Organizations

Organizations related to Homestead and its Jewish community. Because most of these groups do not have records preserved in the archives, it is difficult to give their histories.

This socialist political group had a presence in Homestead, despite the climate of anti-unionism and anti-socialism.

The proliferation of Jewish groups led to a few efforts to establish umbrella organizations to coordinate activities and eliminate redundancies.

Zionism took root in Homestead in 1903 and continued well into the 1970s!

The Y.M. and Y.W.H.A. organizations, which were founded in the teens and faded in the early 30s, represent the first round of organized Jewish youth.

Homestead’s Young Judaea group is hard to trace, but it was there in the teens, twenties, forties, and fifties, and perhaps in between.

Homestead’s AZA and BBG groups merged into a co-ed BBYO chapter as the community shrank.

After WWII Homestead created a Jewish War Veterans Post, which raised money for the shul’s WWII veterans’ plaque.

There are bits of evidence from 1919 and 1932-3 that there was a Girl Scout Troop in Homestead.

The B’nai B’rith Women, organized in 1937, were one of the more active groups in the community.

There is limited evidence for the existence of a Hadassah chapter in the 20s-40s.

The chevra kadisha functioned from 1911-2014 to manage the congregation’s cemetery and handle burials.

Homestead had its own troop of Jewish boy scouts.