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THE GUIDE 2019/2020
Group Helps
Jewish Women
for 200 Years
jesse bernstein | je staff
E ileen Sklaroff forgives you if you haven’t heard of
the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society (FHBS),
an organization celebrating its 200th anniversary.

“We are a very well-kept secret,” said Sklaroff, the
organization’s president.

The tiny social services organization was founded
in 1819 with the help of legendary Philadelphian
Rebecca Gratz. At the time, Sklaroff said,
Philadelphia Jewish women who found themselves
unexpectedly without a husband (whether by ill-
ness, death or greener pastures) were in the doubly
unenviable position of being both without much of a
safety net or a Jewish organization that could cater to
their needs. There were Christian missionaries who
assisted such women in procuring food, shelter and
clothing, but there was also “a good dose of indoctri-
nation,” according to Sklaroff.

Thus the FHBS was born, a product of work
done by a group of women from Congregation
Mikveh Israel, with Gratz leading the charge; she’d
hold the secretary position for close to 40 years. The
women of the FHBS, according to the constitution
penned in 1837, were “desirous of rendering them-
selves useful to their indigent Sisters of the House
of Israel, associated themselves together for the
purposes of charity.”
FHBS was small then, and remains small now
— run completely by a 13-member volunteer board.

They focus on four core areas: emergency aid, some-
times in the form of monthly stipends; personal
emergency response systems for frail, elderly women
who need assistance; a pharmacy stipend program
and summer camp scholarships for children.

These programs, Sklaroff noted, are a reflection
of the needs of the day; the current iteration of FHBS
does significantly different work than the FHBS of 35
years ago when Sklaroff joined the group, let alone
200 years ago. Board members were doing monthly
home visits when she began.

Sklaroff was a reluctant sign-up at first. Her
mother died when she was young, and she was
quite close to her grandmother. One day, her grand-
mother’s closest friend, Bertha Braude — their hus-
bands were first cousins — asked her to join the
board of the FHBS. Sklaroff, grateful to Braude for
years of friendship to her grandmother, agreed.

She had reservations. For one, she was committed
at the time to working in charitable organizations