David Sulzberger.
David Sulzberger, a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, and a member of the Acting Committee since 1903, was born in the Duchy of Baden, in 1838, and died in March, 1910, at the home of his sister in this city.
Reared by pious parents of the Jewish faith, and following the teachings of Jehovah, as manifested to one who sought earnestly to know the Divine Will, he devoted much of his life and means to practical philanthropy. It has been said by a member of his own denomination that his crowning achievement was his splendid service to the cause of humanity in visiting the Jewish and other prisoners confined in the penal institutions located in this city. He brought to them the consolation of religion whenever they were amenable to its influence, the moral strength that emanated from a firm yet a kindly nature, the instruction that would give them a new start in the battle of life. Scarcely a week passed for many years without his visits to these prisoners, and at no time was he too busy to give his thought and attention to anything that would help the prisoners with whom he came in contact. Sometimes his kindness was abused, but that did not deter him from the work. He was possessed of the saving grace of a keen sense of humor that enabled him to take disappointments of that kind philosophically, as a part of the day’s work, and furthermore he was not hunting excuses to justify him in stopping. He was simply seeking to lend a helping hand in a field from which all but the stoutest of hearts are apt to be repelled.
He was a Hebrew of the patriarchal type, and to him Judaism was not merely a creed but a system of life, and with scrupulous fidelity he observed the lofty precepts of that religion which render it a sacred obligation on the part of its devotees to help struggling humanity by their presence, by their sympathy, by their means, in all the incidents of human life from the cradle to the grave.
In an eminent degree he possessed the courage of his convictions, and never for one moment shrunk from what might be supposed to be a disagreeable duty, or from lifting up his voice in high places in a protest against what he considered wrongs which should be remedied.
His counsels will be greatly missed, and his loss seems irreparable, but we have the assurance that he had fought a good fight, that his lifework was accomplished, and we are thankful that we have known him as a friend, and that we have had the example of his strong devotion to duty.