Daily Podcasts Video Research

Nathan Straus made his fortune at Macy’s — and spent it fighting disease in New York and Palestine

JL;DR SUMMARY Nathan Straus, a key figure in the expansion of Macy's and Abraham & Straus, exemplified philanthropy by focusing on public health and social welfare in the U.S. and Palestine. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

ZionismPalestinePhilanthropyJewish LeadersPublic HealthHenrietta SzoldNathan StrausMilk PasteurizationMacysStephen Wise

Places mentioned

Israel
"Working with Szold, Straus established a health center in Jerusalem and was involved in funding soup kitchens and workrooms to employ unemployed Jews and Arabs."
Jerusalem, Israel
"Working with Szold, Straus established a health center in Jerusalem and was involved in funding soup kitchens and workrooms to employ unemployed Jews and Arabs."
New York City, New York, United States
"Nathan Straus, who helped build Macys into a retail empire in the 1890s, gave away his money the old-fashioned way, creating milk depots for sick babies in the slums of New York City and malaria treatments for all those living in pre-state Palestine."
United States
"He had an order of magnitude less wealth than John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie but was able to pull off really unusual philanthropic achievements."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 86040
Cairo Source ID 42
Retrieved 2026-06-24 18:00:43 UTC
Curated 2026-06-24 19:01:21 UTC