Pikuah Nefesh Hero: Henrietta Szold Henrietta Szold was an amazing Jewish woman. She did serious academic work, was one of the first women to take a rabbinical education, started the largest Jewish organization in the world, created a major medical center, helped to start the State of Israel and worked for Jewish youth.
the Jewish women of America and send nurses and doctors to Palestine.” The women liked her idea, and in 1912 Hadassah was born. Hadassah funded hospitals, a medical school, dental facilities, x-ray clinics, infant welfare stations, soup kitchens and other services for Palestine’s Jewish and Arab inhabitants. In 1918 the American Zionist Medical Unit headed to Palestine with forty-four doctors, nurses and other health care workers. They set up a hospital and trained members of the community to provide health care themselves. In 1920 Szold went to Eretz Yisrael to supervise the medical unit’s work herself. She intended to stay for just two years, but she never permanently returned to America.
Early Life Henrietta Szold was born in Maryland in 1860. She was the eldest daughter of a Baltimore rabbi. As a young girl she excelled in school. When Szold was in her early twenties Baltimore was flooded with immigrants fleeing poverty and persecution in Russia. They spoke little or no English and were unprepared for America. To help them adjust, Szold founded one of the first night schools. Many of her students told about the terrible conditions of Jews in Russia. Curious, she traveled Russia in 1881 and was alarmed at the distress. On that trip she became interested in Hovevei Zion, an early Zionist organization.
In 1934 Hadassah built a hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem that quickly became the finest in the Middle East. Youth Aliyah Leaders recognized Szold’s talent. In 1927 she was elected to the executive committee of the Jewish Agency. She was given responsibility for the health and social welfare of the community. She focused especially on the needs of children. In the 1930s the Nazis in Germany and Austria were passing laws restricting Jewish rights, beating up Jews and sending many to concentration camps. Thousands of parents wanted to save their children by sending them to Palestine. To arrange for such an aliyah the Jewish community turned to Henrietta Szold.
In 1902 Szold moved to New York City and enrolled at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). This was before women were allowed to be rabbis. In order to participate in classes she had to promise never to ask to be ordained as a rabbi. Hadassah
She threw herself into the task of saving German Jewish youth. When each group of children arrived by boat at the port of Haifa, she greeted them personally. They were brought to villages, given medical care, food and housing, Hebrew lessons and job training.
Szold had a passionate belief in the ability of women to participate in the public world. With six other women she started Hadassah, originally a women's group that studied Zionist texts. Szold was the only one who had been to Eretz Yisrael. She had seen the poverty, illness and tremendous needs. “If we are Zionists, as we say we are, what is the good of meeting and talking and drinking tea? Let us do something real and practical — let us organize
When she died in 1945 the entire Jewish people mourned her loss. A child from the Youth Aliyah recited the Kaddish at her funeral. She was a woman who did a lot of pikuah nefesh. 85
