National Council of Jewish Women. Seattle Section

Philanthropic organization founded primarily to serve the Seattle Jewish community.

The Seattle Section of the National Council of Jewish Women was founded in 1900 as a philanthropic organization. In the first half of the century it maintained a settlement house to help indigent Jewish immigrants meet some of their basic needs, assimilate to American culture, and maintain a social center for the Jewish community. The Council's programs and services included visiting patients in hospitals, sewing clothes for the needy, looking after graves, and running a children's sewing school. It also provided public baths, a medical and dental clinic, and educational programs designed to "Americanize" newcomers, including English language and citizenship classes. The Council's Settlement House was a popular social center. It offered music and dance lessons for children, and had a large ballroom which was used for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, theater, and dances. The House moved in 1916 (and was renamed the Educational Center) to accomodate the influx of Jewish refugees of World War I, and it's role as a haven for refugees became even more important during World War II. The end of the war marked the end of the immigrant era for the Council, and in 1948 the Educational Center, then renamed the Neighborhood House, began helping other minority groups that were experiencing inner-city problems. It focused especially on the problems associated with juvenile delinquency. In the 1950s, the Council sold the Neighborhood House building to a bakery, and members of the Neighborhood House Board organized themselves independent of the Council and opened a new facility. The Council went on to found the Golden Age Club to provide social functions for Jewish elderly, and in 1972 it opened Council House to accomodate low-income elderly. In 1979 it organized the Po'olot Group for young working women, and in 1983 opened, in cooperation with other Jewish groups, a Jewish bookstore called Books Mercaz, which also served as a meeting place for unaffiliated members of the Jewish community. The store closed in 1985.