A FAMOUS JEWISH PHILANTHROPIST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1424, 15 June 1899, Page 29

A FAMOUS JEWISH PHILANTHROPIST.

THE LATE BARONESS DE HIRSCiI. (“Jewish Chronicle,” April 7). With profound sorrow we record the death of the Baroness cie Hirsch de Gereutli, which took place at her mansion, 2, Rue de l’Elysee, Paris, on Saturday last. It has for many months past been known that the Baroness was stricken with a mortal disease (cancer), and that the doctors could hold out no hope ji cure. From the day when she was brought with the utmost care and recaution from Austria to Paris, she practically only lingered on ; but every effort was made to keep from the patient the knowledge of her serious condition. We were specially asked not to allude to it when we reported the Consecration, last December, of the “Clara Baroness de Hirsch Convalescent Home,” at Tudor House, Hampstead Heath, as it was intended to send her a copy of the “Jewish Chronicle” containing the report of the ceremony. It will be remembered that it was originally contemplated by the Baroness to

found in England a Home for Jewish Consumptives on the Falkenstein (open air) system, but the project was abandoned, it having been found that the establishment and maintenance of such a Sanatorium would entail a larger outlay than could be met by the Baroness's splendid gift of £50,000. The Baroness and her advisers thereupon decided to apply the endowment to an institution for the reception of patients recovering from the ordinary ailments. In addition to the Endowment Fund, Baroness de Hirsch presented £16,000 for the purchase of the splendid mansion, Tudor House, standing on the summit of Hampstead Heath. The annual income of the Trust Fund, viz., £IBOO, will, it is antipat ed, be sufficient for the maintenance of the Home, so that no subscriptions will be needed from the Jewish public. London Jewry has thus in its midst a permanent monument to Baroness de Hirsch’s regal munificence. The lamented Baroness was a daughter of the late Senator Bischoffsheim, of Brussels, where she was born on June 18th, 1833. M. Ferdinand Bischoffsheim is her brother ; one of her sisters is Madame Goldschmidt, and another is the wife of the distinguished Belgian politician and philanthropist. Senator

Montefiore-Levi. As evidence of the high esteem in which her father was he’d in Brussels, we may mention that one of the finest thoroughfares in that city, the Boulevard Bischoffsheim, is named after him. Her union with Baron Maurice de Hirsch de Gereuth was a happy one, but they were called upon to bear a severe trial when in 1887 they lost their only son, Baron Lucien de Hirsch, a gifted young man, v. ho was very popular in London society, and who was cut off at the age of thirty. There were also other issues of the marriage—but they died in childhood. The Baroness idolised her only son, and since his death she abstained from attending places of amusement. She then gave up her whole self to well-doing, carrying on her philanthropic work in a most business-like manner. Proof of this was afforded to

one admitted into her sitting room, where in pigeon-holes were stowed away, neatly docketed, all the letters and papers conneceted with the numberless charitable cases submitted to her yearly. To her public benefactions we refer below, but it may not be out of place to make passing mention of her private benevolence. She never turned a deaf eai to anw well-recommended case, no matter of what nationality or creed, which brought to her notice by persons possessing her confidence. One instance will suffice. Last summer the Baroness was solicited by a communal official m London to contribute towards the cost of a harp which was required by a young Jewess in Holland in order to enable her to- accept an engagement in a high-class orcestra. The Baroness most leadil.y sent a cheque for £25, half of the balance needed to complete the necessary sum. In order that those in need of her help should not have cause to wait, it was her habit to carry cheque books with her on her travels, and it happened during a visit to Vienna the year oefore last + hat she disposed of all her cheques in a single day. Of her delicacy in the mode of distributing her charitable gifts the following is a notable example. On the occasion of the marriage of a daughter of one of her husband’s employes, the Baroness desired to give 10,000 gulden as a dowry. In order not to put the iat’ er to shame, she sent him money with the explanation that the Baron had a long while back intended to increase the man’s salary ; but he had unfortunately forgotten to do so, and she was only then redeeming the debt.

----“She is an angel” was the expression frequently applied to the Baroness ’ y the late Signor Veneziani, Baron de Hirseh’s almoner, when speaking of her in intimate circles. We refer to a time when she still led a somewhat quiet retired lit >, and only emerged from her privacy m order to act as hostess at the fetes and hunting parties given b\> her husband oefore the death of their son. But she practised charity stealthily. The Baron was disinclined to give any money for charitable purposes in Paris. His visits to that city were few and far between, and he held, as he did in regard to London, tha the wealthy permanent residents should provide for the needs of tneir benevolent institutions. The Baroness did not share his views, and from her private means—for as a member of the wealthy family of Bischoffsheim she was endowed with a large fortune—she gave many a handsome gift to charities with the co-opera-tion of Signor Veneziani. Her influence over her husband was otherwise so great that it was she who gave him the impulse to those immense philanthropic undertakings with which his name will ever be identified. But for her initiative it is

impossible to say what would have become of the almost incalculable sums that have been applied to humanitarian works. “We both decided,” she told one of her friends not long ago, “to devote the whole of our fortunes to charitable objects.” This admission best illustrates the perfect unity that prevailed among husband and wife in respect to their great-hearted determination. The hand of the husband was influenced by the heart of the wife. With perfect cofidence could Baron de Hirsch make his amiablr consort his universal legatee; she regarded herself only as the trustee of monies that belonged to the poor and the needy. The reports which she recived from the persons whom she had nnoi-t-

