Diskin Orphanage

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Coordinates: 31°47′24.77″N 35°11′42.44″E / 31.7902139, 35.1951222

Diskin Orphanage 1900.
Diskin Orphanage 1900.

Beit Diskin was established in 1881 by the venerable Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin, who was recognized as one of the Jewish people’s leading luminaries of the past two hundred years. At the height of his career Rabbi Diskin abandoned a prestigious rabbinical position and immigrated to Israel. Upon his arrival, he found a large idealistic community living under near impossible conditions. The persecution and disease from which the Jews of the Holy Land suffered had destroyed many families. As a result, Rabbi Diskin encountered countless young orphans and unfortunate youth whose physical well-being were at great risk.

Recognizing the urgency of their plight, Rabbi Diskin began gathering these needy children, one-by-one, into his humble home. In time, as their numbers continued to grow, he established the “Great Institution for Orphans” that came to be known as the Diskin Orphanage of Jerusalem. Until his last days, Rabbi Diskin labored unceasingly to help these unfortunate youth, doing whatever was necessary to provide them with a home and all their basic needs.

With Rabbi Diskin’s passing in 1898, his lifework was taken up by his only son, Rabbi Yitzchok Yerucham Diskin. It was Rabbi Yitzchok Yerucham who built the magnificent Diskin Orphanage campus – the symbol of “the world is built on kindness’’ that overlooks the entrance of Jerusalem.

Ever since then, Beit Diskin has undergone many changes and modifications, each time transforming itself to meet the new challenges and needs of the ever-changing times. If in the past the primary purpose of an orphanage was to provide a home for children whose lot had left them without the simplest trappings of family life (parental care), conventional practice today uses the “orphanage” to employ pedagogical and therapeutic counseling in order to enable children from dysfunctional homes to maintain as normal an existence as possible given their difficult circumstances. Accordingly, Beit Diskin has designed the various projects of its welfare network with an eye to enabling the child and his family to live regular lives; providing them with physical, financial and moral support that concomitantly enhances their human dignity. Every effort is made to develop a sincere relationship with each family, giving the parents and children the feeling that in the Diskin staff they have a friend on whom they can rely, rather than a welfare system on whom they are dependent. Special attention is also given to maintaining each child’s personal dignity and privacy; no less in need of esteem than the rest of us.

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