 At the very start, in the 1930s and 1940s, Reuth helped prepare the ground for the creation of the State by supporting the community with hot meals, cool drinks and other basic needs. Thousands of immigrants and refugees who would become Israel’s future citizens, would have found it very hard to survive those harsh years of absorption, without assistance from Reuth – or as it was known then : “Women’s Social Service”.
Founder Paula Barth and her colleagues, themselves recent immigrants from Germany, saw how hard it was for the newer immigrants. Many of these were “Yekkes” like themselves, who, narrowly escaping the Nazi regime, lost almost everything excluding their own lives. Here, in their new home under the scorching sun, so different from the one they had fled, no immigrant housing or other benefits awaited them. Here to greet them was only Women’s Social Service, which had just set up its first enterprise: “A Kitchen for the Middle Class” on Frishman St. in Tel Aviv. For a nominal sum, or sometimes even free of charge, immigrants got a hot kosher meal on properly laid tables, complete with tablecloths and flowers.
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In 1937 Reuth’s first pioneers began caring for those around them as the winds rolled in onto Tel Aviv’s beaches. Very few organizations active in Israel today can claim to have started their activities before the establishment of the State; but,when Israel was born in 1948, Reuth was already a veteran organization celebrating its first decade of activity for the welfare of the local community. Being ten years older, Reuth has always been a kind of “big sister” to the country: responsible, caring, concerned, helping out wherever necessary….
While we are no longer handing out food on the sands of Tel Aviv, Reuth still supports those in need, including Holocaust survivors. Our services have grown from table clothes and flowers to include three Senior Residence Homes, Subsidized Community Housing and the medically advanced rehabilitation hospital — Reuth Medical Center. 