Chasing The Cure

For many years the relationship between National Jewish Hospital and the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society was acrimonious, with leaders disagreeing about medical issues, and religious and administrative policies. As time passed the relationship between the two hospitals became more amiable and the two institutions spearheaded the founding of two other pivotal local Denver Jewish institutions, the Denver Sheltering Home for Jewish Children and the Ex-Patients’ Home. Eventually, the Sheltering Home morphed into the National Asthma Center and then merged into National Jewish Hospital. The National Asthma Center Records, B098, contain photographs and records from the opening of the Denver Sheltering Home for Jewish Children in 1907, through its merger with National Jewish Hospital in 1978.

If German and East Europeans sometimes clashed over the work of the two of the two tuberculosis hospitals, they were able to unite when the cause was dependent children. The Sheltering Home, while representative of Jewish orphanages in general, was founded in reaction to a rather unusual set of circumstances: what was to become of Jewish children who were neglected, abandoned, orphaned or half-orphaned due to their parents’ tuberculosis. Rabbi Charles Kauvar, spiritual leader of the traditional Beth Ha Medrosh Hagodol (BMH), served as one of the first vice presidents of the Home, along with Rabbi Friedman of the reform Congregation Emanuel.