Combined Jewish Philanthropies is the country's oldest Federated Jewish philanthropy. Our history shows the growth of the Boston Jewish community and the many ways in which we have come together over generations to take care of people in need, both here in Boston and around the world.

1895: Federation of Jewish Charities of Boston is established on April 25. Member organizations include The United Hebrew Benevolent Society, The Hebrew Ladies Sewing Society, The Leopold Morse Home for the Aged and Infirm Hebrews and Orphanage, The Free Employment Bureau, and The Charitable Burial Association. 489 persons respond to the Federation's appeal, donating $11,909. Boston's Jewish population is estimated at 20,000, including 14,000 new immigrants.

1902: Boston's Jewish population grows to 40,000.

1906: A number of groups briefly coalesce to form the Federation of Jewish Charities of Massachusetts.

1907: Boston's Jewish population grows to 60,000.

1908: Federated Jewish Charities (a broader-based organization) is established on January 8. Federation provides services outside of Boston for the first time. 4,000 women begin to raise funds for the Beth Israel Hospital association. On April 12, Chelsea fire devastates the local community, leaving 15,000 homeless, including 5,000 Orthodox Jews. Jewish community responds vigorously.

1911: Martha Michaels Silverman becomes the first woman professional to lead the Federation.

1917: Federated Jewish Charities reorganizes and renamed as Federated Jewish Charities of Boston. Annual campaign increases from $70,000 to $250,000. Britain's passage of the Balfour Declaration, the promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, fuels Zionist fever, particularly in Boston, a stronghold of Zionist activity. 77,000 Jews live in Boston.

1918: Federated Jewish Charities of Boston is the first federation to allocate funds in support of Jewish education. Jewish Big Brother Association is founded.

1920: Bureau of Jewish Education is formed. Jewish Big Brother Association joins the Federation.

1921: Hebrew Teachers Training School, the antecedent of Hebrew College, is founded.

1924: Federation raises $440,698.

1930: Federation renamed as Associated Jewish Philanthropies and institutes a program of professionally directed fundraising - $572,670 is raised. Boston's Jewish population begins moving from the South and West Ends and East Boston to Dorchester and Mattapan.

1934: Boston Committee for Refugees is established to aid European immigrants.

1935: The Depression takes its toll on fundraising - the 1935 campaign raises only two-thirds as much as had been raised in the previous five years. Nuremburg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.

1937: Greater Boston United Jewish Campaign organizes to meet refugee, Palestine, and national needs.

1938: Boston Committee for Jewish Refugees becomes a Federation agency. Jewish Vocational Service is established and is part of the tradition of Jewish Communal Services whose foundations were laid in the 19th century. Kristallnacht - Night of Broken Glass - in Germany. 118,000 Jews live in Boston.

1940: Federation streamlines campaign structure, creates Combined Jewish Appeal to mount one campaign for all agencies, national and international, the first major community in the country to do so. Campaign secures 5,000 new gifts. (Associated Jewish Philanthropies and Combined Jewish Appeal remain separate entities for two more decades.)

1944: Jewish Centers Association for Greater Boston is organized. Jewish Community Relations Council - with 22 member organizations - is established. Campaign raises $2,231,519.

1945: 100 year anniversary of Boston's Jewish community. 50 year anniversary of Jewish philanthropy in Greater Boston. V-E (Victory in Europe) Day on May 8th.

1946: Boston Jewish community focuses on problems of survivors in Europe and mobilizes for a 24-hour SOS (Supplies for Our Survivors) Campaign, collecting more than 2.5 million pounds of food, clothing and medicine for survivors in displaced persons camps. Combined Jewish Appeal campaign raises nearly $7 million. Jewish Family & Children's Service is established. Brookline-Brighton-Newton Jewish Community Center opens on Harvard Street. Boston's Jewish population begins moving from West and North Ends and East Boston and Chelsea to Roxbury, Dorchester, Brookline and Newton.

1948: 60,000 Boston Jews raise $8.5 million. Brandeis University opens. State of Israel is founded on May 14th. On May 15th, the Arab nations invade Israel. 137,000 Jews live in Boston.

1951: Israel's Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, arrives in Boston for a rally at Boston Garden.

1952: Brookline-Brighton-Newton JCC moves to Cleveland Circle.

