"Responsibility for those in need" - an ethnography of Jewish mental and social healthcare provision in New York City, USA

My proposal is to perform ethnographic research for 12-15 months with 'Tikkun' (a pseudonym), a not-for-profit organisation guided by Jewish values but which offers services to all New Yorkers. During this time, I will engage in participant observation at key sites outlined in my main research proposal, as well as unstructured interviews with interlocutors. In particular, I hope to conduct fieldwork in the specific sites of different forms of care all run under the auspices of 'Tikkun', as well as their executive headquarters. My research questions revolve around care and how care is carried out and received, and how the religious identity of the organisation impacts this. I am particularly interested in how the notion of Jewish responsibility for others which the organisation cites as the inspiration for its existence is manifested in the operations of the organisation and in the lives of its members. This research will sit at the intersection of the anthropologies of Judaism, care and medicine and has the potential to make a significant contribution to each particularly in this question of responsibility, which is to my eyes under-explored in both medical anthropology and the anthropology of Judaism.