The Gift of Alms::Face-to-Face Almsgiving Among Orthodox Jews
Abstract
The Gift of Alms:Face-to-Face Almsgiving Among Orthodox Jews SAGE Publications, Inc.1975DOI: 10.1177/089124167500300401 Samuel C.Heilman THE GIVING OF CHARITY is and always has been an integral part of the religous life of orthodox Jews. To give of one's wealth to another Jew in need is an imperative, commanded both by the laws and by the traditions of Jewry, and no man may consider his religous obligations completely fulfilled without his having engaged in charity-giving. Although in contemporary times the fulfillment of this imperative has been largely relegated to collective giving by large Jewish formal organizations, face-to-face almsgiving still obtains in many of the relatively small orthodox congregations which exist on the American urban scene. Here one still finds the encounter between donor and recipient where the gift-like or prestational quality of the alms may be experiended.1 Here one can begin to examine the expression of Van Gennep's proposition (1960: 29) that, "to accept a gift is to be bound to the giver," and perhaps to enlarge sociologically upon that statement. Accord- AUTHOR'S NOTE: This paper is denved from a study which was made possible by a grant from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Urban Ethnography. Thanks go especially