide homes and occupations for the thousands 

 of fleeing exiles who reached these shores during the momen- 

 tous summer of 1882. In the month of July the committee 



