Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1930-1935 (Creation)
Extent
1 bound volume
Name of creator
Biographical history
Isidor W. Held, MD (1876 - 1947) was a longtime member of the Beth Israel Hospital medical staff who served as President of the Medical Board from 1936 to 1938.
Dr. Held, a gastroenterologist, was involved in Jewish refugee aid in the aftermath of World War I, and during the rise of Nazism he became active in the movement to help medical and scientific emigres escape from Nazi Germany and its conquered territories, raising funds and publishing articles on behalf of persecuted Jewish physicians. He and his wife, Fannie, corresponded closely with Albert Einstein, who was himself a refugee from Nazi persecution and a vocal activist on behalf of other potential emigres.
In addition to his work, Dr. Held was deeply immersed in family and religious life. He traveled extensively with his family in the American Northeast, as well as in pre-World War I Europe. Family members include daughter Ruth Goldbloom; son-in-law A. Allen Goldbloom (faculty at New York Medical College); grandson Joseph Goldbloom; and brother Adolph Held (editor of the Jewish Daily Forward).
The Beth Israel Board of Trustees dedicated its pathological laboratory in honor of his 60th birthday in 1936. Remarks from the ceremony note his deep sense of philanthropy, his love of learning, his compassion for his patients, and his role as a member in his religious and medical communities.
Dr. Held passed away in 1947. In addition to his legacy as an administrator, clinician and teacher of house staff, and the lives he saved as a refugee advocate, his posthumous impact at Beth Israel included an important annual lecture series endowed in his memory, which lasted until at least the late 1980s and brought numerous prominent physicians to Beth Israel's downtown campus.