Upon touring the Mediterranean with Lina in 1904, the couple stopped over in Palestine, expecting it to be but one stop of many. He wrote, "On reaching Jerusalem, we changed our plans. All that we saw in the Holy Land made such a deep impression on us that we gave up the idea of going to other places. Visiting the holy sights of which one hears and reads since childhood, watching the scenes in life as pictured in the Bible, was most soul-stirring. From that time on we felt a strange and intense desire to return to the land." Nathan and Lina became staunch Zionists. He built soup kitchens for the aged and the blind and the physically defective in 1917. He supported workrooms so that unskilled laborers could find employment. He built health stations that ministered to the victims of malaria and trachoma. He believed strongly in palliative care. He provided $250,000 for the establishment of the Jerusalem Health Center and made possible the founding of a Pasteur Institute. He lent moral and material support to the farmers and colonists of Israel and labored in the interests of the Hebrew University.