Order of Service at the Inauguration of the Jews Hospital, New York.

Order of service performed at the dedication of (what was to become) Mt. Sinai Hospital’s first hospital building in 1855. Participants in the ceremony included: Jacques Judah Lyons, Rev. Leon Sternberger, Rev. Adolf Rubin, Rev. Gustaus M. Cohen and Rev. Isaac Shielker. Includes various prayers: “Extend thy protection unto us, and unto the inhabitants of this United Commonwealth, who are not of the seed of Abraham… but who are our fellow citizens, under the shadow of whose righteous laws we live with them in amity and peace as brethren should dwell together. Let their ways prosper in the land…(p. 13). Jews’ Hospital (later Mt. Sinai Hospital) was founded in 1852 by Sampson Simson (1780-1857) to address the needs of New York’s rapidly growing Jewish immigrant community. At the time of its founding, other hospitals in New York City discriminated against Jews by not hiring them and preventing them from being treated in their wards. The Jews’ Hospital in the City of New York, as it was initially called, inaugurated its first building, in what was then a rural neighborhood on West 28th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues on land donated by Simson. Four years later the 45-bed hospital would be unexpectedly filled to capacity with soldiers from the Civil War.