In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of Jews fled persecution in Germany, Eastern Europe, and other locations.

Many of these displaced Jews came to New York. In fact, by 1915 there were 1.5 million Jews living there—the largest population of Jews anywhere in the world.

Most found success and happiness in their new lives, but establishing a life in a foreign country was also difficult, and some parents found themselves incapable of caring for their children while they were looking for jobs or working extra hours to pay for a home and food. Parental deaths and splits caused by immigration caused additional strain. Many children from these families were sent to Jewish “orphan” asylums, which acted essentially as boarding schools for children while struggling parents tried to get back on their feet.

Although there were true orphans in the asylums, there were also many children from single parent or even two-parent homes. It’s heart-wrenching to imagine how difficult it must have been as a parent to have to separate from your child. And yet, it’s uplifting to discover how many residents of these orphan asylums look back fondly at their time there.

These photos and recollections give a picture of what life in these orphan asylums was like.

 
 
The New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum, date unknown. In the eighty-three years of its existence, the HOA was home to approximately 35,000 Jewish children. 

Of his time there, Charles Lehman wrote:

“All of us have the world’s largest collection of boyhood chums and girlhood friends. . . . The HOA was a phenomenon in the growth and development of our country. It was a by-product of vast surges of immigration to the U.S.A. We were what was left of dreams, hopes and aspirations that somehow went astray.

“The home taught us to bear it and grin. It gave us comfort and strength ‘by the numbers.’ It gave us solace and warmth compounded of a mutual desperation. It filled a void in children hungry for love and affection, even hungrier for some form of basic security. To all of us the HOA was momma and poppa . . . with 1,500 ready-made ‘cousins.’

“It shielded us from slum environment, juvenile delinquency, rough-and-tumble street gangs, poverty and deprivation. It fed us, clothed us, fixed our teeth, psychoanalyzed our heads, tested our aptitudes, put us through school, gave us spiritual, moral and cultural guidance.

“We were the luckiest orphans in the world. . . . We built our own world inside the HOA and, looking back, it was a world we remember with genuine affection.”

 
 
New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum Harmonica Band. May 1926. 

Alumni Charles Snow organized the first Harmonica Band in the HOA in 1924, which quickly took off (the school was already home to the city’s “official” band, which was hired out most weekends for performances in the city).

They were the first harmonica band to play in Carnegie Hall and gained popularity quickly.

Snow later went to vaudeville with his harmonica act, taking many of the HOA boys with him. The act, called the Broadway Pirates, opened in New York and went on a cross-country tour for six months. Many later joined another vaudeville harmonica troupe called the New York Newsboys Harmonica Band.

In the 1930s a harmonica craze swept the country and it was due largely in part to the success of the HOA boys, who were some of the first professional harmonica performers.

 
 
A photo from the Friendly Home for Girls, an auxiliary of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. It ran from 1916–1941 in Lawrence, New York. 

 
 
New York Hebrew National Orphan Home basketball team, 1935–1936. 

The orphan asylums had a wide variety of extracurricular activities, from photography clubs, literary clubs, and musical associations to athletics. Sports teams were, of course, quite popular.

The HOA basketball’s heyday came in the 1939–1940 season, when they became the city champions by beating all 25 other city high school teams. They lost to the Long Island University junior varsity team, but felt justified in that the LIU team won the national championship the year after.

 
 
Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society Baseball Team. 

John and Eleanor Murray were some of the HOA’s most loyal “alumni.” Neither was Jewish and neither attended the HOA, but both lived in the neighborhood and made friends with the students.

In 1937, John and Eleanor met while playing baseball at the HOA. John hit a line drive to centerfield that seemed a sure double, but Eleanor caught the ball and got him out. They met after the game, started dating, and later married.

The couple remained friends with many of the HOA students for the rest of their lives and continued to visit the old grounds for many years. In 1985 they were named honorary alumni “for their lifetime attachment to the HOA and for the enduring friendships they made with the children who lived there from 1932 to 1941.”

 
 
A pamphlet for the Hebrew Infant Asylum, 1904. It was part of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. 

 
 
Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum dining room. 

During the early years of the asylums, conditions were sometimes more harsh, just as they were in many orphanages around the country. 

Hyman Bogen, author of The Luckiest Orphans: A History of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, wrote of that time period, “Meals were seldom pleasant. Like everything else, they were locked into a changeless routine. When the meal bell rang—at seven for breakfast, noon for lunch, and six for supper—the children marched to the dining room in columns, entered, and lined up alongside their table. Covered with oilcloth, the long tables seated sixteen, eight to a side, with a monitor at the head. . . . No talking was permitted during meals, and governors patrolled the aisles between the tables observing the children as they ate. . . . The children had to eat everything they were served, their tastes, preferences, and allergies notwithstanding. If a child didn’t eat everything, the entire dining room had to wait until his or her dish was clean.”

Apparently, standards had relaxed by the mid-twenties. Bogen described a period when the chef tried a new dish—Jell-O Meringue pie. Whenever it was served pieces were found all over the walls of the asylum that night, hanging from ceilings, and dripping into corners. Some students even played practical jokes on their classmates by placing globs of Jell-O between their bed sheets.

 
 
Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum kindergarten. 

 
 
Hebrew Orphan Asylum Infant Dormitory. 

According to one orphan’s recollections, a hundred or more students slept in a dormitory.

Before leaving for school each morning, the boys shined their shoes and the girls made all the beds—including the boys’.

“The girls managed to turn their daily drudgery into opportunity,” he wrote. “While making the boys’ beds, some slipped notes under certain pillows. . . . How the girls learned where the boys they wanted to reach slept was a considerable feat, for the sexes were kept segregated and communication between them was strictly forbidden.” This was in the 19th century. Communication rules were much less strict in later years.

 
 
Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum students on an outing. 

 
 
Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society art room. 

 
 
Young men from the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society learn to cook. 

After nearly a century of operation, most of the Hebrew Orphan Asylums in New York closed around the 1940s. Foster-care was beginning to take the place of orphanages and institutions as a means of providing care to the homeless, and a new Federal Aid to Dependent Children program put into effect by President Roosevelt made it easier for widowed, deserted and divorced mothers to care for their children at home. 

Nevertheless, for nearly a century, these institutions wee an important part of the New York landscape, and a common part of the Jewish experience in America.

We have added admission and discharge records for the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 1878-1969, and the New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum, 1860-1934 (images only at this point), to help you research your ancestors who attended these institutions. 

The admission and discharge records typically record the name, age, and sex of the student; when he/she was admitted; where he/she is from; where his/her parents are from; whether the child was an orphan, “half-orphan” (one living parent), or had both parents living; the discharge date; and to whom the orphan was discharged, occasionally with addresses.

 
 
Typical orphan asylum admission record, with names, parents, etc. On the other side of the page is more information, including a line for discharge information—when and to whom discharged. 

The pictures for this article were provided by American Jewish Historical Society. The anecdotes and information were taken from The Luckiest Orphans: A History of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York (University of Illinois: 1992), by Hyman Bogen.