Dr. med. Elieser Rosenbaum

photo cf.: http://www.juedische-pflegegeschichte.de/das-hospital-der-georgine-...

Translated from “Israelit” of Thursday, Teveth 12th 5682 (January 12th 1922)
One of the best known and beloved personalities of our City, the current Communal President of the Hebrew Religious Congregation (Israelitische-Religions-Gesellschaft) Confidential Health Counselor Dr. E. Rosenbaum, has gone to his eternal rest in his seventy second year at the Rothschild Hospital the favorite place of his felicitous medical activity, in the night after this past Shabbos ח׳ טבת תרפ”ב לפײק. Until a few months ago he had been an untiring practitioner devoted to almost restless work by day and night, performed with unflagging energy. But suddenly in the course of a seemingly minor operation a heart condition affected the youthful old man. While for weeks a whole community and far beyond his countless friends and admirers were anxiously watching his state of health, he was in a position fully to prepare for what he saw was coming and to make all the arrangements he thought necessary.

Born in the small Bavarian Community of Walldorf the departed went to live in Frankfurt already during his secondary school period and settled down there on obtaining his degree. A young doctor of such rare intellect, thorough scientific training and practical wisdom could not help quickly gaining the affection not only of the orthodox circles but equally of the gentile public.
His very way of attending to his medical duties taught that his profession requires above all the art to be humane and familiarity with the language of the human heart. His natural and relaxed politeness, his mild but determined way of counseling which forestalled even the slightest contradiction and assurance of the intuitive way of his diagnosing combined to nearly curing sufferers at the very moment he appeared in front of them. At the same time not only in his early years but until the very last months of his life his house and surgery were truly wide open for all-comers, notwithstanding the general economic situation. Ninety per cent of those he saw during his consulting hours were sufferers who could only repay him with their affectionate gratitude albeit a non-inflationary currency. His whole life as a physician and healer of suffering human beings was one grand Kiddush ha-shem for everyone knew and sensed that the very success of the practitioner flowed from the depth of his deep-seated traditional Jewish piety. In the spirit of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch he grew up and from his writings he matured in his adolescence. No wonder then that Dr. Elieser Rosenbaum became in all his thoughts, feelings and minor and major activities a genuine Shulchan Aruch Jew. His meticulous performance of Mitzvot and his conscientiousness were on a level which may very well have been above that of the attention to detail the most responsible of his fellow professionals would have applied to a difficult operation. But far beyond this he dedicated the whole source of his ample energy to the community at large and above all to his local congregation in a way rarely seen with people of normal full time duties. A fervent love bound him to his congregation in which he saw the sole stronghold of Jewish conviction and realization for generations. Thus no sacrifice was too hard nor any hour too early or too late for furthering the consolidation internally and externally of his community. As a member of the Board, an honorary officer, a school governor and a member of countless committees, he had conscientiously attended for a whole generation to all problems arising in every branch of the administration of his large congregation. The loving care he gave to every detail of its daily routine would have nonplussed an outside observer. It goes without saying that the preservation of the purity of the great principles on which the community was equally close to his heart. After the end of a meeting late at night when his colleagues were on the point of retiring, he started eagerly, as he had just got up, his medical night round while in the early morning he used to be one the first to enter the synagogue unless he had received an urgent call from a patient. All the ideas he uttered in prayer became the mainsprings of his beneficial activity throughout his life.

He was happily married to a lady belonging to the Ettlinger Family. And they had respected sons and daughters who carry on in the spirit of their parents. On the other hand the departed did not have to look outside his family circle for bitter life experiences but his wonderful way of trusting in and respecting in and responding to Divine Providence gave him strength and optimism so that he felt capable of continuing energetically in what his life stood for. Now this source of power and endurance has at last given out and one who never tired in life now rests in expectation of eternal reward. What he was and what he achieved will never be forgotten although in his modesty he had not allowed any word of posthumous praise to be said.

After the funeral Monday, which was attended by large crowds, and at which according to the wishes of the deceased no appreciative farewell oration was delivered, the honorary officers and and the Board of the Community gathered for memorial meeting and in the afternoon the Governing Committee of Rothschild Hospital came together in its premises for a similar purpose. The acting president, Mr. Naftali Schwabacher, expressed everyones’ grief for their departed friend and coworker in moving words and memory. The reading of a farewell letter which the deceased had written with his own hand in the last weeks before his passing to his fellow Honorary Officers had a stirring effect by its simple yet forceful words in which anxieties and hopes for the future were so movingly expressed.
Translated from “Israelit” of Thursday, Teveth 12th 5682 (January 12th 1922)