1986 Vintage Women’s American ORT: Jewish Support Group Brooch, Lapel, Hat Pin ORT

1980s Vintage Women’s American ORT Organization Jewish Support Group Brooch, Lapel, Hat Pin

History of ORT:

Women’s American ORT (WAO) was founded October 12, 1927, to assist ORT in providing financial support to the ORT program serving Eastern European Jews. Most of the founders were wives of American ORT leaders. Florence Dolowitz was the wife of the treasurer of American ORT; Anna Boudin was the wife of lawyer Louis Boudin, who was also vice president of American ORT. Their marital connections were critical factors in creating an auxiliary organization to assist their husband’s work…

By 1950, Women’s American ORT’s membership had climbed to more than 12,000, and the organization had become a financial mainstay of the World ORT Union. Among all World ORT Union members, “By far the most spectacular expansion was registered by Women’s American ORT,” notes Jack Rader in ORT’s official history.

Women of the 1950s who had worked or run wartime volunteer efforts returned to the home as men returned from the war. Still, these women had acquired skills during wartime that they did not wish to abandon in peacetime. Volunteerism filled that gap, as it had for women after World War I.

By the mid-1950s, WAO was helping to fund ORT’s growing network of vocational and technical high schools in Western Europe and North Africa, Iran, India, and Israel. Technical schools and schools for special needs were established across the developing countries as well.

WAO boasted of a “distinctive and unique role” in world Jewish life by 1958. It funded scholarships for teacher training, social assistance to needy students, preventive medical care, maintenance of vocational training schools, and support of Tel Aviv’s Aaron Syngalowski Center, ORT Braude College of Engineering in Karmiel, Bramson ORT College in New York, and Zarem Golde Technical Institute in Chicago, among others. It also helped fund the establishment of a network of large ORT apprentice training centers throughout Israel.

Measures: ~2 inch

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