You attend a wedding — the food is tasty, the music is loud and the chuppah is magnificent, but one thing stands out in your mind — the bride. She looks breathtaking, her hair is perfect and the natural colors of her makeup emphasize her striking features, but you decide that it’s her dress that is catching everyone’s attention. It’s one of the most gorgeous dresses you have ever seen, and when you find out that it came from a gemach you’re astounded.
Why spend money on something that you’re only going to use once? Borrowing from a gemach has become the norm over the years. A gemach is a Jewish lending organization. It’s a repository of useful items that are borrowed temporarily and then returned. There are two types—the traditional gemach and the modern gemach.
Gemachs are an example of how Jews take care of one another. The concept of giving charity is a very important aspect of the Jewish religion. We have to look out for each other and help one another whenever and however we can. This concept extends to borrowing and lending.
In the European shtetels, if someone needed money and their credit wasn’t good enough for a private loan, they would go to a gemach which would provide those in need with interest free loans! In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Eastern European Jews started settling in the United States, they set up the Hebrew Free Loan Society which supplied arriving immigrants with assets. The fact that this organization gave out interest free loans set them apart from all other credit associations.
The modern gemach originated in Israel. When people needed something on Shabbat, they could walk to a gemach, get what they needed and replace it after Shabbat. This concept spread and gemachs started offering items of temporary use such as chairs silverware, cribs, and highchairs. Gemachs offer anything that people use for a short time.
Today gemachs are thriving and multiplying. Most of them are located in the basement of homes. They offer everything from wedding gowns to baby bottles! They operate mostly through word of mouth and the Internet.
The word gemach is an acronym for the term gemilut hasadim (acts of loving kindness).
This system allows us to fulfill our Jewish obligation of caring for one another. It allows people to perform acts of hesed by giving something they can no longer use to someone who needs it.
There are four gemachs nearby. They’re happy to help anyone in need.
Baby equipment (718) 376-2864
Brit outfits (718) 627-9200
Baby layettes for newborns(718) 998-1218
Folding tables and coat racks (718) 229-7205
