diction, or melancholia—had no place in most private hospitals. Mount
Sinai, the first Jewish hospital in New York, sent incurables to Bellevue and
then Blackwell’s Island. The hospital had considered the problem of long-
term care in the 1870s, but it soon realized that it could not meet the wide-
spread need without impairing its regular functions.^68 Meantime, the ur-
gent need for a new facility grew stronger. The mass immigration from
eastern Europe had not caused the problem, but as the number of immi-
grants steadily increased, so did the numbers of the incurables and the
chronically ill.
The idea of a new institution took root, but it was not acted upon until
1884, when the community made plans to mark the one-hundredth birth-
day of Sir Moses Montefiore. The English philanthropist had gained re-
nown in the United States as well as in Europe, and members of the Jewish
elite discussed various suggestions for a proper tribute. All practical men,
they considered social needs, not monuments: a model tenement (Schiff’s
idea), a reformatory for delinquents, and a home for incurables. The last
won out, and in October (the month of Sir Moses’ birthday), the Montefi-
ore Home for the Incurables, a small gaslit house on Eighty-fourth Street
with accommodations for some twenty-six patients, was formally opened.^69
New York’s Jews warmly welcomed the home. Contributions large and
small poured in, and a Ladies’ Auxiliary Society and a Young Ladies’ and
Gentlemen’s League were organized to provide entertainment and other
nonmedical services for the patients. In 1886 a gala fair for the benefit of
the home netted close to $160,000. A leading figure behind the fun-filled
event, Schiff too reportedly shed his customary formality. Ten years after
the home’s birth the American Hebrewhailed Montefiore, one of the
youngest of Jewish charities, as one that ranked among the community’s
top favorites. Schiff, who was the financial angel of the home from its in-
ception, became president in 1885. During his tenure the institution ex-
panded rapidly, and in 1913, under the new name of Montefiore Home and
Hospital for Chronic Diseases, it relocated to its present site in the Bronx.^70
The banker plunged wholeheartedly into the work of the home. He
liked the challenge of a new institution, especially if his power was un-
questioned. To be sure, he had served on the board of Mount Sinai until
1885, but there he was still subordinate to his elders and those who had
been in America longer. Montefiore offered him the chance to demon-
strate how a charity, specifically a Jewish charity, should be run properly.
It provided him and his staff with the setting for innovation and new di-
rections, like medical experiments in hydrotherapy, tuberculosis, and ra-
dium treatment. One physician observed that Schiff’s interest in the scien-
tific departments, “the chemical, bacteriological and pathological,”
matched his grave concern for the patients. For serious causes like cancer
research, the banker tapped contacts in London and Berlin that could lend
Leadership and Philanthropy 65