political leaders and various intellectuals including Leo Tolstoy, best known as the author of War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Tolstoy told Krauskopf that the Jews had no future in Russia. At Tolstoy's suggestion, Krauskopf visited Jewish agricultural colonies in the Russian Empire and the Jewish Agricultural School at Odessa. On his return he worked to establish a similar institution outside of Philadelphia, believing that it would attract Jews from Russia and help provide them with an education to begin a new life in the United States. By 1895, Krauskopf had raised enough money to start a school, which was established in 1896 as the National Farm School in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The school was non-sectarian, and indeed non-religious, but most of the early students were Jewish. Support came from private donations, state funds, and the Federation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia. Krauskopf served as the first president of the institution, which is now Delaware Valley University. Krauskopf spent a great deal of time raising money for the school, and in 1905 led a capital campaign that raised $50,000 (about $1.5 million in 2015), including a $12,500 donation from Andrew Carnegie. When Krauskopf came to KI, the congregation had 250 member families. Within a few years it had over 400 member families. By 1892 the Congregation had moved to a newly constructed impressive building on Broad Street with seating in the sanctuary for over 1600 people. A year later the Congregation hired an assistant rabbi to work under Krauskopf. By 1900, KI's religious school had over 500 students. Under Krauskopf KI abolished the traditional Bar Mittzvah for thirteen-year-old boys and replaced it with a confirmation for boys and girls at age sixteen or seventeen. Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in 1898, Krauskopf became a leader of the National Relief Commission, and was one of three special field commissioners to visit army camps of the United States and Cuba. Almost immediately after he arrived in Cuba, Krauskopf contacted the Jewish philanthropist Nathan Strauss, persuading him to donate an ice factory to support the needs of American troops in Cuba. Two weeks later the entire ice plant was shipped to Santiago, Cuba. In Cuba, Krauskopf became friends with Col. Theodore Roosevelt and conducted services for the eight Jewish soldiers in Roosevelt's Rough Riders (the First United States Volunteer Cavalry). Krauskopf and Roosevelt would remain friends and when Roosevelt