Walter Jacob
Normative tzedakah continually took new forms as it has in our time and reinvented itself. As orphanages closed they were replaced by counseling centers; group homes have replaced family efforts for the handicapped.
Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, based on talmudic dicta to look after non-Jewish poor, the Jewish community became more involved in broad efforts to alleviate all poverty. This was accomplished in part through participation in communal welfare associations and equally in pushing for social welfare legislation in all western countries. This natural development of Emancipation has vastly expanded in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and many Jews have taken leadership positions in such efforts.
Within the Jewish communities the gabbaim as Federation presidents continue to lead tzedakah efforts and consider it a privilege, although also hard work. We honor them for their efforts and sometimes as in the past, try to instill, a spirit of anonymous charitable efforts, but accept the human condition as it is.
T7EDAKAH AS A CORNERSTONE OF MODERN JUDAISM
Modern Jews , religious and secular, have found new meaning in tzedakah. Those who are secular have little interest in theology, the synagogue, or study. They are ethnic Jews , but that has not been sufficient to satisfy their definition of Judaism . This group has seen Israel and tzedakah “their Judaism .” Both have frequently appeared synonymous to them. 7zedakah has thus loomed larger in the broader Jewish world than in any previous age.