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Reviews
| Covenant of Care: Newark Beth Israel Hospital and the Jewish Hospital in America. By Alan M. Kraut and Deborah A. Kraut. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. 304 pp. Photos, illustrations, tables, notes, appendix, and index. $37.95 (cloth).
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"The Beth," as Newark's Jewish hospital was called, was one of many health care institutions founded during the Progressive Era to serve a largely immigrant population. Remnants still remain in Newark, albeit in forms reshaped by changes in health care funding and provision over the course of the twentieth century. Alan and Deborah Kraut render the hospital's story in loving detail while also providing broader contexts. Readers learn about the history of Jewish hospitals across the country, ethnic succession in Newark's neighborhoods, government policy, and the health care industry. |
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Physicians and women's organizations were the two main driving forces behind the founding of Beth Israel Hospital, which opened its doors in 1902. At the Beth, Jewish physicians could gain training and jobs at a time when anti-Semitic discrimination restricted their access to medical education and jobs at non-Jewish hospitals. Over time they made the hospital a center for innovative research in areas such as cardiology. Jewish women worked to found and sustain the Beth by organizing fund-raisers, often providing unpaid labor, and financing the purchase of technology. The Krauts give women much of the credit for the Beth's survival during the Depression, when economic hard times forced other small hospitals to shut down. Eventually, businessmen with wealth and financial skills gained increased leverage on the hospital board, but Jewish women continued to play a vital economic role for many decades. |
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