{"id":294829,"date":"2026-02-17T00:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294829\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T00:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:26:10","slug":"did-the-founder-of-hadassah-israels-mother-support-a-one-state-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/294829\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the founder of Hadassah – Israel’s ‘mother’ – support a one-state solution?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several pioneering Jewish women created separate female Zionist organizations -but it was Henrietta Szold who united them into one: Hadassah, named for the biblical Queen Esther.<\/p>\n

The organization quickly became known for its initiatives to help expecting and new mothers, combat rampant eye disease and provide nutritious meals to schoolchildren. Yet, its independence was eventually challenged by the men of the Zionist Organization of America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe men\u2019s organization had a different view of Zionism,\u201d said Francine Klagsbrun, author of \u201cHenrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream,\u201d published by Yale University Press.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo them, a Zionism of health care and social work was not Zionism. It was not Zionism as they saw it \u2013 nation-building, creating settlements. They looked down on her and on Hadassah. They didn\u2019t respect what she was doing or understand how tremendously important it was. Hadassah created these initial hospitals and health care in Palestine that did not exist before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInch by inch,\u201d she said, \u201c[the men] tried to take over much of what Hadassah did \u2013 fundraising, allocation of funds. The women pushed hard against this with Henrietta\u2019s backing\u2026 In the end, the women succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Multiple February anniversaries highlight Szold\u2019s enduring legacy: the February 13 anniversary of her death in 1945 and the February 24 founding of Hadassah in 1912 \u2013 as well as Israel\u2019s Family Day, held annually on the Hebrew anniversary of Szold\u2019s death, the 30th of Shvat, which this year falls on February 17.<\/p>\n

In Israel, Szold is memorialized as the ultimate \u201cmother\u201d in part because, in her later years, she devoted herself to rescuing Jewish children menaced by Nazism through the Youth Aliyah.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the most important project she ever did in her life,\u201d Klagsbrun said.<\/p>\n

Klagsbrun addresses criticism that Szold was too accepting of British limits on Jewish immigration, and might have saved more lives had she pushed harder. Yet the author notes the warmth that Szold brought to the project. She greeted each child personally when they arrived and urged them not to forget the good parts of German culture \u2013 kindnesses that lingered in their minds long after her death.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tHenrietta Szold, front center, with children from a Youth Aliyah village. (Courtesy of Hadassah)<\/p>\n

\u201cShe became known as a mother in Israel,\u201d Klagsbrun said. \u201cShe never married, never had children. She became the mother of thousands of these children who were rescued. There\u2019s a letter I didn\u2019t include, didn\u2019t mention. It\u2019s a lovely Hebrew letter from a boy who asked, \u2018Can I call you mother? Mine died.\u2019 \u2026 It\u2019s what she became, a mother figure \u2013 maybe a grandmother figure \u2013 to some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zionist who backed a binational state<\/p>\n

Unlike many Zionist thinkers, Szold once backed a binational state for Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.<\/p>\n

Klagsbrun argues that Szold\u2019s early support for binationalism reflected the realities of her time \u2013 and that she would recalibrate her thinking in today\u2019s political landscape.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer attitude was that Jews and Arabs could live together peacefully,\u201d Klagsbrun told The Times of Israel.<\/p>\n

Over a century after the founding of Hadassah, The Women\u2019s Zionist Organization of America, the pro-Israel group is advocating on behalf of sexual assault victims brutalized during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel \u2013 an onslaught on a scale that Szold could likely never imagine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think she would go for one state, one shared binational state, any longer,\u201d Klagsbrun added. \u201cI think she would realize it\u2019s not going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, said Klagsbrun of the October US-brokered ceasefire and peace plan that ended the two years of war in Gaza sparked by the invasion, \u201cFor sure, she would be an advocate of a Palestinian state and very happy about the peace plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as Arab-Jewish tensions roiled pre-state Israel, peace was very much on Szold\u2019s mind. As Klagsbrun\u2019s book states, Szold didn\u2019t just found Hadassah \u2013 she was also part of Brit Shalom and Ihud, two groups that advocated for a binational state for Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.<\/p>\n

The author noted Szold\u2019s \u201csympathy and caring about the Palestinians \u2013 not only Palestinians, but Israelis and Palestinians getting along, something that would be really important for people to pay attention to now\u2026 If she were alive today, she would be a very popular speaker because she would be promoting those ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tConstruction on Hadassah\u2019s medical center on Mt. Scopus in the 1930s. (Hadassah)<\/p>\n

The book contends that Szold was more active in promoting a binational state than is generally acknowledged: She was not an official member of Brit Shalom (\u201cCovenant of Peace\u201d), but was a founding member of Ihud (\u201cUnity\u201d) and served on its board.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe, the great scholar Martin Buber and others like Judah Magnes thought there should be an equal sharing of the land, the homeland of two peoples,\u201d Klagsbrun said. \u201cIt did not matter who had the majority. Neither should dominate the other. She did not feel there should be a political state just for the Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Brit Shalom nor Ihud encountered reciprocal interest from an Arab leader during Szold\u2019s lifetime; after she died in 1945, one such leader, Fawzi al-Husseini, showed interest but was assassinated.<\/p>\n

