Mount Zion future still up in air

According to UCSF-Stanford, Mount Zion accounts for $56 million of the projected $60 million deficit for the system. Cost-cutting proposals include closing Mount Zion's emergency room and hospital beds and moving its patients to the UCSF Medical Center on Parnassus Avenue.

Other possibilities include closing the emergency room and maintaining a few hospital beds for stays of less than three days or transferring some medical services to Mount Zion from the Parnassus campus. Mount Zion Health Fund, a grantmaking organization, has made an emergency pledge of $5 million to bail the hospital out of trouble.

Founded by Jewish citizens more than a century ago, Mount Zion retains little of its past Jewish character. But its closure would affect hundreds of Russian Jewish emigres who receive medical care there.

Since news of the projected losses hit the news, members of the local Jewish community have expressed concern over the future of the institution it once called its own.