Irma Lindheim

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Irma Lindheim Levy (also Rama Lindheim , as Irma Levy born 9. December 1886 in New York City ; died 10. April 1978 in Berkeley ) was an American Zionist and Israeli Kibbuznik .

Life

Irma Levy came from a Jewish, secular entrepreneurial family who immigrated from Germany. In 1907 she married the lawyer Norvin Lindheim (1881–1928). They had five children between 1908 and 1919 and have been very wealthy since Norvin's father died. Norvin Lindheim was accused of collaborating with war opponent Germany in 1920, sentenced to prison in 1924 and posthumously rehabilitated in 1928.

Irma Lindheim was deployed to the rank of first lieutenant in a truck driver's department in the military medical service during the First World War . After the war, she attended from 1922, initially as a guest student, the “Jewish Institute of Religion”, newly founded by Stephen Wise as a spin-off from the Hebrew Union College . On their own initiative, the institute decided the admission of women to the rabbi training, so already 50 years before the ordination of Sally Priesand first female rabbi in the US. She also studied pedagogy with John Dewey at the Columbia University teachers' college . However, because of her husband's imprisonment, she dropped out of school after three and a half years.

She became a member of the Zionist women's organization Hadassah , made a trip to Palestine in 1925 and published the report Immortal Adventure . During her stay in Palestine, she was guided through the country by Manja Shochat and was present at the opening of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem . Shochat's daughter gave her the Hebrew name Rama .

Between 1926 and 1928 she was Vice President of Hadassah, which at the time had 30,000 members, and thus also Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America , in 1927 she took part in the World Jewish Congress in Basel and then stayed again in Palestine. She toured the United States and was an active speaker at Zionist gatherings that raised funds for the Jewish settlers. She joined the Poale Zion and separated from the Hadassah. She has now raised funds for the socialist organizations Histadrut and Hashomer Hatzair . Her husband died in 1928. Her aliyah to Palestine failed in the years after 1929, initially due to the effects of the global economic crisis on the Lindheim family's assets.

In 1933 Lindheim moved with the children to Palestine. After a disenchanted participation in a Zionist congress in Prague , she said goodbye to politics and from then on worked in the Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek . She often visited the United States to organize fundraising there. During the Second World War she lived in the USA and also worked in Great Britain on behalf of the Jewish National Fund . The son Donald died as a soldier in the US invasion forces during the liberation of Europe.

Letter to the editor in the New York Times , December 4, 1948

In 1948 she was persuaded by Henry A. Wallace to run for the 6th District for the Progressive Party in the congressional elections , but she fell through. With Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein she was one of the signatories of an open letter in the New York Times on December 4, 1948, in which Menachem Begin , who had come to the USA to promote his Cherut party , was responsible for the massacre was held up by Deir Yasin . Back in Israel she helped found the Kibbuze Adamit and En haSchofet and was later called the "grandmother of the Kibbuze". In 1962 she published her autobiography Parallel Quest: A Search of a Person and a People in the USA . At the age of 86, she affirmed the egalitarian principles of the kibbutz movement in an interview for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz . In 1976 she moved from Israel to live with her sons in Berkeley , California, and is buried in Mischmar HaEmek.

Fonts

  • The immortal adventure . Introduction Stephen S. Wise, illustrations by J. Benor-Kalter. New York: Macaulay Co., 1928
  • Parallel quest, a search of a person and a people . New York: T. Yoseloff, 1962

literature

  • Lindheim, Irma , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , Volume 11, 1973, Sp. 258f.
  • Yael Katzir; Dan Katzir: The choices of Irma Lindheim: from a mansion in Long Island to a hut in Kibbutz Mishmar haemek . Tel Aviv, Israel: Katzir Film Productions; Los Angeles, CA: New Love Films, 2006

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pamela S. Nadell: Women who would be rabbis , in: Tamar Rudavsky (Ed.): Gender and Judaism: The Transformation of Tradition: the transformation of tradition , New York: New York Univ. Press, 1995, pp. 123-134
  2. ^ A b c Esther Carmel Hakim: Irma Lindheim became a member of Kibbutz Mishmar Haemek. October 30, 1933 , at JWA
personal data
SURNAME Lindheim, Irma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lindheim, Rama; Levy, Irma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Zionist and Israeli kibbutznik
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1978
Place of death Berkeley