Jerusalem, Health Institution Lina and Nathan Strauss

Image from the book: Jewish Palestine: A Celebration of the Yishuv

The Nathan and Lina Straus Health Center, located at what is now the confluence of Natan Strauss and Bnei Brit Street, was inaugurated in 1929. Originally from Bavaria, Nathan Straus (1848–1931), one of the owners of Macy’s department store, retired in 1914 to devote himself, with the support of his wife, Lina Straus, née Gutherz (1854–1930), exclusively to his long-standing philanthropic activities, focussing primarily on issues of public health. One of his key causes was the provision of pasteurized milk to mothers and children. He first established a health bureau in Jerusalem in 1912, whose expertise is said to have been instrumental in helping fend off a cholera epidemic in the Yishuv in 1916/17. By the time of his death in 1931, Straus had given away two thirds of his fortune to philanthropic causes.