Jewish care homes for the elderly in Polish 2nd Republic in the context of migrations

The dynamic migration processes that affected the Jewish community in Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries had an impact on the demographic situation of this community in the following decades. The group particularly affected by these changes were elderly people, especially those whose relatives emigrated to America or to the Land of Israel. With the aim of providing organised care for lonely elderly people, institutions known as Moshav Zkenim were developed at this time. However, the difficult economic situation of the interwar period, and to some extent current politics, made it extremely difficult for Jewish institutional care to function. In this article I would like to point out how important the help coming from abroad was for the existence of the Jewish homes for the aged. The sources of that support were especially the countrymen's associations of immigrants (landsmanshaftn), and the aid was of a financial, material and infrastructural nature. However, cooperation between donors and societies in Poland has sometimes given rise to conflicts described later in the Jewish press.