From the DJN
Foundation Davidson
Digital Archive of
Jewish Detroit History

Looking Back

Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives,
available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.

62

November 15 • 2018

jn

OURTESY LEONARD N. SIMONS JEWISH COMMUNITY ARCHIVES, PEVIN FAMILY PAPERS.

M

ost weeks in the JN,
one can find an adver-
tisement for Hebrew
Free Loan on page 3. This week,
I decided to explore the history
of this well-known organization
in the Davidson Digital Archives,
Mike Smith
now hosted as an online collection
Detroit Jewish
at the Bentley Historical Library
News Foundation
Archivist
at the University of Michigan but
still accessed through the Detroit
Jewish News Foundation website (djnfoundation.
org).
I found more than 2,000 pages citing Hebrew
Free Loan (HFL). Within those pages from the
JN and the Jewish Chronicle are some really good
stories.
In Detroit, HFL was founded by 10 members of
the city’s Jewish community in the back room of a
cobbler’s shop in 1895. This makes HFL one of the
oldest Jewish support organizations in Michigan.
The 10 men raised $500 to fund the organization
and, since that time, the HFL has helped thousands
of people in need. Many of the people it has helped
have been and are new arrivals to the city.
For a good history of the early years of HFL, I
found an article by Arthur Lipsitt in the March 18,
1983, issue of the JN. Lipsitt, a Toronto, Canada,
native, was a businessman in Detroit for many
years and a board member of HFL, hence, his deep
personal interest in this history. He and his wife
had moved into the Jewish Home for the Aged, but
Lipsitt stayed active, becoming a local historian.
But, I really liked the story and image I found
on a page in the JN from Oct. 7, 1994. It is a
photo of Anna Taradash and her husband, Naum
Tsemekbman, with a letter from Anna citing the
help HFL gave them to obtain a car and, for a
second time, to begin a business. This is just one
of the heartfelt stories about the great work that
Hebrew Free Loan has done in Detroit for 123
years. ■

The Detroit Ladies Aid Society formed in 1918 to
“provide for relief of distressed and sick members,
visit the sick, bury the dead, help the worthy, to pro-
mote social intercourse among its members and, in

general, do any work that might become a benevolent
society.” The Articles of Association were signed by
20 women, including Ida Piaven (Pevin), seen here
(center) holding the group’s banner. ■