Collection: Mount Sinai Beth Israel records

Description: Beth Israel Hospital was founded in 1889 to address the dire health concerns of those living in New York’s Lower East Side at that time. Approaching the 10-year mark of its merger with the Mount Sinai Health System, Beth Israel remains rooted in its history. Now a medical center with 799 beds and an enormous footprint around Stuyvesant Square Park and across downtown Manhattan, the history of the hospital is deeply intertwined with that of the neighborhood. Beginning as a form of Jewish mutual aid to care for marginalized workers and their families living in tenements, the hospital grew to treat and research many of the most pressing issues of the time. Over its 133-year history, this has included caring for the sick during the Influenza Epidemic of 1918; the development of the Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program in the 1960s, one of the first ever methadone clinics; being an early responder in treating and caring for patients during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s; and responding to the present COVID-19 pandemic. The Beth Israel records broadly document the history of the hospital, and the digitization of this material will allow Beth Israel to be more easily included in historical research related to the broader scope of healthcare in metropolitan New York.

Collection on DCMNY: Mount Sinai Beth Israel records