1956: The Sinai Campaign - Israel launches military operations against Egypt on October 29.

1960: Combined Jewish Philanthropies forms with the merger of Combined Jewish Appeal and Associated Jewish Philanthropies.

1963: CJP creates a long-range plan to examine the needs of the Greater Boston Jewish population and project the general direction of Jewish community services for the future.

1965: CJP conducts demographic survey. Jewish population numbers 176,000 (208,000 including North Shore and western suburbs). Younger Jews now living in the south suburbs, Brookline and Brighton, Newton and Wellesley, Framingham and Natick.

1967: The Six Day War - Israel launches pre-emptive attacks against Egypt on June 5.

1969: Jewish Family & Children's Services (JF&CS) begins an outreach program to serve the elderly in Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan - population there drops from 50,000 to 6,000.

1971: CJP opens an elderly/teenage drop-in center in Dorchester. CJP begins to fund day schools.

1973: Yom Kippur War Campaign raises a record $17.3 million. Russian Resettlement Program is started as Jews begin to emigrate from USSR. The Yom Kippur War - Egypt and Syria attack Israel on October 6.

1975: Demographic study shows Boston's Jewish population is contracting. There are only 195,000 Jews in the overall geographic area, and 165,000 in CJP communities. Jewish community continues to migrate south and west, leaving significant numbers in Boston, Brookline and Newton, but creating substantial new population clusters in the south, north and west. Synagogue membership drops and intermarriage among those under thirty increases.

1976: CJP leaders make a crucial and controversial decision to build facilities that serve the community where it lives, beginning in the western suburbs, to attract Jews dispersed throughout the suburbs. Jewish Big Brother Association adds Big Sister service.

1979: Jewish Community Campus site is purchased in Newton. Jewish Young Adult Center opens in Brookline. Soviet immigration at record pace.

1981: First Super Sunday Campaign tops $1 million.

1983: CJP's Gosman Campus and Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center opens in Newton. 1983 Communal Needs Survey formally articulates and clarifies community needs.

1985: Operation Moses saves 10,000 Ethiopian Jews. 170,000 Jews live in Greater Boston. Demographic survey shows that Jews are more geographically dispersed and intermarriage is increasing.

1986: Strategic planning process is completed. Striar JCC breaks ground in Stoughton.

1987: Barry Shrage joins CJP. With glasnost and perestroika, immigration from the Soviet Union begins to grow.

1990: National Jewish Population Study documents a sharp increase in intermarriage and raises concerns about Jewish continuity.

1993: Boston's Commission on Jewish Continuity recommends bold new directions in Jewish education and underlines the new spirit of cooperation between the Federation and synagogues. Oslo Agreements.

1995: CJP celebrates its 100 year anniversary with a concert at Symphony Hall and the publication of The Jews of Boston.

1998: Boston celebrates Israel's 50th anniversary of statehood. CJP issues a landmark Strategic Plan redefining its mission of fundraising and community building and calling for steps to build a community committed to Jewish learning, caring and social justice.

2001: CJP launches the Community & Capital Campaign to raise $330 million for Boston's Jewish community and Israel.

2003: CJP raised over $29 million for the Annual Campaign to support more than 200 agencies, synagogues and schools, here and abroad.

2004: The largest CJP Solidarity Mission travels to Israel with over 350 people. There are over 200,000 Jews in Boston.

2005: In November, we celebrated the opening of Bea Winn House, the first Jewish group home created by our Disabilities Housing Initiative (DHI) for people with developmental disabilities. Created through a partnership between CJP's Next Generation Real Estate Group and DHI, the home is located in a residential neighborhood, near public transportation, stores, libraries and restaurants, ensuring a lively communal and social life for up to five adults who now live with greater independence and dignity.

2006: With CJP support, the JCRC launched TELEM (Hebrew for “groove” or “moving together”) to make community service a right of passage for all Jewish teens in Boston. Already, more than 300 teens from nine partner organizations are mentoring children, feeding the hungry and homeless, assisting people with special needs and lending a hand to the elderly. TELEM students also rolled up their sleeves in rural Honduras, helping to repair a damaged elementary school, and in Louisiana, fixing up homes ravaged by last year’s hurricanes.