Agencies  /  Buffalo Jewish Federation

Overview

In 1903, four organizations consolidated their philanthropic activities into one organization to form the Federated Jewish Charities. A Board of Governors, with representatives from each group was established, and officers elected Julius L. Saperston as the first president of the Federation. Several committees were established including Finance, Relief, Education, Law, and Maternity. In 1905, a superintendent was appointed as an administrator. At first, the hope was to raise funds from board members, but a Kol Nidre appeal was always necessary and became an annual event, the forerunner to the annual campaign.

Two of the organizations that were part of the Federated Jewish Charities could lay claim to histories stretching back to the 1860s while the other two had formed to respond to the needs of new immigrants. The Men’s Hebrew Benevolent Society and the Women’s Hebrew Benevolent Society were founded in the 1860s to help individuals and their families who needed help to pay hospital bills or other needs including funeral costs. The Ladies’ Sewing and Aid Society, and the Sisterhood of Zion were later organizations, formed in the 1890s to aid with immigrant integration and acculturation providing clothing and linens and with services from English classes to childcare. All four organizations had strong connections with Temple Beth Zion.

In 1907, the Federated Jewish Charities moved into Zion House, 456 Jefferson Avenue, the home of the Sisterhood of Zion. Leaders of the Federated Jewish Charities included Eugene Warner (later leader of the Federation), Cecil B. Wiener (later head of the Relief Department, Judge) and Mrs. Marcus Spiegel (one of the founders of the precursor to the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies). By 1909, Cecil B. Wiener, was the General Manager and running the Relief Department. As both employee of the Federation, and member of its Board of Governors she made an indelible mark on the organization until her retirement in 1944.

The West Side and Temple Beth Zion balance of membership changed in 1909 with the inclusion of the Jewish Aid Society, an East Side group that retained its own autonomy as a separate constituent agency. East-siders, including Sundel J. Holender, Isador Setel, Isaac S. Given, Samuel Cristall among others, joined the governors, and within five years had changed the balance of membership from its founding base. From 1909 to the 1930s, the early-Federation continued to fundraise and dispense relief through its Relief Department, the precursor to Jewish Family Service. Long term bequests and capital fundraising were handled by a separate organization from 1911 by the forerunner to the Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies (at that stage called the Jewish Federation of Buffalo).

In the 1940s, the Federation hired its first professionally trained director, Arthur Roischan, and later that decade, following a review, reformed as the United Jewish Federation of Buffalo (UJF) in 1949 as a merger of the Jewish Federation for Social Service and the United Jewish Fund. Following the establishment of the State of Israel, giving had significantly risen to double previous annual donations.

The UJF entered a new phase of community building and special projects. It became the key sponsor of a unique event in 1954, with the celebration of the American Jewish Tercentenary. An appointed Executive Committee organized community wide events to observe this anniversary. Another outcome of the committee’s planning was the hiring of Dr. Selig Adler to write a history of Jewish life in Buffalo which resulted in From Ararat to Suburbia: The History of the Jewish Community of Buffalo, published by Jewish Publication Society in 1960.

Suburban relocations with capital building and the funding of programming associated with a midsized community, preoccupied community leaders throughout the 1960s to 1980s. As part of that, growing the next generation of community leadership became a key goal of older members, who already had long arcs of participation. Support for Israel and leadership development through twinning programs with Israeli development towns and missions to Israel forged generational cohorts. Significant numbers of participants entered lay leadership in agencies, synagogues and organizations, post mission. Activism for Soviet Jewry especially in the 1980 and 1990s provided a similar path. Special projects and initiatives expanded. Recently retired (and by 1980, Distinguished Professor), Dr. Selig Adler was hired to organize materials with the help of Sister Martin Jones for a Jewish Community Archives that opened at Buffalo State College in 1984. (It has since moved to the University at Buffalo).

From the 1990s to 2020s the continued maintenance of community wide infrastructure no longer reflected demography and affiliation patterns, forcing a number of mergers and closings, managed in part by the Jewish Federation. The Buffalo Jewish Federation and other agencies from the downtown Delaware Avenue relocated to the suburban JCC and a new community survey was launched to aid with planning. Synagogue mergers and organizational restructuring led to the absorption of the Bureau of Jewish Education and The Holocaust Resource Center into the Buffalo Jewish Federation, and the launch Kadimah Scholars within Park School.

The Buffalo Jewish Federation has re-envisioned its broad mission of bringing Jewish people together in Buffalo and the world, providing support to Israel, and promoting local Jewish organizations in Buffalo. It has revived its community relations council to promote tolerance for both Jews and non-Jews all over the world. It has reenvisaged both inclusion and education as engagement and learning and it has updated its mission. It maintains its traditional community planning and fundraising function and has sought to place itself as the connecting hub to a network of Jewish interconnecting communities.

Cemeteries under Federation management