Henrietta Szold – A Jewish-American heritage success story

Every May brings about the arrival of Jewish American Heritage Month. Unfortunately, this month is often overlooked. As American Jews, we need to share our own Jewish American history, so others can understand who we are and how we have helped shape America.

I often look back on the Jewish women who have been foundational in the development of American society and Jewish/Zionist activism. The one woman who always springs to mind is Henrietta Szold. Those of us involved in Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, know her name as the founder of our organization. However, there are many who do not, and JAHM is the perfect time to extol her virtues.

Henrietta Szold was born in Baltimore in 1860. Her father, a Hungarian Jew, Rabbi Benjamin Szold, was hired to be the leader of Temple Oheb Shalom. Henrietta was the oldest daughter in a family of all girls. Her father, ahead of his time, believed in educating his daughters, and Henrietta excelled in every educational pursuit she followed.

Henrietta had a strong American upbringing. It has been told that Henrietta’s first memory was of President Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession through Baltimore in 1865. Thus, her American heritage began forming from a very early age. She knew she was an American and she knew she was fortunate to live in America, where she did not face the same levels of antisemitism her co-religionists faced in Eastern Europe.

While Henrietta graduated from Western High School as valedictorian, she did not go on to college — she was in Baltimore, and women were not allowed in the local school, Johns Hopkins University. As a result, she continued learning on her own, focusing on Judaic studies with her father, and became a teacher at the Misses Adams School for Girls. She assisted her father and taught in the synagogue’s religious school, and she translated her father’s sermons from German into English.

Her father felt very connected to the broad Jewish community in Baltimore and would go to the docks to welcome Jewish immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe. These immigrants were fleeing pogroms in Russia and the Pale of Settlement and many of them were involved in the Zionist movement.

Henrietta connected to these Jews and was impressed with their level of Jewish knowledge and their Zionist ideas. She realized that they couldn’t succeed in America without learning English or understanding American society. To solve this challenge, Henrietta decided to start a class for the Russian Jewish immigrants to teach them English and American civics. She was not able to fund the project herself, so she began to fundraise to support the venture. In 1889, when she had located a space, bought learning materials, and hired teachers, she opened her school. She expected to have about 30 students. By the second night she had 80 and had to open a second class.

Though the school’s mission was to help Russian Jewish immigrants, Henrietta did not close it to other immigrants. This was a pattern she followed throughout her life, including when she founded the Hadassah hospital system in the future land of Israel. She would not discriminate between immigrants. Every person who chose to attend her school would be welcomed. She understood the needs of the new immigrants and followed her passion to fill those needs. She ran her school for 10 years, and helped hundreds of immigrants learn English until the City of Baltimore took on the responsibility of running the school itself.

Throughout her life, Henrietta tirelessly and doggedly supported those in need. Had she been born in the 20th century instead of the 19th, many more doors would have been open to her. As a woman born in the Victorian age, she did what she could to fulfill her mission, and she dedicated her life to educating others. She supported social welfare projects within the Jewish community and prided herself on maintaining a traditional Jewish life, albeit one in which she strove to be equal to men.

Henrietta never married. She needed ways to support herself, but she never wanted to earn “too much” so that she wouldn’t shame the men around her. As a result, she was always the secretary in every organization that asked for her help. She organized the first Jewish Publication Society as its secretary, but she did most of the work and was actually its first editor, although she never had that title. She also edited the American Jewish Yearbook, named as its secretary. In 1898 she was elected to the executive board of the Federation of American Zionists, as its secretary. These are a few examples of how Henrietta was involved in the development of American Jewish life, but due to her gender was never named as the actual leader.

Henrietta was a brilliant woman and always regretted not going to college. After her father died, she befriended Solomon Schechter, then chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a rabbinical college that was bridging the distance between Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism, birthing the traditional Conservative movement. She asked if she could study there — the answer was yes, but first she had to sign a document promising that she would not become a rabbi. She maintained her friendship with Solomon Schechter and his wife, Matilda, for the rest of her life.

Henrietta Szold took advantage of whatever educational opportunities she could in order to continue her Jewish journey. She worked with many of the rabbinical students at JTS to edit and translate their lectures and studies. This was part of her American dream. This was how Henrietta Szold strengthened her personal Jewish American heritage.

Henrietta faced hurdles in every aspect of her life due to her sex. Women were consistently relegated to minor positions and lower pay. By 1912, Henrietta realized that American Jewish women needed a place where they could make their own decisions and run their own organization. Her Zionist vision was the motivator to founding Hadassah. Her goal was to bring modern American healthcare to the people of Ottoman-ruled Palestine. She followed the model of the visiting nurse service established in New York by Lillian Wald.

Although in 1912 American women did not have the right to vote, or any individual financial power, Henrietta Szold and the first women of Hadassah were able to raise enough funds to send two nurses to Jerusalem. This was a Jewish American success story.

To this day, Hadassah, the organization that Henrietta Szold founded, continues to support the Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem. Hadassah also supports two Youth Aliyah villages for children at risk in Israel. In the United States, Hadassah supports advocacy efforts on behalf of women’s rights, women’s health issues, children’s issues and support of Israel.

Henrietta Szold was an American Jewish icon. She led the way for hundreds of thousands of Jewish American Zionist women to become leaders and advocates in their communities. Her strength and determination in achieving her goals demonstrated her strength of character and made her a role model for Jewish American women for over a century. She was a powerhouse in developing the Jewish identity of American Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries and an exemplary testament to Jewish American heritage.

Stephanie Z. Bonder of West Caldwell is a Jewish educator who teaches throughout the MetroWest community and the National Hadassah network. She is continuing her educational journey by pursuing a masters in Jewish education from the Melton Hebrew University School of Education.

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