HEBREW FREE LOAN SOCIETY CELEBRATED A MAJOR MILESTONE OF AWARDING $220 MILLION IN INTEREST-FREE LOANS TO RESIDENTS OF THE NEW YORK METRO AREA

NEW YORK, NY (June 1, 2010) The Hebrew Free Loan Society (HFLS), an organization that provides interest-free loans to individuals to help them achieve economic independence, has reached a significant loan milestone. Since its inception in 1892, HFLS has provided more than $220,000,000 in interest-free loans to more than 865,000 borrowers with less than a 1% default rate. HFLS celebrated its achievements at the “Generations of Leadership” benefit on Monday, May 24, 2010, featuring Robert M. Morgenthau as the guest speaker, and honoring New York’s Durst, Golden and Gribetz families for their generations of commitment and support of HFLS.

Arkadiy Ugorskiy, a refugee from Russia, realized a couple of years ago that he faced a new and formidable obstacle to making it in the U.S. in the field of video production. Although Ugorskiy, who studied cinematography in a top Moscow studio, had succeeded against the odds in building his business “from nothing” after arriving in Brooklyn in 1998, at 44, he couldn’t afford to buy the high-definition video equipment that was quickly becoming the standard in the field.

Ugorskiy, who did video editing for local Russian-language TV and made fundraising videos for local yeshivas and businesses, looked into taking a bank loan to buy the equipment. But he was deflated to learn that all such loans came with a 10 percent annual interest rate plus additional fees, which were well beyond what he could pay back.

Armed with microfinance loans, ultra-Orthodox housewives learn entrepreneurship

When it came to Eva Longoria, the ultra-Orthodox women who gathered on a recent weekday morning for a crash-course in marketing drew a total blank. “Who is she?” asked one behatted, bespectacled woman, peering suspiciously at an ad for L’Oreal hair dye that was supposed to represent the power of “transformation” as a marketing metaphor.

The instructor, a serial entrepreneur from Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community named Rebecca Harary, paused, waiting for a sign of recognition. Crickets. “Well, she’s an actress,” Harary began. “On a show called, um, Housewives.” Pause. Deep breath. “Desperate Housewives.” Chuckles.

The highest degree of tzedakah, most famously articulated by Maimonides, is to help someone achieve self-sufficiency by means of a gift, an interest-free loan, or a partnership. Of these, only loans preserve the dignity of the recipient while also offering the possibility of enormous philanthropic leverage.  That is why Central and Eastern European Jewish communities organized the so-called Gemilus Chesed, or free loan society, which our forebears then transplanted to America.