Mount Sinai Hospital of New York

Mount Sinai Hospital of New York enters the story as the destination Alexander Gideon proposes for a week of radiotherapy, at a point when his cancer has advanced and his return to Israel remains uncertain. It represents a hoped-for course of treatment and a practical plan for care, not a confirmed hospital stay: the correspondence never establishes that Gideon reached the hospital or underwent radiotherapy there.

Proposed Treatment

In a personal message to Manfred Zakheim, Gideon says he is going into Mount Sinai Hospital of New York for a week for radiotherapy. In the same message, he asks Zakheim to arrange a quiet private clinic equipped for chemotherapy, suggesting that the hospital visit and the further care he anticipates are distinct parts of his plan. He also says that he may come back to Israel after treatment, leaving his return conditional rather than settled.

Arrangements and Uncertainty

Zakheim replies that arrangements have been made if Gideon decides to come, including an excellent clinic, a private doctor, and a nurse. He and Dorit plan to leave for New York at the weekend to be with him. His offer answers Gideon’s request for practical support, while its conditional wording preserves uncertainty about whether Gideon will travel. Gideon gives Zakheim a free hand in managing his property on the condition that he stay with him, binding the medical arrangements to a personal appeal not to be abandoned.

Illness and Treatment Context

Gideon later describes a year-long history of kidney cancer, two operations, and a growth that has spread into his abdomen. He reports that doctors in New York saw no point in another operation. That account clarifies the gravity of the illness surrounding the proposed visit, but it does not identify Mount Sinai Hospital as the site of those consultations or establish that the planned radiotherapy took place there. In the same later account, Gideon says he expects not to leave Hadassah Hospital, further distinguishing the hospital he names in his appeal from the hospital where he is then situated.

Narrative Significance

The hospital is important chiefly as the focus of a plan that remains unresolved. Gideon’s message joins treatment, the management of his estate, and Zakheim’s companionship in a single request; Zakheim’s reply turns that request into concrete preparations without confirming their eventual use. Mount Sinai Hospital of New York therefore marks the uncertain prospect of treatment abroad at the same time that Gideon’s illness draws his relationships and arrangements in Israel into sharper focus.