About Us
- Home
- About Us
Get Involved Now
The NEW Yeshuos Shabbos Project
Yeshuos Shabbos has been established in 2019 by a group of serious and capable communal workers, working in consultation with top legal experts, & is run by an experienced group of men & women, under a team of professional advisers, as a vehicle to facilitate the inclusion, integration, empowerment and poverty alleviation of Jewish families and children in London.
The issue of poverty at Jewish families who are a minority group is often brushed under the carpet and many families and children suffer excruciating levels of poverty and disadvantage, the cost of kosher food and religious needs also adds to their financial burden, whilst suffering in silence and not asking for help for any agencies or people, we therefore target them at most, however we consider applications from any background.
About Yeshuos Shabbos
The objectives of Yeshuos Shabbos are
- The relief of poverty sickness and infirmity amongst members of the Jewish faith.
- Poverty alleviation and supporting people in severe need.
- Charity in a respectable manner
Evidence of Need- Jewish poverty
Jewish child poverty in London
Given that the UK Jewish voluntary sector is comprised of an estimated 2,000 organizations in total, it is revealing that there is no single Jewish organization that focuses exclusively on child poverty. There is some clear evidence of social inequality and deprivation within the community.
2001
Cencus Data
2001 UK Census data recorded 34.5% of Jewish-headed households in the London Borough of Hackney as living in social rented accommodation, 25 times the rate for Jews in Hertsmere. The Census also demonstrated that over a quarter of Jews in Hackney (25.1%) were living in overcrowded conditions, and high levels of overcrowding were also recorded in Newham (19.7%) and Tower Hamlets (16.5%). Data on educational achievement also noted some striking exceptions to the rule. Whereas the percentages of Jews with no qualifications in the 16-49 age band typically stood at between 6.5% and 10.7% depending on age group assessed, the equivalent figures for Hackney ranged from 37.9% to 43.5%, and 15.3% to 26.5% in Salford.
JPR’s report on the 2001 UK Census concluded that whilst “Jews were a prosperous group with high levels of home ownership…the data also point to considerable variation within the population, depending on location, age and family structure of the households.” Hackney, home to a sizeable percentage of the Haredi population, was singled out as the most striking example of the exception, in which “levels of home ownership were low and overcrowding was high” and “over half of the 3,700 Jewish-headed households…did not have access to a vehicle at all.”
This was not news to the Jewish community when the Census data became available, as Holman and Holman published a landmark report about the Haredi community in Stamford Hill in 2002 which illustrated in some detail “the very high levels of poverty and deprivation experienced within the Kehilla.”
Outside the Haredi Community
London Borough of Redbridge
Outside the Haredi community, the situation is rather different. Geographically, the area that features most clearly in the data is the London Borough of Redbridge, which holds the second largest Jewish population by borough in the United Kingdom.
The likelihood of Jewish children growing up in lone parent households is most prevalent here; the Census recorded 369 such children, which is 1.32% higher than one would expect if the phenomenon was spread equally across the country. Furthermore, educational attainment levels amongst Jewish adults in Redbridge are rather lower than elsewhere: threequarters of all 25-34-year-olds and almost 85% of all 35-49 year-olds did not have a university degree or equivalent level qualification in 2001.
The resultant impact on employment is also apparent: children are marginally more likely (1.2%) than expected to grow up in a household in which the household head is employed in one of the four lowest
NS-SeC groupings.
14.5% of Jews in England and Wales were recorded as permanently sick or disabled, and these again were spread in fairly equal measure across the country. Unemployment is one of the main causes of child poverty or deprivation, and can strike anyone anywhere, particularly during periods of economic downturn. Similarly, sickness and disability are indiscriminate about geography, ethnicity or religion, and Jews are no less prone to finding themselves out of work for these reasons than anyone else. The ramifications for families with children are inevitably serious, and in instances where there is insufficient familial or communal support, the potential for poverty and deprivation is
real.
Risk of poverty
Need & Vision
Compared to some of the pockets of child poverty that exist in Britain outside of the Jewish community, this would hardly be identified as a high-risk area, but in Jewish community terms, it clearly demonstrates that some forms of Jewish child deprivation do indeed exist in Redbridge. 5% of all Jewish dependent children living in Barnet are at some risk of poverty, deprivation or social exclusion.
All this has resulted us in a decision started by the ones in greatest need with a vision to expand for everybody.