The Bayit Chadash Project
Helping Build Jewish Homes With Dignity
For many years, we had the privilege of helping orphaned and financially vulnerable Chatanim and Kallot begin married life with dignity, warmth and the basic necessities needed to establish a new Jewish home.
The Bayit Chadash Project was an important part of the work of Chessed Ve’Emet for many years. While we are not presently operating the project in its original form, we have preserved this page to share its vision, the mitzvah behind it, and some of the beautiful work we were privileged to accomplish.
Helping a Couple Build a Home
A wedding lasts a day. A Jewish home can last for generations. Our vision was therefore not simply to help with a wedding, but to help a young couple take their first steps into married life with dignity.
Building a Home
Helping provide brand-new household necessities so that a Chatan and Kallah could begin married life with something beautiful of their own.
Hachnasat Kallah
Participating in the precious mitzvah of helping those without sufficient family or financial support enter marriage with honour and dignity.
A Torah Home
Where possible, we also provided a basic library of new Torah books — helping nourish the spiritual foundations of the home as well as the physical ones.
A Home Wrapped in Dignity
The Bayit Chadash Project grew from a very simple idea: when a young couple marries without the resources or parental support that so many others take for granted, helping them should mean more than simply getting them through the wedding day.
We wanted couples to begin their homes with new belongings — items chosen with dignity, respect and the sense that their new beginning mattered.
Over the years we assisted couples with items including cutlery, crockery, linen, tableware and even new beds. We had hoped eventually to expand the project to include major furniture and appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, stoves and washing machines.
Read: The Mitzvah of Helping Orphans to Marry →Cutlery, crockery, tableware and household basics.
New beds, linen and necessities for a dignified beginning.
A basic Torah library to help make the home a place of Torah.
Practical help offered with respect, sensitivity and dignity.
Helping Establish a Jewish Home
“Did you occupy yourself in marrying off an orphan boy or an orphan girl?”
A Mitzvah of Extraordinary Importance
Jewish sources speak with remarkable force about caring for orphans, helping those in need to marry, and enabling them to establish their homes.
Ketubot 67a–b
Our Sages discuss providing an orphaned bride with what she requires and assisting an orphaned groom with the necessities required to establish his home.
Rambam — Hilchot De’ot 6:10
The Torah places particular responsibility upon us in our treatment of orphans and demands exceptional sensitivity to their circumstances.
Rambam — Hilchot Sefer Torah 10:2
The importance of marriage is so great that the Rambam records marriage among the exceptional purposes for which a Sefer Torah may be sold when there is no other means.
Shach & Levush
Our halachic tradition emphasizes the greatness of helping a poor orphaned Kallah reach the Chuppah and describes establishing a family as participation in the building and settlement of the world.
Real Couples. Real Homes. Real Beginnings.
Behind every package and every household item was something much more important: a Chatan and Kallah preparing to begin their lives together.
♥ Our Happy Couples
Over the years we were privileged to assist numerous couples — more than those represented in the photographs preserved on our website.
Visit Our Happy Couples Page →📰 Featured in the Jerusalem Post
The Bayit Chadash Project was featured in the Jerusalem Post in an article entitled “A New Home for Special Brides.”
Read the Article →A Letter From a Recipient
Dear Rabbi Shear,
Thank you again for all the aid (financial and otherwise) your organization, Hessed ve-Emet, provided in helping a needy bride to get married recently, after we approached you for assistance.
As you know, couples just starting out often face substantial housing and living expenses. These conditions can lead to constant financial stress which in turn affects Shalom Bayit, and it becomes even more acute once children arrive on the scene.
Any help which can be obtained to relieve this situation may be considered as a great mitzvah in establishing a true Jewish home. May your efforts in this regard be crowned with success.
— D. & S.W., Maaleh Adumim
Helping Bayit LePletot — Girls Town Jerusalem
We were deeply grateful for the opportunity to assist young women connected with Bayit LePletot — Girls Town Jerusalem as they prepared to establish Jewish homes of their own.
For a young woman who has grown up without the parental support that others may take for granted, knowing that someone cares about her future — even as she prepares for marriage — can carry extraordinary meaning.
Chessed Ve’Emet was honoured to be associated with this work and grateful for the opportunity to contribute towards these new beginnings.
Letter of thanks from Bayit LePletot — Girls Town Jerusalem
A historical letter recognising our involvement
Giving With Dignity
One principle remained central throughout the project: the couples we assisted deserved more than somebody else’s leftovers. Wherever possible, the household items we provided were brand new.
Dignity itself was part of the gift.
A new marriage. A new home. New belongings.
And the knowledge that others cared enough to help
make that beginning beautiful.
The Project Has Changed.
The Mitzvah Hasn’t.
The Bayit Chadash Project remains an important chapter in the story of Chessed Ve’Emet. Though we are no longer operating it in its original form, its central vision continues to speak to everything we believe about chesed: seeing another person’s need, preserving their dignity, and helping build a Jewish future one person — and one home — at a time.
If you would like to speak with us about the history of this project, or about the work of Chessed Ve’Emet today, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Contact Chessed Ve’Emet