A Legacy of Caring: Jewish Women in Early Colorado Women of West Colfax and the JCRS

Eastern European Jews, primarily from Russia, arrived in Denver in the 1880s and settled in Denver’s west-side immigrant enclave in the Colfax area. Before long, Eastern European Jewish women in Colorado were also taking a leading role in philanthropy and becoming active in civic and professional areas. Channah Milstein, shown here in the photo to the left, was a Russian Jewish immigrant who collected money to provide aid to the poor.

In 1904 the West Side immigrants banded together to found the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS). The JCRS treated patients in all stages of tuberculosis and provided a distinctively Jewish environment.

Fannie Eller Lorber, born in Russia in 1881, settled with her family in the West Colfax area in 1896. She realized that tuberculosis affected the children of the patients. In 1907, she and her close friend Bessie Willens spearheaded the founding of the Denver Sheltering Home for Jewish Children, largely to take care of the children whose parents were stricken with tuberculosis.

Photo of children in the Denver Sheltering Home for Jewish Children c. 1912.

Click on page titles below to learn more about the Legacy of Caring.

Beginnings | Jacobs | Pisko | West Colfax | Legacies