100th Anniversary of Mount Sinai Hospital

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Mount Sinai Hospital opened its doors in 1919 as a place where Jewish physicians could train and treat the immigrant community of Chicago's West Side. Founded by Lithuanian Jewish immigrant Morris Kurtzon, Mount Sinai kept its mission as a community hospital even as it evolved into a regional medical trauma center. This month, Sinai celebrates a century of helping everyone who come through its doors.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, German and Eastern European Jews immigrated to Chicago by the thousands, fleeing religious persecution. Chicago lacked quality healthcare for these immigrants, especially in Chicago's South and West Sides.

Maimonides Kosher Hospital of Chicago opened in 1912 to fill the healthcare gap, particularly the lack of kosher hospitals, and to serve this immigrant community. However, Maimonides struggled financially and closed after only four years.

Morris Kurtzon, a board member of Maimonides, was determined to keep the dream alive. Kurtzon was born in Lithuania in the 1870s and came to Chicago as a child. Before the end of the century, he established the Garden City Plating and Manufacturing Company. He was a pillar of the community, and with his $50,000 contribution, Maimonides Kosher Hospital reopened as Mount Sinai in 1919.

Within 5 years under Kurtzon's leadership, Mount Sinai had five floors, a nursing school, and had grown from 60 to 220 beds.

Kurtzon retired in 1950, but the hospital continued its growth. Mount Sinai established what is now the oldest home healthcare program in the State of Illinois in 1953. It became a major community anchor as the largest employer in Lawndale.

Mount Sinai established the Midwest's first in-vitro fertilization clinic in 1983. The following year, the Midwest's first rehabilitation hospital, Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, became part of Mount Sinai. Today, it is among the Nation's top programs for physical medicine and rehabilitation.

In 2012, Mount Sinai found an unlikely partner in Holy Cross Hospital. When Mount Sinai merged with Holy Cross, they found a way to preserve their different faith traditions while committing to the same goal of serving the community.

In 1990, Mount Sinai was designated as a Level 1 Trauma Center, the highest level of surgical care for trauma patients. Today, Sinai is one of the unsung heroes in treating and working to prevent the gun violence epidemic plaguing Chicago. From supporting the Gun Violence Research Collaborative and community engagement programs to providing world-class emergency treatment and trauma care, Sinai is working tirelessly to treat both the physical and emotional wounds that violence causes, and survivors are putting their lives back together at the Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital.

I am proud to work with Mount Sinai on the Chicago HEAL Initiative, which is another example of Sinai's continued commitment to serving the community. Under the HEAL Initiative, 10 major hospitals that are normally competitors are collaborating to use their economic footprint and community engagement to reduce violence and improve health in their neighborhoods.

Mount Sinai has embodied the Jewish values of ``tikkun olam,'' meaning repairing the world, and ``hachnasat orchim,'' meaning the welcoming and caring for a stranger, for a century now. The names and the community have changed, but the values have never changed. Mount Sinai is still repairing the world and caring for strangers every day.

Congratulations on a century of helping people, and here is to another century.

(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

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