ed as her public almoners in several continental cities occupied many pages. Their perusal occupied her from early morning until late at night, and many who visited her in the Rue de l’Elysee could not conceal their astonishment and admiration at the remarkable energy which the Baroness displayed in the accomplishment of her self-imposed noble task. After the death of the Baron, Baroness de Hirsch regarded it as a pious duty not only to carry on her own philanthropic work, but also to support the institutions which he had benefited, and even to extend those benefits. In Vienna and Buda-Pesth, the Baron gave 10,000 gulden every month for distrbution; the Baroness devoted to this object one and a half million gulden, in order that a permanent fund might exist to grant loans without interest to poor tradesmen and

artisians. Her husband had endowed a Fund for the establishment and maintenance of schools in Galicia with the munificent sum of twelve million francs ; the Baroness therefore interested herself in the lot of the teachers who gave the best years of their lives as pioneers of culture, and in 1897 she gave 300,00 C gulden to create a Pension Fund. Hei zeal for the welfare of the unhappy Jewish proletariat in Galicia went even further. In the latter part of last year she conceived the idea of another noble work—the provision of clothing and food during the winter for the children attending the Jewish schools founded by her husband. She deposited one and a half r.iill’sn erf den. the animal ’’come of

which is to be expended as to one half on the objects just named and the other half on the maintenance. of schools for the teaching of handicrafts to Jewish girls and Homes for Jewish domestic servants. The first of these Homes has been opened in Kolomea, and is conducted on lines similar to those of the Training for Jewish Girls in London. In all these boundless gifts the Baroness had but one source of grief, to which she gave frequent expression. It was that the rich Jews, especially in Vienna, failed to do their duty to their poorer brothers and sisters in faith. Baron de Hirsch, in many instances, had promised to contribute certain sums for specified objects, provided that others followed his example ; and when this condition was not complied with he withheld his promised gifts. The Baroness, however, did not allow herself to be guided by such con-

siderations. Last summer she was appealed to by the Executive of the Jewish community in Vienna to contribute to the building fund of the Jewish Hospital which was to be erected in that city. In her reply she gave to rich Jews a lesson on the manner in which they should discharge their charitable obligations. She wrote : I have received your letter, and being convinced of the great need of a hospital for the sick of the Jewish community I am prepared to accede to your request. But I do not wish to encroach on the benevolent spirit of our iocal coreligionists, for I hold the opinion that it specially behoves them to contribute the entire sum required for the building of the projected institution. For my part I bind myself, as soon as the funds for the erection of a hospital are assured, to s?ivo a

capital of 50,000 gulden for the maintenance of at least six beds, at about bOOC gulden each. In recognition of the immense benefits she conferred on countless numbers of his subjects, the Emperor of Austria conferred on her the Order of Elizabeth, which he founded last year in memory of the murdered Empress. The Alliance Isarelite Universelle had in the Baroness as great a friend as nei husband had been. It is undeniable that but for the munificence of Baron de Hirsch and, since his demise, of the Baroness, the beneficent work of that institution could not have been carried on except on a very limited scale. The Annual Report of the Alliance for 1898 has not yet been issued, but in the Report foi 1897 the Baroness figured as a doner cf 357,775 francs. In the same year she also enabled the Central Committe, thanks to some magnificent gifts, to open six new schools in Salonica, the annual maintenance of which will involve an ex penditure of between 35,000 francs and 40,000 francs. In 1896, the Baroness placed at the disposal of the Alliance the sum of 50,000 francs, as the nucleus of a fund to supply the children in their schools with a modest midday meal; and it afforded her much gratification to know that in many localities other sums were forthcoming for this useful and touching movement. Through t' m-

fluence of its President, Mr Ciauue Montefiore, the Baroness has for some years past given an annual donation of £2OO to the funds of the Anglo-Jewish Association; and she also contributed towards the fund for the acquisition of new premises for its school in Bombay a circumstance to which Lord Sandhurst the Governor of Bombay, directed special attention in his speech at the openiug on the school on the 17th of January last. To enumerate all the benefactions of the late Baroness during recent years would be an almost impossible task. The universal character of her philanthrophy may be gathered from the following examples : £SOOO to the new Rothschild Wing of the Jews’ Free School; £SOOO in five separate sums of £IOOO, to the Loan Comm’ttoo of fbn Jewish Boa r d of

Guardians through the advocacy of the late Mr Simon Simons; £IOOO towards the building of a Nursing Home in connection with Guy’s Hospital; £IOOO towards the erection of a French Convalescent Home at Brighton ; £SOO to Charing Cross Hospital and generous donations to other London hospitals, through Mr George Herring; 100,000 roub es for the establishment of a Jewish Hospital in Warsaw ; 300,000 florins for the benefit of Jewish Orphans in Buda-Pesth m memory of her almoner, the late Frau David von Bischitz; 205,000 florins as a pension fund for officials on her estate; 2,000,000 francs for the benefit of reduced gentlewoman in the same city. In fact, scarcely a week passed by 7 without an announcement of some thoughtful act on her part to the advantage of her coreligionists, above all hi the United States of America, where she generously assisted in the consolidation of the admirable institutions associated with the name of de Hirsch. The heart that prompted her to such noble acts is stilled for ever; and throughout the Old and the New Worlds many a tear will be shed at the demise ot the truly great mother in Israel, who had herself wiped away many a tear from the suffering, the needy, and the oppress and who has now been called to her Maker to receive from Him the guerdon she so wo 1 ! merited for her good deeds on earth.