Where were you born? Were you born at the Beth? Many thousands of  Americans-Jewish and non-Jewish-were born at a hospital bearing the Star  of David and named Beth Israel, Mount Sinai, or Montefiore. In the  United States, health care has been bound closely to the religious  impulse. Newark Beth Israel Hospital is a distinguished modern medical  institution in New Jersey whose history opens a window on American  health care, the immigrant experience, and urban life. Alan M. and  Deborah A. Kraut tell the story of this important institution,  illuminating the broader history of voluntary nonprofit hospitals  created under religious auspices initially to serve poor immigrant  communities. Like so many Jewish hospitals in the early half of the  twentieth century, "the Beth" cared not only for its own community's  poor and underprivileged, a responsibility grounded in the Jewish  traditions of tzedakah ("justice") and tikkun olam ("to heal the  world"), but for all Newarkers.Since it first opened its doors in  1902, the Beth has been an engine of social change. Jewish women  activists and immigrant physicians founded an institution with a  nonsectarian admissions policy and a welcome mat for physicians and  nurses seeking opportunity denied them by anti-Semitism elsewhere.  Research, too, flourished at the Beth. Here dedicated medical detectives  did path-breaking research on the Rh blood factor and pacemaker  development. When economic shortfalls and the Great Depression  threatened the Beth's existence, philanthropic contributions from  prominent Newark Jews such as Louis Bamberger and Felix Fuld, the  efforts of women volunteers, and, later, income from well-insured  patients saved the institution that had become the pride of the Jewish  community.The Krauts tell the Beth Israel story against the backdrop  of twentieth-century medical progress, Newark's tumultuous history, and  the broader social and demographic changes altering the landscape of  American cities. Today, the United States, in the midst of another great  wave of immigration, once again faces the question of how to provide  newcomers with culturally sensitive and economically accessible medical  care. Covenant of Care will inform and inspire all those working to meet  these demands, offering a compelling look at the creative ways that  voluntary hospitals navigated similar challenges throughout the  twentieth century.  (20110101)

Covenant of Care: Newark Beth Israel And the Jewish Hospital in America PDF

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