Henrietta Szold

Henrietta Szold

Henrietta Szold (born December 21, 1860 in Baltimore , † February 13, 1945 in Jerusalem ) was an important activist of early Zionism . She was an educator, author, social worker and, in 1912, founder of the American Zionist women's organization Hadassah , the largest Zionist organization in the world. She headed the children and youth alijah in Palestine and was also a member of Vaad Leumi , the official representation of the Jewish citizens in the yishuv .

Life

Henrietta Szold was the eldest of the five daughters of Benjamin Szold , a rabbi , and Sophie Schaar Szold, who had emigrated from Hungary to the USA in 1859 . Szold graduated from Western Women's High School at the age of 17 and then taught French, German and mathematics for 15 years at the private girls 'school Miss Adams' School and at the religious school Oheb Shalom .

Under the pseudonym Sulamith , Szold began regularly to write the Baltimore Letter for the Jewish Messenger from New York . She was the only woman in the 1888 committee publication of the newly established Jewish Publication Society ( Society for Jewish publications has been selected), the Managing Director even she was from 1893 to 1917. She was also one of the two women who were allowed to speak before the Jewish Congress during the World Parliament of Religion in 1893 . In the same year she became a member of the Zionist Association of Baltimore and published a lecture on her Zionist views in 1896 - a few weeks before Theodor Herzl was noticed in public with his Zionist cause. When the Federation of American Zionists was founded in 1898 , Szold became a member of the board.

In the late 1870s, Henrietta Szold and her father were helping Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia in Baltimore . So in 1889, in collaboration with the Hebrew Literary Society , she founded an evening school that taught newcomers to English and the American way of life.

After the death of her father in 1902, she moved with her mother to New York, where she was one of the first women to enter the Jewish Theological Seminary and, among other things, studied the Talmud . Until then, this was reserved for men, and Szold was only able to begin studying the Talmud with the restriction that he was not allowed to become a rabbi. There she became close friends with Solomon Schechter , Israel Friedlaender and their wives.

In 1909, Henrietta Szold received a gift of $ 500 from the Jewish Publication Society , which she used to finance a month-long trip to what is now Israel. This visit had such a lasting impact on her that she further intensified her Zionist efforts and wanted to stand up for Palestine. In 1910 she became president of the Federation of American Zionists . Her health was badly affected by her many obligations, and in 1911 she had to take a six-month break to recover. On February 24, 1912, 38 women from the Hadassah study group, which Szold had joined five years earlier, formed the American Daughters of Zion ; Szold was again elected to the highest position. The organization itself was renamed Hadassah in 1914 .

Henrietta Szold in Jerusalem, ca.1922

Medical care for the Palestinian population was disastrous during World War I , but the American Zionist Medical Unit was not allowed to send personnel to Palestine until after the war was over, in 1918. Two years later, 59-year-old Szold agreed to take over the management of the organization on site. From then on she stayed in Palestine, with the exception of a few visits and an extended stay in the USA from 1923 to 1926. The United States, however, always considered her her home. In Palestine, Szold was elected to the National Council ( Vaad Leumi ) in 1931 .

The greatest challenge of her life awaited Henrietta Szold with the beginning of the Second World War . In the early 1930s she was asked to help Jewish children immigrate to Palestine. When the living conditions for Jews in Germany deteriorated drastically in 1933 and 1934, Szold became the director of the Youth Aliyah in Palestine, founded by Recha Freier in Berlin and actively supported by Georg Landauer . Her closest collaborator was the banker Hans Beyth, who immigrated from Germany in 1935 . She raised money, provided housing, and taught the immigrants. In this way, thousands of children, initially from Germany and later from other countries, were saved.

In 1940 Henrietta Szold founded the Lema'an ha-yeled ve-ha-noar (Hebrew: For the well-being of children and young people) foundation to promote youth care and youth research . Henrietta Szold herself never had children of her own.

At the age of 84, Henrietta Szold died of pneumonia .

Honors (selection)

• The Palmach had named an illegal immigrant ship after her Henrietta Szold (1946).
• On the five-lira notes issued by the Bank of Israel from 1976 to 1984, Henrietta Szold can be seen in front of Hadassah Hospital.
• The Lema'an ha-yeled ve-ha-noar foundation was renamed Mossad Szold after her death . The Henrietta Szold Institute and Kfar Szold , a kibbutz in northern Israel , are also named in her honor .
• In 2007, Henrietta Szold was inducted into the American National Women's Hall of Fame .
• In Israel, Family Day (formerly Mother's Day ) is celebrated on the anniversary of Henrietta Szold's death: the 30th Schwat .

Fonts

• What Judaism Has Done for Women. Speech at the World Parliament of Religions. 1893.
• A Century of Jewish Thought . Published by the National Council of Jewish Women, 1896.

literature

• Michael Berkowitz : Western Jewry and the Zionist project, 1914-1933 . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997.
• Gudrun Maierhof, Chana Schütz, Simon Hermann (eds.): Children became letters. The rescue of Jewish children from Nazi Germany. Metropol, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-936411-86-7 .

Web links

Commons : Henrietta Szold  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Henrietta Szold in the Jewish Virtual Library
• jafi.org.il
• amuseum.org

Remarks

1. ^ From 1934 to 1954 manager of the Jerusalem office of the Central Bureau for the Settlement of German Jews, the so-called German Department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine .
2. ^ Henrietta Szold and Youth Aliyah. Family letters, 1934–1944 , edited by Alexandra Lee Levin. Herzl Press, New York 1986, p. 60.
3. ↑ Kathryn Cullen-Dupont: Encyclopedia of women's history in America . Facts On File, New York, 2nd ed. ISBN 0-8160-4100-8 , p. 245.
4. ↑ passim. With a register of names of the emigrants mentioned or interviewed in this book.