More than 1,000 persons, including members of his immediate family, many patients and the entire hospital personnel, crowded Temple Emanu-El where funeral services were conducted today for Dr. Isadore David Bronfin, medical director of the National Jewish Hospital here, who died suddenly Tuesday morning. Hundreds, denied admittance to the temple, stood in the streets nearby to pay homage to the famous physician.
Rabbi Joseph Blatt, of Oklahoma City, officiated at the services. In the presence of Mrs. Elizabeth Rothbardt Bronfin, the deceased’s wife; two sons, Leon and Gerald; and his mother, Mrs. David Bronfin, Rabbi Blatt eulogized the dead man’s work in the field of medicine.
Pallbearers at the rites were Dr. B. Slesher, vice-president of the National Jewish Hospital, and Drs. H. H. Frumess, I. Singerman, Emanuel Friedman, Leo Tepley and Robert Levy. Honorary pallbearers included all the members of the board of managers of the hospital, the hospital executives, many prominent clergymen of Denver and twenty-five of Colorado’s foremost medical men. Interment took place later at a Denver cemetery.
It was anounced that community memorial services will be held at a later date. They will be conducted by Rabbi W. S. Friedman of Temple Emanu-El who is also president of the National Jewish Hospital. Rabbi Friedman, absent from the city, could not attend today’s services. The local press today continued to praise Dr. Bronfin’s work for humanity and science.
As medical chief of the oldest national institution for the free care of tuberculosis in the country, Dr. Bronfin was widely known for his medical and scientific work in the field of tuberculosis. He took charge of the hospital in 1928. At the time of his death he was forty-seven years old.
Only recently Dr. Bronfin had instituted the efforts being carried on by the Jewish hospital to test a new tuberculosis serum. Twenty-five life-term convicts of the Colorado Penitentiary volunteered to make the tests.
He was born in Lantzkriene, Podolsk, Russia, September 13, 1886. After his arrival in this country in 1902 he attended school in New York. He received his M.D. at Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn. Prior to his appointment to the National Jewish Hospital, he served as superintendent of Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, was assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, and organized the first Jewish training school for nurses in New England.
Considered by medical men as an authority in his field, Dr. Bronfin had written numerous articles on tuberculosis. He was a fellow of the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians. He was president of the Denver Sanatorium Association in 1932, and also was a member of the county and state medical societies, Colorado State Historical Society, the Masons and the National Conference on Jewish Social Service.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
