Max Tabak has lived the mission of Hebrew Free Loan. Now he’s giving back.
Max Tabak was seven years old when his family left everything behind.
Born in Moldova—then part of the Soviet Union—Max grew up in a time when being Jewish meant being a target. His passport didn’t say “Moldovan.” It said “Jewish.” That distinction cost his father his job, cost Max his spot at a performing arts school, and eventually cost the family their home, their community, and nearly everything they owned.
“When you’re a refugee, you pack a bag and you get out,” Max says simply.
What followed was a years-long journey through Europe. His family crossed Czech borders, navigated Austrian transit, and spent nine months in Italy among a wave of Soviet Jews making the same desperate passage before they finally arrived in New Jersey, where an uncle had already settled. America offered opportunity, but it didn’t come easily. Max’s mother, an accountant back home, took cleaning jobs. His father, an engineer, did the same. Their credentials meant nothing here. Max started working alongside his mother at age nine or ten.
It was in those early, precarious years that the Hebrew Free Loan made a difference. Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia itself was founded in part as a response to the needs of newly-arrived Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union in the 80’s. An interest-free loan, like the ones offered to other families seeking refuge in the United States, helped Max’s uncle buy a car. That car meant that he could get to work, that he could build something. A small investment changed everything.
“That extra dollar can really change someone’s entire life,” Max says. “If it wasn’t for HFL, they wouldn’t have gotten that job.”
How HFL Continues this Work Today
Today, Max is a successful professional, a proud Philadelphia community member, and a member of the Hebrew Free Loan board (eight years and counting!). The arc of his story is one he doesn’t take lightly, especially now.
The world, he says, is starting to feel familiar in ways that frighten him.
“What is happening today is reminding me of some of that,” he says, reflecting on rising antisemitism and the current political climate around immigration. “I was young, but I remember. I’m re-living it and realizing what it felt like.”
Max identifies as a proud, queer Jew. He’s been active publicly, including a trip to Israel following the October 7 attacks, and has dealt with death threats on social media as a result.
His sense of memory, and the obligation to honor it, drives his commitment to HFL. The organization, he notes, meets people where they are. Medical debt, housing instability, emergency expenses, domestic violence, pandemic-era food insecurity: HFL has been there for all of it. “We found a fund and we were able to meet the need,” Max says.
Interest-free loans, he points out, essentially don’t exist outside of HFL programs. For people in crisis, for people who are told, as he puts it, “to just figure it out,” that gap is enormous.
“When no one else wants to talk to you, we want to talk to you,” he says. “We want to help.”
Hebrew Free Loan helped Max’s family find their footing in a new country. Decades later, he’s making sure it can do the same for someone else.