Alive and Flourishing: JDC Assistance to Yeshivas in Israel

From the very first years of the JDC's establishment, the organization supported Torah institutions. In 1920, it founded a designated cultural committee to coordinate activity which until the Holocaust, was religion-centric and devoted to Eastern Europe. However, from the 1950s onwards, most resources were directed to Israel. With the establishment of the State of Israel, the JDC believed that the responsibility for handling the yeshivas should be transferred to the Jewish Agency and the government. However, due to economic straits and the neglect of the state, the JDC continued to provide help to yeshivas and their students. The infrastructure and sanitary conditions of the post-Holocaust yeshivas in Eretz Israel were abysmal and visitors from the JDC became concerned about the nutrition and living conditions of students. The economic plan for Israeli yeshivas had been non-viable from the start, and as the number of yeshiva students increased, the institutions found it more and more difficult to provide them with the necessary resources. The situation necessitated renewed planning on the part of the JDC, and in 1954, the Cultural Committee decided to establish a special department to handle the yeshivas in Israel. The JDC did not see yeshivas merely as educational institutions but as communal organizations with social needs and as early as the 1940s, had supported their nutritional needs, constructed and renovated kitchens, purchased modern kitchen equipment, and provided them with guidelines regarding hygiene and food quality as well raw materials. The JDC likewise supported the introduction of occupational training programs for yeshiva students, thereby responding to their needs well-beyond the provision of financial support.