In the beginning
In 1863, a group of Jewish men gathered in a room over a store on Great St. James Street in Montreal and established the Young Men's Hebrew Benevolent Society. This newly formed organization dedicated its mission to the social welfare of our community. Their action took incredible foresight. At the time there were fewer than 1,000 Jews in Montreal and the community was not experiencing any unusual economic hardship. Little did our forefathers realize the key role their organization would play in shaping the Jewish community in the years to come.

A continuing tide of immigration meant that by 1890, barely 25 years later, the demand for services had exceeded the capacity of the small community. The Young Men's Hebrew Benevolent Society sought help from Jewry's greatest philanthropist of the nineteenth century - Austrian railway magnate Baron Maurice de Hirsch. To acknowledge the Baron's gift of $20,000, the Society renamed itself the Baron de Hirsch Institute.

Midor l'dor - from generation to generation:
The actions of those young men that July night laid the blueprint for what is today Jewish Family Services (JFS) of the Baron de Hirsch Institute. Continuity, collective memory and the upholding of traditions are important values to the Jewish people. Our commitment - to help the vulnerable in our community - has not changed. Many of the services we provide today can be traced back to our founding roots. Certainly the Jewish values of tikun olam (repairing the world) and gemilut hasidim (loving kindness) continue to frame what we do. Many of the volunteers and service providers involved in JFS today can proudly point to an ancestor who was similarly involved in caring for our community.

Orpahanges
In keeping with its mission of helping the vulnerable in our community and caring for those in need, the Baron de Hirsch Institute opened the first Jewish orphanage in Montreal in 1909. The Montreal Hebrew Orphans' Home was first on Evans Street, in the old Jewish quarter, and then moved to Claremont Avenue in Westmount. Eventually a second facility, the Montefiore Home, opened on Jeanne Mance Street. The two orphanages housed orphans and cared for them - as well as for the children of many poor, single parents who were unable to care for them.

"The Home served its purpose for those times, when there was no mothers' allowance, no babysitters, no subsidized housing, no free medical care.... Many of the children, like myself, had one parent but in those days of great need, it was not possible for a single parent to survive," recounted Earl Greenberg, an alumnus of the Montefiore Home, in Four Hundred Brothers and Sisters, Judy Gordon's history of the two orphanages. "The home was the best possible solution, which is hard for today's generation to understand. But we all went on to make lives for ourselves and in most cases, rich and rewarding ones, with a special love for family."

From 1909 to 1942, when the orphanages closed their doors, hundreds of children were cared for and all kinds of educational, recreational, social and religious activities provided for them.

Foster homes
"As my ancestors planted for me, so must I plant for my children"
(Talmud)
Foster Homes for the War Orphans:
By the time World War Two had ended, the Baron de Hirsch Institute was faced with a new and different challenge - a terribly urgent one. The concentration camps and hiding places of Europe had yielded thousands of war orphans. Between 1947 and 1952, more than 500 young people were resettled in Montreal. Baron de Hirsch became, in many ways, Mother, Father and family of the New World for these refugees. Foster homes were found for many and other forms of assistance provided to help them build new lives.

Le Foyer Baron de Hirsh:
Fast forward a few decades - and Jewish Family Services of the Baron de Hirsch Institute found itself in the foster-care business once again. From 1981 to 2006, JFS and the Batshaw Youth and Family Centres operated a group foster home for Jewish children who, because their own families were not in a position to look after them properly, needed temporary placement outside their family homes for their own protection. The home accommodated up to six children, from infancy to age 17. These were children who couldn't be placed in individual foster homes or who were considered better suited to group living. They remained with us anywhere from a few weeks to, in some cases, several years.

In 2006, JFS and Batshaw Youth and Family Centres decided to close down the group home and concentrate on recruiting more Jewish families to serve as individual foster parents.