Note 27 — CHARITY IN TALMUDIC TIMES SOME ANCIENT SOLVINGS OF A MODERN PROBLEM

We read, in mediæval times, of the existence of wide ‘extensions’ of this system of relief. In a curious old book, published in the seventeenth century, by a certain Rabbi Elijah ha Cohen ben Abraham, of Smyrna, we find a list drawn up of Jewish charities to which, as he says, ‘all pious Jews contribute.’ These modes of satisfying ‘the hungry soul’ are over seventy in number, and of the most various kinds. They include the lending of money and the lending of books, the payment of dowries and the payment of burial charges, doctors’ fees for the sick, legal fees for the unjustly accused, ransom for captives, ornaments for bribes, and wet nurses for orphans.