Klagsbrun sees discussion of Szold\u2019s advocacy for a binational state as a key difference between her book and the 2021 National Jewish Book Award-winning biography by Bar-Ilan University Israel studies Prof. Dvora Hacohen, \u201cTo Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email correspondence with The Times of Israel, Hacohen disputed the portrayal of Szold as an advocate for a binational state. According to Hacohen, Szold\u2019s name was added to the membership of Brit Shalom and Ihud by their respective founders, Arthur Ruppin and Magnes, even though, in each case, Szold disagreed with the aims of the group but did not want to disappoint their founders.<\/p>\n

Hacohen did state that Szold favored peace \u2013 \u201cShe tried to find a way for Jews and Arabs to live together peacefully, but could not find a solution\u201d \u2013 and left a legacy of tolerance: \u201cOn all the institutes [Szold] established, like hospitals, she had a rule that they would serve all people regardless of nation, religion. [These] rules exist up to today in Israel all over the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pioneering women<\/p>\n

\u201cHenrietta Szold\u201d chronicles its subject from her beginnings in Baltimore to her final years in pre-state Israel. Within that span, she achieved much, founding Hadassah, working toward improved health care in Palestine and helping to bring thousands of child refugees from the Holocaust in the Youth Aliyah. It all happened after a midlife heartbreak \u2013 her unrequited love for Prof. Louis Ginzberg when she was studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\t\u2018Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream,\u2019 by Francine Klagsbrun. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

Szold grew up the daughter of Benjamin Szold, a rabbi, and Sophie (Schaar) Szold, a homemaker. While she was dazzled by her father\u2019s scholarship, it was her mother who showed how to run a household that included five daughters who lived to adulthood.<\/p>\n

Young Szold showed organizational talent in establishing a groundbreaking night school for Russian Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. She taught English to prepare them for employment in their new country. They instilled something in her, too \u2013 Zionism, with some supporting the Hovevei Zion organization that brought early Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine.<\/p>\n

The Jewish Publication Society hired Szold for her prowess in working with manuscripts. (The book notes that her job title was that of a secretary, not an editor.) At JTS, where she was the first full-time female student, one scholar whose texts she edited was Prof. Ginzberg. Thirteen years older than him, she fell deeply into unrequited love.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I began this book, so many people didn\u2019t know her any longer,\u201d Klagsbrun said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know who she was. But they asked, \u2018Didn\u2019t she have kind of a love affair that did not go right?\u2019 It was the very turning point of her life, a very central part of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ginzberg\u2019s father died, it seemed a new bond had been forged between him and Szold. Ginzberg had gone to Amsterdam for his father\u2019s final months. When he returned, he asked to see Szold alone. At the rendezvous, he said that he was engaged to a woman named Adele Katzenstein, whom he had met in Berlin. Szold was heartbroken. She later collapsed, suffered blindness and underwent surgery on her right side. What helped was rest at her sister Bertha\u2019s residence in Maine, during which time her eyesight returned.<\/p>\n

By then, she was ready to go back to Palestine. She had first visited with her mother following a 1909 trip to Europe. In the Middle East, Szold was shocked by the prevalence of diseases such as the bacterial eye infection trachoma. Her mother urged her to work with friends toward a project that would remedy this situation.<\/p>\n

Woman with a mission<\/p>\n

Klagsbrun has a multifaceted background as an author and an activist. (A member of the Hadassah Magazine editorial board, she said that working on the Szold biography made her better appreciate the women who volunteer for the overall organization.) In 1988, Klagsbrun became the first woman to carry a Torah to worship at the Western Wall. As she recalled, the group of women she was marching with entrusted her with the honor. The night before, she called her husband to inform him; he responded with disbelief and alarm. Nevertheless, she went ahead. She was shocked to be on the receiving end of anger from Orthodox Jews. The group subsequently became known as Women of the Wall, and she donated a Torah to it.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFrancine Klagsbrun, author of \u2018Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream.\u2019 (Joan Roth)<\/p>\n

\u201cHenrietta Szold\u201d is Klagsbrun\u2019s second consecutive biography of a Jewish Zionist female leader, following the 2017 \u201cLioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel,\u201d which won a National Jewish Book Award. The author sees similarities between Meir and Szold, including that each operated successfully in a man\u2019s world. In Palestine, they crossed paths: A colleague counseled Meir against speaking anything but Hebrew in front of Szold.<\/p>\n

Klagsbrun notes that Meir, while possessed of an ability to charm, could sometimes terrify the men she worked with, whereas Szold was more proper and Victorian. Klagsbrun initially thought Szold too saintlike a subject. After doing some research, to her delight, she found abundant complexity. The ensuing three-year project helped Klagsbrun during a difficult time: She lost her longtime husband, psychiatrist Samuel Klagsbrun.<\/p>\n

The more Klagsbrun researched the health care infrastructure established by Hadassah in Mandatory Palestine, the more she respected Szold\u2019s organizational ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a person who got things done,\u201d Klagsbrun said. \u201cI think she didn\u2019t have patience for goofing around. She got things done \u2013 setting up a nursing school, sending doctors and nurses over to Palestine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo back to the beginnings [of Hadassah],\u201d she reflected. \u201cThey were devoted to raising a great deal of money. They took on the Youth Aliyah as their project, built the first hospitals and brought health care to a country that lacked it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several pioneering Jewish women created separate female Zionist organizations -but it was Henrietta Szold who united them into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-294829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}