Sholom Home, St. Paul and St. Louis Park

Two Jewish homes for the poor and elderly operated in the Twin Cities area through most of the twentieth century. They merged in 1971, then merged again in 1995 with another agency devoted to eldercare to form Sholom Community Alliance. Sholom operates two campuses, one in St. Louis Park and the other in St. Paul.

After years of planning, the Jewish Home for the Aged of the Northwest opened in an old mansion at 75 Wilkin Street in St. Paul in 1908. It opened with eight “inmates”—the term then used for residents. The fire marshal condemned the Wilkin Street facility in 1916.

In response, one hundred Jewish community leaders from St. Paul and Minneapolis decided to purchase land midway between the cities for a new home for the aged. This home would serve the entire Jewish community of the Upper Midwest. After a seven-year fundraising drive, the new facility opened in 1923 at Midway Parkway and Snelling Avenue in St. Paul.

The Jewish Home for the Aged only accepted elderly people in reasonably good health. If residents fell ill after they moved in, they were allowed to stay. Already-ill patients were not admitted.

Meanwhile, a group of women called the Daughters of Abraham formed in 1918 to address the need for a kosher facility for the infirm elderly. Over the next thirty years, this group raised about $18,000 through luncheons, picnics, bake sales, and rummage sales. In 1947, they offered the funds to the Home for the Aged in return for their promise to care for the chronically ill. Fearful of losing its autonomy, the Home for the Aged turned down the funds.

The Daughters of Abraham then bought a house at 45 South St. Albans Street in St. Paul. They named the twenty-bed home Sholom Residence and changed their name to Sholom Auxiliary.

By the 1930s the term “inmate” had been replaced with “resident.” Still, beyond food and shelter, there were minimal recreational and occupational services for residents at either home. The board of the Jewish Home for the Aged was slow to adopt modern social service practices through the 1940s and 1950s.

In the mid-1950s, both Jewish elder care homes struggled. The state health department ruled that Sholom Residence needed expensive renovations. A report in 1957 criticized the management of the 150-bed Jewish Home for the Aged for its lack of concern with the personal needs of its residents. It recommended adding a medical and nursing program and organized physical and occupational therapy.

The logical solution was for the Home for the Aged to merge with the Shalom Residence. But they could not reach an agreement. Shalom Residence opened a new facility in 1958 at 1620 Randolph Avenue that doubled its capacity. The Home for the Aged addressed long-standing concerns in 1966 when it hired more professional medical staff and added two wings.

The overdue merger of the Jewish Home for the Aged and Sholom Residence occurred in 1971. The new entity was named Sholom Home, Inc. The building on Randolph was sold. The Midway Parkway facility was enlarged and remodeled multiple times during the 1970s. A complete medical, occupational therapy, and social work staff cared for the residents.

Women volunteers played a crucial role in maintaining both the Jewish Home for the Aged and Shalom Residence. This continued when the auxiliaries merged in 1971.Fundraising events, beginning in the 1920s with the Purim Ball, provided major financial support.

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis a group called the Community Housing and Service Corporation (CH/SC) was founded in 1971 to meet the housing needs of the elderly Jewish community. In 1990, CH/SC broke ground on Sholom West, a separate seventeen-acre campus in St. Louis Park.

CH/SC and Sholom Home, Inc. merged in 1995 to create the Sholom Community Alliance. Shalom East left its long-time home on Midway Parkway in 2009 and moved to a new campus on West Seventh Street and Otto Avenue in St. Paul. An addition was completed in 2013.

In 2013, Sholom cared for over a thousand residents, patients, and clients at its Shalom West and Shalom East campuses. Both campuses include senior apartments, short- and long-term care nursing facilities, assisted living, and memory care units, as well as community-wide home care and hospice.