Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
7 min read
Why they went from being a pillar of the community to a relic of the past.
Louisville, Kentucky is not a big city but it’s home to the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat, the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Jim Beam Bourbon, and boxer Muhammed Ali. It also has a rather small Jewish population of 14,000 Jews. Yet, when you drive down Interstate 71 into downtown Louisville, one of the first things you see is the internationally renowned UofL – Jewish Hospital.
How is it that such a small Jewish community has a Jewish Hospital?
In many communities, identifying the Jewish Hospital was easy because it was simply called “The Jewish Hospital.” In some places, a culturally Jewish name was chosen, with Mount Sinai being the most common.
Why Mount Sinai? It’s based on the Midrash1 that teaches that all of the Jews who stood at Mt. Sinai were healed from all ailments and abnormalities. Naming a hospital Mount Sinai expresses the hope that God’s blessing of healing that occurred there should take effect within the hospital as well.
The concept of a Jewish Hospital goes back to 1852 when the country’s first was founded in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Touro Infirmary (now Touro LCMC Health) was founded by the Jewish businessman and philanthropist who resided in the city.
The motivation that led to such hospitals was threefold.
First, Judaism was not the first religion to establish faith-based hospitals. In the past, hospitals were often founded and funded by religious orders2. So many hospitals were not a comfortable place for a Jewish patient. Besides the crosses on the walls and Priests in the hallways, it was not uncommon for unsolicited deathbed conversions to be administered by Christian clergy.3 Patients in a Jewish hospital would be spared this indignity.
Second, the Jewish Hospitals had the cultural and religious amenities that a Jew would want. They provided kosher food, had a synagogue onsite, mezuzahs on the doorpost, and had a Rabbi on staff.4 The fact that Jewish law only allows autopsies in limited situations was also taken into consideration in these hospitals.5 This made for a more welcoming hospice for the Jewish patient.
If the young doctor made it past all of these barriers, they were often met with harassment in the workplace because they were Jewish.
Finally, before World War II, there was a strong, latent antisemitism in the US. One of the ways this manifested itself was through the quota system. Universities limited the number of Jewish students they would admit, especially in their post-graduate programs. Even if Jewish students made it past the quota blockade, they faced even more impediments when they graduated and tried to find a residency, and still more when it came to looking for staff positions. If the young Jewish doctor made it past all of these barriers, they were often met with harassment in the workplace because of their religion. The Jewish Hospital provided a non-discriminatory environment where the Jewish physician could both train and build a career.6
The first wave of Jewish immigration to the United States was from mostly non-religious German Jews and the hospitals they built reflected this character. These hospitals included the Touro Infirmary in New Orleans, Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, and institutions in Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia. From 1880, when a large influx of more traditional Eastern European immigrants crossed the Atlantic, new Jewish hospitals incorporated more Jewish amenities.
Altogether, there have been more than 100 Jewish Hospitals in the history of the United States. By 1966, there were 25,000 Jewish Hospital beds in the US that served more than half a million patients, delivered more than 75,000 babies, and helped more than 3.5 million outpatients a year.7
Today, 22 hospitals still operate with a minimal Jewish connection, 24 others merged into one of these 22, 35 have closed and 24 have been purchased by or merged with a non-Jewish chain.8 Even the 22 that are still “Jewish,” the ties are quite loose, and it’s likely that this number with further decline.
So, what happened to the Jewish Hospital?
With changes to Medicare, the rise of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), and large for-profit entities entering the market, most small, community-based hospitals were forced to close, consolidate, or sell out to the bigger fish.9 This is what happened to most Jewish Hospitals across America. The result of this is that most of the institutions that still bear a Jewish name are now part of a larger health system. The aforementioned Jewish Hospital of Louisville is now part of the University of Louisville Heath System. Keeping the Jewish Hospital name was a term of sale; these hospitals remain Jewish in name only.
After the curtain was pulled back on the horrors of the Holocaust, it became politically incorrect to be antisemitic, and with that, the quota systems began to disappear. By the 1960s the archaic system was unacceptable and illegal and the Jewish doctor-in-training was no longer limited to the institution where they could train and practice.10 Before long, Jewish medical students could be found in major universities, and the concept of a Jewish doctor became ubiquitous with good healthcare.
The decline of the Jewish Hospital reflects the assimilation of the Jews in North America. Today, the overall growth of the Jewish diaspora is in decline; the Jewish community as a whole has a negative birthrate.
Assimilation and low Jewish birth rates are reflected in the decline of Jewish Hospitals that once stretched across the country.
The majority of Jews today don’t care if their healthcare facility is Jewish, Catholic, or completely secular, and philanthropists who want to support a Jewish Hospital are becoming scarce.
While many Jewish Hospitals met their demise due to insolvency, a number were purchased by healthcare conglomerates leaving eight grant-making foundations with combined assets of over a billion dollars.11 Some, like the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and the Rose Community Foundation in Denver, are focused on strengthening the Jewish life of the local Jewish community. Others, like the Mt. Sinai Foundation in Cleveland, focus on health and wellness while prioritizing the needs of the Jewish community. Sadly, many of these foundations have no cultural ties to the Jewish community.
While once a pillar of American Jewish communities big and small, the Jewish Hospital is almost a relic of the past. Assimilation and low Jewish birth rates are reflected in the decline of Jewish Hospitals that once stretched across the country.
