48 Facts About Moshe Wallach

Moshe Wallach was a German Jewish physician and pioneering medical practitioner in Jerusalem.

Moshe Wallach was the founder of Shaarei Zedek Hospital on Jaffa Road, which he directed for 45 years.

Moshe Wallach introduced modern medicine to the impoverished and disease-plagued citizenry, accepting patients of all religions and offering free medical care to indigents.

Moshe Wallach was so closely identified with the hospital that it became known as "Wallach's Hospital".

Moshe Wallach was buried in the small cemetery adjacent to the hospital.

Moshe Wallach was one of seven children born to Joseph Wallach, a textile merchant originally from Euskirchen, and Marianne Levy of Munstereifel.

Moshe Wallach's parents moved to Cologne following their marriage in 1863.

Joseph Wallach was a founder of Adass Jeshurun, the Cologne Orthodox community, which he later served as president.

Moshe Wallach studied medicine at the University of Berlin and University of Wurzburg, and received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1889.

Moshe Wallach first opened a clinic and pharmacy in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City.

Moshe Wallach worked in the Bikur Holim Hospital as a women's and children's physician, ophthalmologist, and surgeon specializing in neck surgery.

Moshe Wallach was the first to perform tracheotomies in Jerusalem, and performed many ritual circumcisions.

In 1896 Moshe Wallach returned to Europe to raise funds for the new hospital, collecting donations in Germany and Holland.

Moshe Wallach registered the land in his own name with the help of the German consul in Jerusalem, Dr Paul von Tischendorf, who helped him procure building materials from Germany.

Moshe Wallach insisted on strict Sabbath observance and a high level of kashrut in the hospital, and personally supervised the milking of the cows.

Moshe Wallach arranged for an electric generator to service the hospital so that it would not have to rely on electricity provided by the power station, where Jews worked on Shabbat.

Moshe Wallach set aside part of the field adjacent to the hospital to the growing of wheat for shemura matzo and supervised the baking of matzos for Passover.

The language of the hospital was German or Yiddish; Moshe Wallach refused to speak in Hebrew, the language of Torah study, in a secular institution.

Moshe Wallach opened the hospital with two trained nurses, Schwester Stybel and Schwester Van Gelder.

Moshe Wallach did not respond to her demands, and when she was unable to find other work and asked for her job back, he made her head of the laundry.

In dire need of a head nurse, Moshe Wallach traveled to Europe in 1916.

Moshe Wallach was impressed with the similar organizational structure of the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg, and asked the head nurse there if she could spare one of her staff.

Moshe Wallach arrived at Shaare Zedek in December 1916 and worked and lived at the hospital for the next 68 years, until her death at the age of 100.

Moshe Wallach accompanied him on house calls and stood in for him as hospital director when he was away.

Moshe Wallach applied the German system to running the wards and cultivated a spirit of warm, personalized patient care that became the modus operandi for the hospital to this day.

Moshe Wallach was invited to every political and diplomatic reception that took place during the Ottoman and British Mandate periods.

Moshe Wallach was close to leaders of the Old Yishuv, including Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld.

Moshe Wallach was a personal friend of Jacob Israel de Haan, a political spokesman for the Haredi community in Jerusalem who was assassinated in 1924 just outside Shaare Zedek Hospital as he was returning to the hospital synagogue for evening prayers.

Moshe Wallach was the personal physician of many Torah leaders of the Old Yishuv, among them Rabbi Chaim Hezekiah Medini, whom he treated in Hebron, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rav of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky, the first Dushinsky Rebbe, and Rabbi Solomon Eliezer Alfandari, who lived in the Ruchama neighborhood.

Moshe Wallach treated the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn.

The Rebbe had suffered a kidney attack, and Moshe Wallach was aboard and treated him and cared for him until he regained his strength.

Moshe Wallach was a dedicated physician and a demanding and exacting employer.

Moshe Wallach was known to shout at nurses and patients alike who did not follow his instructions to the letter.

Moshe Wallach did not know who he was, but begged him to let her in for a few minutes to see her husband, who had had an operation the previous day.

Dr Moshe Wallach let her in, and received her profuse thanks when she came out again.

Moshe Wallach adopted a young Syrian girl named Bolissa who had been brought to the hospital by her father and was abandoned there.

Moshe Wallach personally assisted poverty-stricken immigrants to find housing and jobs, and did not charge indigent patients.

Moshe Wallach helped members of his extended family in Germany immigrate to Palestine after the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.

Moshe Wallach engaged a teacher to study Talmud with him and spent much time learning with Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, leader of the Old Yishuv.

Later, when the girl agreed to travel to Palestine, Moshe Wallach arranged a shidduch between her and his brother Ludwig, who worked as a clerk at Shaare Zedek Hospital.

Moshe Wallach resided in rooms in the hospital until his final day.

Moshe Wallach was succeeded as director of Shaare Zedek by Dr Falk Schlesinger, another German-Jewish physician.

Moshe Wallach was feted on several occasions, beginning with a seventy-fifth birthday celebration at a hotel, which was attended by British Mandate health officials.

In honor of his ninetieth birthday, Moshe Wallach was awarded an honorary degree from the medical faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The city of Jerusalem named him a Yakir Yerushalayim ; however, Moshe Wallach died the day before the presentation ceremony took place.

Moshe Wallach was buried in the small cemetery adjacent to the hospital, on land he had given to the burial society of the Perushim and Ashkenazim of Jerusalem to use as a temporary burial ground during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Per his request, Moshe Wallach was buried beside the Dushinsky Rebbe, whom he considered his mentor.

Moshe Wallach was eulogized by Who's Who in Israel as the Israeli medical profession's "spiritual leader for two generations".