He was interested from his earliest years in the study of Hebrew, and attained sufficient command of the Holy Tongue to read a Hebrew paper or a chapter in the Bible with ease. A Hebrew book, usually a copy of the Psalms, always lay upon his desk, to be taken up whenever occasion offered. He could compose and occasionally wrote a letter in Hebrew.
He frequently attended banquets at which he ate nothing, because of his rigid adherence to the Jewish dietary law. This circumstance did not lessen his enjoyment, however, for he was always in the best of humor on these occasions.
Despite his generally pleasant demeanor, he became extremely dismayed when a Jewish organization would hold an event at which kashrus was not properly observed, as the following letter indicates:
Baltimore, November 21, 1899
To The President and Board of Directors of the Hebrew Benevolent Society,
Gentlemen,
A short time before the annual banquet of the Hebrew Benevolent Society in 1898 I called the attention of a prominent member of your board to the fact that due regard was not [paid] to the Jewish dietary law in getting up the supper. It was claimed that all arrangements had already been made. To my great mortification I found that the same disregard characterized the banquet of the present year, and I therefore present the matter before your honorable body for your serious consideration. I have been an attendant at these festivals for over forty years, almost uninterruptedly, and I hope I am not presuming too much in requesting you to see to it that the Jewish law and those who observe it will on these occasions in the future receive due respect. ….
In 1898 Dr. and Mrs. Friedenwald visited Eretz Yisrael. Dr. Friedenwald wrote a number of letters to his children describing this trip. On May 29, 1898 after his visit to Jerusalem he wrote:
Dear Children,…I was pleased with our visit to Jerusalem, notwithstanding the predictions that we should be dreadfully disappointed. It is a city of the most varied interest. The past is presented to one at every turn, and the present is not less interesting. There are as fine Jews here as can be met with anywhere. There is as much disinterested effort to benefit the lowly as at any other place. Those that have been painted in the blackest colors are better than the circumstances surrounding them would warrant [one in expecting].
And such a medley as is met with here! Sephardic Jews are not all of one class; there are the Spanish-Portuguese, the Turkish, the Italian, the Moroccan, the Yemenite, the Kurdish, and the Bokhariot Jews. The German Jewish community is composed of real Germans, of Russians from all the Russias, Polish, Roumanian, American, and other unclassified Jews. There are those who live in comparative luxury; many starve quite a little; and not a few live pretty well on nothing, their needs being so primitive and so few. … I have not seen anything in all my travels to interest me as much as my trip to Jerusalem. …
Dr. Friedenwald died on August 26, 1902. His obituary in The New York Times said in part,
Dr. Aaron Friedenwald, an eminent physician and noted philanthropist, died today, aged sixty-five years. Last Wednesday he underwent a surgical operation for cancer.
Dr. Friedenwald took an active interest in Jewish affairs, and held many offices in (the) various organizations. At the time of his demise he was President of the McCulloh Street Temple, a Director of the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, Vice President at the Jewish Publication Society, a Director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and the President of the local branch of the Alliance Israelite Universelle.
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