Lighting the Hanukkah menorah connects the past and present. As the second blessing on the candles makes explicit, we praise God for performing miracles “bayamim hahem bazman hazeh” — “in those days, at this time.” With these words, we recognize that we’re the direct beneficiaries of the miracles and acts of kindness that sustained our ancestors — whether in ancient Israel, the shtetls of Eastern Europe, or tenements on the Lower East Side.
Time and history are very much on our minds these days, as in just a few weeks UJA-Federation will be celebrating its 100th birthday. Early in 2017, we’ll share our plans to commemorate this milestone, and also reflect on the role of UJA-Federation as we launch our second century.
But for now, let’s go back to the beginning — 1917.
It was a highly turbulent time for New York City and a world at war. The Jewish community was struggling with immense and growing needs — poverty, sickness, waves of refugees requiring resettlement, and so much more. Compounding the chaos, countless uncoordinated charities were duplicating efforts and donor dollars were stretched too thin.
Enter Felix Warburg, a titan of Wall Street. With enormous passion and determination, he persuaded other philanthropic leaders to bring together 24 “cradle-to-grave” organizations under the auspices of a single Federation — creating the modern day manifestation of kehilla (sacred community) that has underpinned Jewish life since the lighting of the first menorah thousands of years ago.
And so it was on January 10, 1917, that the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City was formally chartered by the State of New York.
Reporting in 1929 on the Federation’s founding in 1917, The New York Times wrote, “The federation had to launch the idea, then new, of concerted efforts in the raising of funds, of their wise administration and their just apportionment. It had to persuade many existing agencies that had been acting independently — some of them for nearly a century — that a community chest was as sound an economic program in philanthropy as the consolidation of interest in business.”
Over these last 100 years, Federation, along with the United Jewish Appeal — formed in 1939 to provide for Jews in Palestine and Eastern Europe, and merged with Federation in 1986 to create UJA-Federation — has served as a vital safety net for the local and global Jewish community. We resettled massive numbers of immigrants on these shores, helped rebuild Jewish life in Europe and the United States after the Holocaust, played an important role in building the modern State of Israel, and brought Jews from the four corners of the earth to settle there. From the fight to free Soviet Jewry, to our response to 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, to the heroic work of our network partners each and every day, we have been prime movers in shaping modern Jewish history.
Today, some of us are descendants of our first leaders. Others are the descendants of those whose lives were made better because of what our early leaders made possible. Either way, the essence of UJA-Federation — what sustained us in 1917 and sustains us still today — is the idea of community and collective responsibility. Advances in science, medicine, and technology have redefined life and made it, at least on the surface, unrecognizable to those who lived in the past. But our commitment to core Jewish values remains constant.
This year, as we light the Hanukkah candles linking past and present, let’s reflect on all we’ve enabled these last 100 years through the power of collective action.
And let’s recommit to our work and to the values that sustain us so that the lights of Hanukkah shine just as brightly for our community in the next 100 years and beyond.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Hanukkah