“Actions speak louder than words” is a proverb that has never rung truer when it comes to Henrietta Szold instituting practical Zionism.
During “Henrietta Szold’s Zionism and Ours,” a co-sponsored Zoom event with Hadassah and the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz and Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz, JTS’s chancellor and Irving Lehrman research professor of American Jewish history, discuss how while male diplomats and politicians simply talked to world leaders about how to establish a Jewish homeland, Szold took matters into her own hands, providing a safety net for the individuals living in Palestine, an issue that went ignored. (Talk about the power of women who do!)
“How do you expect to build up this country when nobody can come and live there safely and securely and prosper and make a life for themselves?” says Dr. Schwartz, expressing what Szold would have been thinking.
The conversation begins with historical background on Szold’s upbringing, her path to JTS and the dawning of her Zionism.
“Zionism ran very deep within her,” says Dr. Schwartz. She was involved in Zionist study groups, was exposed to the Zionism brought to the US by the Eastern European immigrants whom she taught English and visited Palestine, which prompted her “progressive impulse” to help improve the lives of both Jews and Arabs in pre-state Israel, resulting in the founding of what is now the largest women’s organization in the US and the creation of the medical infrastructure in Israel.
Closing out the conversation, Hadassah’s Schwartz said, “If I can advance her legacy of action and healing and teaching and love of kindness, then I've achieved great things.”
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