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those programs and dedicated
her career to developing robust
social safety nets.

After graduating from
Wellesley College in 1915,
Kahn was inspired by a family
friend to pursue a career in
social work. She became
a case worker at the Jewish
Family Agency from 1915 to
1918, attended the University
of Chicago School of Social
Work (now the School of Social
Service Administration) and
worked as civic director of
Chicago Women’s Aid.

In 1919, she was offered
a job at Hebrew Benevolent
Association of Baltimore
and worked there until 1928,
when she became director of
the Jewish Welfare Society of
Philadelphia. Kahn helmed this organi-
zation at a time when social
work — particularly Jewish
social work — was undergoing
profound changes because of
the Great Depression. Rugged
individualism and private
charity proved inadequate in
the face of mass unemploy-
ment, poverty and hunger,
leading President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt to create the
social welfare programs known
10 NOVEMBER 26, 2020
wisely. For if relief represents
frustration, failure and inade-
quacy, can it nourish and
rehabilitate its recipients? And
if it is too readily accepted as
due recompense for lost oppor-
tunity, does it cripple initiative
and undermine the spirit of
independence?” she wrote
in Annals of the American
Academy of Political and
Social Science.

She used
empathetic Dorothy C. Kahn
Photo via womeninpeace.org
and the West India Co. admitted
them on the condition that they
would care for the poor in their
community. “This was something that
Jewish social workers turned
from a mandate that allowed
their settlement in colonial
America into an obligation
that Jews ‘take care of their
own,’ and the Great Depression
really made that impossible,”
Wenger said.

on employment and relief of
Roosevelt’s Committee on
Economic Security.

She lived and worked in
Philadelphia until 1945 and
received widespread support
from Philadelphians after she
was fired from the local relief
board, according to Ditzion.

She went on to work for the
American Association of Social
Workers as staff executive secre-
tary and then staff president.

Jewish social workers and professionals continued to believe in the
ideal of ethnic philanthropy as a kind of cornerstone of Jewish life.”
BETH WENGER
collectively as the New Deal.

Kahn believed all citizens
deserved relief. However, she
knew that Americans’ desire to
believe in meritocracy, or “the
American success psychology,”
as she put it, made welfare
controversial. “This is important because
it has produced a set of
mind which surrounds relief
with emotional conflicts of
enormous importance to
those who would administer it
portrayals of people who
sought public relief to argue
that they were in need due to
forces outside of their control
and were entitled to support as
a matter of justice.

“Kahn urged social workers
and the social work profes-
sion to take leadership roles
in developing and building
an adequate national system
for social welfare,” clinical
geriatric social worker and
author Joan Ditzion wrote
in Kahn’s biography for the
Jewish Women’s Archive.

With the expansion of
public welfare agencies during
the New Deal, Jewish social
services, in particular, had to
reckon with their roles in their
communities and American
society at large.

Beth Wenger, associate dean
for graduate studies and Moritz
and Josephine Berg Professor
of History at the University of
Pennsylvania, said Jewish social
workers struggled with the
fact that they could no longer
fulfill the Stuyvesant Promise,
a colonial compact that had a
strong influence over Jewish
American charity. When
the first Jews came to New
Amsterdam (now Manhattan)
in 1654, Gov. Peter Stuyvesant
JEWISH EXPONENT
Despite the upheaval, Jewish
social workers like Kahn saw
the need for national public
relief efforts and did not view
their work in conflict with New
Deal relief programs like the
Social Security Agency and the
Civil Works Administration.

Many joined expanding
government agencies, while
others continued to address
need in Jewish contexts.

“Jewish social workers and
professionals continued to
believe in the ideal of ethnic
philanthropy as a kind of
cornerstone of Jewish life. Even
after the government assumed
responsibility for
many programs, they focused on
things that were within their
realm in Jewish employment
services, dealing with Jewish
families, vocational guidance,
all sorts of things that they
felt could still be done under
Jewish auspices,” Wenger said.

Kahn’s career spanned the
Jewish and non-Jewish social
work worlds. She became
the first executive director
of the Philadelphia County
Relief Board in 1932, served
as president of the American
Association of Social Workers
from 1934 to 1936 and
chaired the subcommittee
“In these positions, she
developed professional
standards for public welfare
workers and helped the social
work profession define its role
in the development of social
policy and social welfare
programs across the country,”
Ditzion wrote.

In the early 1940s, she
served as director of Economic
Adjustment and Family Services
at the National Refugee Service
in New York. After World
War II, she became the execu-
tive director of the Health
and Welfare Council of New
York City. She was chief of the
Social Welfare Division of the
Department of Social Affairs of
the United Nations from 1951
to 1954 and advised the Israeli
government on social welfare
legislation. She died on Aug. 26, 1955 in
New Hope.

“She believed that people
were in need through no fault
of their own, and that every
citizen had the right to a
minimum standard of living
as a matter of human rights
and social justice, not charity,”
Ditzion wrote. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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