When Fanny Heller Straus called the first meeting of the Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society to order one morning in 1849, she had no inkling that the organization they were creating — now known as Jewish Family Services — would continue to provide essential services to the Richmond community 175 years later or that generations of her descendants would remain dedicated to its cause.
Fanny Heller Straus
The founding mothers — whose ranks included Thalhimers, Cohens, Milhisers, Sterns, Whitlocks, Michelbachers and Hutzlers — had responded to the suggestion of Rabbi Maximilian Michelbacher of Richmond’s Congregation Beth Ahabah that they work together for the well-being of the community in accordance with core principles of Judaism: tikkun olam, healing the world one person at a time; tzedakah, charitable giving; and gemilut chasidim, acts of loving kindness. They modeled LHBS after the European Chaverim associations they had known in Germany and other practices developed throughout the centuries in the Jewish communities of ancient Israel and Europe, as well as the first organization of its kind in the United States, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, established in Philadelphia in 1819.
The first LHBS volunteers were, for the most part, recent immigrants to the United States. They had come to Richmond from German states where Jews lived under heavy government restrictions that limited their freedom to choose where they lived and what professions they pursued, as well as who and where they could marry. In contrast, Virginia, which had adopted the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom in 1786, was more accepting of Jews. Richmond was a place where they could live peacefully, pursue their passions and prosper.
“Those women really were amazing,” says Wendy Kreuter, executive director of JFS. “They were daughters, mothers and wives with no medical or social work training who, through their dedication to the principles of tikkun olam … created something truly extraordinary.
“The beginning of our history gave us a road map for who we are today and what we do,” she says. A decade after founding LHBS, its members cared for soldiers during the Civil War, many opening their homes as hospitals to help treat the wounded; after the war, they helped widows and orphans. They set an example that inspired later generations of leadership when they, too, organized to meet the new physical and mental health challenges arising from subsequent wars.
Graduates of Jewish Family Services’ Personal Care Aide Training Program
“They had to deal with diseases like tuberculosis and the Spanish flu,” Kreuter explains. “At the time, social work was an unknown concept, the organization was all volunteer, but the LHBS members didn’t shut things down. They visited and cared for the sick themselves and found and funded [care] for as many as possible. So, when COVID hit, we looked to their example and kept our doors open. Our aids continued to go into homes to care for older adults, and our counselors pivoted over a weekend from in-person sessions to Zoom. So, what we see all the time is what has happened all through these years. Many, many times.”
In 1870, the women of LHBS confronted a new challenge — one that resonates today — when European immigrants began arriving in Richmond en masse. LHBS welcomed the newcomers by helping them to find homes, jobs and schools for their children.
Some of the families resettled in the United States through the efforts of Jewish Family Services
“We’re on our seventh resettlement initiative in our 175-year history,” Kreuter says of JFS’s current work with Uniting for Ukraine, a government initiative.
“We have resettled 75 families to Richmond from Ukraine. … We find them a sponsor; we meet them when they get here. We provide them with a furnished home, we provide English lessons, help them to find jobs and find schools for their kids. It’s the exact same thing.”
LHBS first offered its first adoption services during the 1950s and changed its name to Jewish Family Services during the 1960s.
JFS adoption clients over the years
Innovation is a hallmark of JFS. It opened the Rap Center on West Grace St. near Virginia Commonwealth University in 1969 because JFS social workers saw that young adults needed a place where they could talk about the issues of that turbulent era. Staffed with young social workers, it was, Kreuter says, just a place to talk, enjoy an occasional meal and find help with needed services. Just a few years later, the Rap Center had over 10,000 client contacts. Renamed The Daily Planet, the organization was spun off as a separate nonprofit in 1976 and is now known as Daily Planet Health Services.
Straus and her colleagues would surely be delighted to know that each year, JFS helps more than 1,300 Richmond families and individuals with a broad range of care, counseling and adoption services. The agency continues to develop innovative programming, such as FAMILIES, launching this fall and designed to help primary caregivers who live with dementia patients develop a network of support.
And while volunteers no longer make house calls or assess cases, many of the founding mothers’ descendants continue to play active roles in JFS as members of the board and agency professionals.
In celebration of this historic milestone, JFS has issued an updated version of “Like a Giant Oak,” a history of the organization written by past Executive Director Peter Opper, and partnered with past President Elizabeth Smartt to create a video about the book called “The Gift of History.” In addition, JFS will host author and TV and radio host Andy Cohen at an invitation-only event at the Dominion Energy Center Sept. 21.
Kreuter says one of JFS’s biggest strengths has been its ability to stay relevant to the changing needs of society over time. “That’s what you have to do over 175 years. You can’t stay static.”
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