Charitable Jewish Institutions

An excerpt of the article appears below:

Ostrovtse, just like all other provincial towns in Poland, did not especially excel in the social conditions of its Jewish population.  Poverty, want and lack of sanitary services were almost a normal condition.  Residences where people lived together with a large number of children in one room, with at most one little side room, and the barrel for water, the slops pail and the oven for baking and cooking as well as heating, were a very common situation in the streets of the poor.

Because of those unbearable conditions, the Jewish council was forced to develop multi-branched charity activities in various areas.  We will try to record a few charity institutions and their activities here.

Lines ha’tsedek [homeless shelter]

This institution was located on Shener Street.  The manager of the pharmacy for the shelter was a thin little Jew with a sparse yellow beard, Yekhiel Yanovski.  He was almost a complete pharmacist, knowing what to give an old Jew for a cold, a poor mother for her children who had measles, had the pox or just a fever.  Jews also went to him for a wad of cotton, a vial of iodine.