Hebrew National Orphan Home Alumni Association

The Hebrew National Orphan Home Alumni Association was created in 1925, a little more than a decade after the Hebrew National Orphan Home was established. The alumni association was founded to facilitate social contact among men who, as children, had grown up in the home, since co-resident boys were their "family." Extant records contain little evidence of the activities of the alumni association in its early decades. According to Irwin Abrams, who left HNOH in 1925, he and others who had "graduated" from HNOH that year banded together in a social, basketball-playing group that met at the Central Jewish Institute and called themselves the ALYONS (Alumni from Yonkers). He continues: "Later we founded an alumni association consisting of boys who left the home before and after us. At its peak, it numbered about 1000." 1 An offshoot of the alumni association, the Harry Lucacher Alumni Society (HLAS) formed officially in 1940 with the alumni association's recognition. HLAS published a newsletter, The Recorder, that same year.

The official alumni association itself commenced publication of an association newsletter, The Alumnus, with a May 17, 1936 issue. This newsletter was the main means by which alumni of the orphan home kept in touch with each other, as it had membership lists, published member correspondence, reminiscences, photographs, and news (including obituaries), and encouraged participation in the alumni reunions. Another important point of contact was the alumni reunion event, for which there is documentation of regular occurrence from 1957-1985.

Finally, the alumni association generated a body of literature on what it was like to be an orphan and grow up in an orphan home. Some of this literature is found in issues of The Alumnus . Two oral history tape cassettes were compiled by alumnus Sam Arcus and were distributed by him in 1997. They were based on interviews with several alumni members to accompany a videotape on life in the HNOH, entitled Our Childhood … Remembered, produced by alumnus Ed Lippman and distributed by him in Fall 1995. 2 In the April, 1997 Alumnus issue, Ira Greenberg outlined a table of contents for a proposed book that would cover HNOH history and the alumni role in it. A questionnaire about alumni experiences of life in the home was printed in that issue, and responses were requested and received. In 2001, the book came out, as The Hebrew National Orphan Home: Memories of Orphanage Life, edited by Ira Greenberg with Richard Safran and Sam Arcus. Coincidentally with this effort to develop a concentrated historical record, Marjorie Soloff, daughter-in-law to HNOH orphan alumnus Jacob "Jack" Soloff, developed a website for the HNOH Alumni Association, which includes an historical account of the founding of HNOH, reminiscences of the alumni, and photographs of orphanage life. Though attenuated by the death of many of its members, the Alumni Association of the Hebrew National Orphan Home exists to this day.

Since the Alumni Association of the Hebrew National Orphan Home (HNOH) grew out of the development of HNOH itself, a brief chronology of HNOH is included here, to provide context for the account of the alumni association above.