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.