Chasing The Cure

Many of the German Jews in Denver were members of Congregation Emanual, a Reform Judaism congregation. The Congregation was established in 1874 and the first temple built on Denver’s West Side. Abraham and Frances Wisebart Jacobs were members of Congregation Emanuel. Rabbi William Friedman, longtime rabbi at Temple Emanuel and a respected civic leader, helped garner B’nai B’rith support with his friend and congregant Louis Anfenger, who exhibited a highly personal role at National Jewish.

Not only did Anfenger provide financial and moral support, he planted flowers by hand at the hospital to cheer the patients. Louis Anfenger arrived in Denver in 1879 and served as a member of the early Denver Chamber of Commerce and the state legislation. Milton Anfenger, elected a Colorado state senator in 1904, later served as president of National Jewish Hospital from 1946 to 1953 and wrote a popular history of the institution. The Congregation Emanuel Records, B258; Collection on Rabbi William S. Friedman, B225; Anfenger Family Diaries and Material Culture, B106; and the Milton Louis Anfenger Papers, B091, all have information on the German Jews in Denver.