Window on India: Rescuing Homeless Elderly

Traditionally, in India, the elderly are cared for by their families. But what happens to those whose families no longer live in India or who never married and have no living relatives? For six Jewish seniors, it meant living on the streets of Bombay. Some lived under canvas tarps that provided little shelter from the torrential rain during the Monsoon season. A few luckier ones slept on the benches of local synagogues. They all cooked their meals on portable stoves on the ground outside. None could remember ever having a solid roof over their heads.

In 1996, JDC rented a row-house for a home for the elderly. The sand-colored stucco house was completely renovated to comfortably house ten of the poorest of India's elderly Jewish poor who have no families to care for them. Today, four women and two men in their 70s and 80s live at JDC's Manpada House for the Aged. They now receive medical care for such chronic diseases as cataracts, high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis-illnesses that have gone untreated for most of their lives. They enjoy amenities that many Westerners take for grant: three kosher meals a day, a clean bed, a communal television, board games, and the freedom to take a walk without worrying about a roof over their heads. The Home is not lavish. It houses two residents per room, and the staff must maintain an on-going battle to meet Western standards of hygiene and cleanliness. Yet, to the residents, it is paradise. For the first time in their lives, they are living in a Jewish environment surrounded by people who care about them.

The Manpada House for the Aged also has given young people the chance to experience Jewish communal service. Our Youth Pioneer volunteers often travel by rickety train and even rickshaw for an hour and a half on Fridays to welcome Shabbat with the elderly at Manpada. These wonderful volunteers arrive to find the residents in their best clothes waiting to light candles, make kiddush, eat challah, and sing. It is a festive time that instills a sense of Jewish identity in both the youth volunteers and the elderly.

This year's Tu Bishvat celebration was a particularly special time at the Home. Residents sang newly-learned Hebrew songs, recited the holiday prayers, shared a meal of rice, fruit (lots of coconut) and Coca-Cola, and planted bushes and flowers in the Home's tiny front yard.

One 80-year-old resident expressed the feelings of her companions when she said, 'This is the first time in my life that I feel truly Jewish.'