During Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we recognize the three-plus centuries’ worth of contributions the Jewish community has made to American history and culture. Here at Hadassah, we celebrate how Hadassah has been essential in framing our history, starting with Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold, who has made a lasting impact by bringing Hadassah to life, bringing healthcare to pre-state Israel and bringing opportunity to American Jewish women.
“Hadassah has offered Jewish women in America the opportunity to unite with other Jewish women to establish and grow an organization that accomplishes so many wonderful things,” says Miriam Aron, who volunteers her time to bring to light our rich Jewish history as an organization and as a people. As national chair of Jewish education at Hadassah, Aron is tasked with what she says she enjoys most: quenching a thirst for Jewish education for members and their families around the country.
She does this by ensuring they have the tools needed to learn, including materials and programming on Jewish holidays, study guides, discussion topics for meetings, Hebrew classes and more.
Shining a light on Jewish American Heritage Month “allows people — Jews and non-Jews — to see just how much Jews living in America have contributed to our society in so many meaningful ways,” Aron says. Each year, she asks Hadassah National Assembly members to share a story that focuses on an aspect of their personal Jewish heritage.
This year, she’s focused on family immigration stories, which strikes a chord this year, perhaps more than in years past. With the alarming rise in antisemitism, sharing these journeys carries a sense of urgency. “I think many people have felt the need to connect and affiliate more with other Jews, and they've experienced an increase in their Jewish pride,” Aron says.
“Sometimes negatives can be positives,” says Aron. She says she finds that for people who had not experienced antisemitism before October 7, they now see a deeper understanding of the dangers of history repeating itself and now feel it’s important to connect more with fellow Jews and more deeply understand their shared history, including the commitment to Never Again. “That's a pretty good result from a very bad thing.”
Immigration is not just part of our history but also part of our present. The stories of grandparents and parents making their way to the United States during pogroms or wartime are success stories, replete with resilience, determination, and, ultimately, giving back. “That is cause for pride, and we need to be proud of what our families, and other Jewish immigrants, achieved and contributed to American society,” says Aron. These stories are mirrored by those of today’s young, at-risk immigrants who come to Hadassah’s Youth Aliyah villages in Israel and become productive members of society.
Aron knows quite a lot about Hadassah’s history — not just because it’s her job to know but because Hadassah is part of her own Jewish American heritage, so to speak. “I literally grew up in Hadassah,” she says. In fact, the year she was born, her mother became president of her chapter. By 6 or 7, Aron was already a life member — the youngest life member in New Jersey. “I was so proud of that!” And Aron’s involvement progressed: from Young Judaea and Camp Tel Yehudah to an active Hadassah membership.
But it doesn’t end there. Before assuming the role of Jewish education chair, which she’s held for four years, Aron served as co-chair of the Grandparents' Connection, chair of the Shalem Program (now defunct) and on the Young Judaea Scholarship Committee, among other positions, all the while being proud to be involved with Hadassah’s efforts to provide critical services and education to children through Youth Aliyah and the Alice L. Seligsberg Vocational High School for Girls and for making extraordinary medical advancements at the Hadassah Medical Organization.
Aron says, “We established a healthcare system in Israel that continues to contribute to the world's medical findings. We support youth villages in Israel. We offer those women who want to advocate in the US the opportunity to do that. The fact that we are still going strong at 112 years old, supporting programs in the US and Israel, is a significant contribution to Jewish history.”
“I feel a great sense of pride in Hadassah's contributions to the world of medicine,” she continues.
Aron’s own family immigration story starts when her grandmother and grandfather fled to America from Europe, her grandfather taking with him a small Torah to keep safe from the ensuing pogroms. They arrived by boat in Philadelphia, ending up in Jersey City, NJ, where her grandfather became a successful house painter. He was also very involved in his local shul, and Yiddishkeit (Jewish way of life) was important to him and her grandmother. Aron’s grandmother’s oldest sister and her grandfather’s brother, Frank, also came to America, but most of her grandfather’s family went to Palestine in the 1920s.
Fast forward a century. Today, Aron has three children and thirteen grandchildren.
Aron’s inquiry to Hadassah's National Assembly members resulted in an outpouring of responses. Enjoy reading some of their personal histories below. Their stories could be your stories.
- “My paternal grandparents also came to America for a better life. My father and his three siblings could never agree on whether their parents traveled by horse, boat or magic carpet or when they actually came to New York." —Sue Polansky, vice chair, Zionist Affairs, Longmeadow, MA
- “My mother did not know her real name or birthdate until I was a teenager, and she needed a passport to visit me while I was on a gap year trip in Israel. My mother was always called Adele. We actually found out her ‘real English name’ was Ida; Chaika, her endearing Yiddish name; and Chaya, her Hebrew name. My grandfather Joseph, in registering my mom for school, spoke such broken English that when asked what her name was, he replied, 'A doll.' The administrator of the school thought he said, ‘Adele.’ Her name became Adele for most of her life.” —Paula Mann, Jewish Education Committee member
- “Abraham Kathrins (formerly Chutarosky) fell in love with Dora Bain (Bay) around 1905 in Romania. Around 1907, the Bains traveled to Philadelphia on a ‘real ship,’ not to Ellis Island. They had left Romania to avoid the pogroms. Abraham followed his beloved to America by walking across Europe to London. When he arrived in Philadelphia, via Ellis Island, he and Dora were allowed to marry. Abraham opened up his own green grocery store in Philly.” —Susan Moye, Jewish Education Team member
- “Zeidi and Bubbe got married around 1900. Likely in 1910, Zeidi left for London, where he worked as a bookbinder. Zeidi left London and traveled by boat to America, where he went to Malden, MA, received a secular education at Malden High and completed the four-year diploma program in one year. He had already learned English in Russia and taught himself seven languages over the years. He taught Hebrew school in Malden and, in 1913, brought his wife and two children to America. Soon after, they moved to Manchester, NH, where my aunt and mother were born.” —Marcie Natan, Youth Aliyah chair and past Hadassah national president
- “In 1922, my grandfather, Morris (Moshe Aaron), left Tiberius on a camel with his younger brother. He traveled to Haifa, where he boarded a ship to Marseille, France, where he was stopped because he had trachoma. Eventually he and his brother Abner were allowed to board a ship bound for the US, and they ultimately settled in Manhattan's Lower East Side with their father, Maklof, who had arrived a few years earlier (their mother Esther passed away shortly after childbirth). He soon found a job in a mattress factory. Eventually, he met my grandmother, and they settled in Brooklyn, where he had a successful career as a yeshiva principal.” —Michelle Hubertus, national vice president
- "My paternal Zayde was David Sauksteliski from Lithuania. David was one of at least four boys. David and his brother, Jacob, came to the US in 1914. When they arrived at Ellis Island, my Zayde became David Rabinowitz. Jacob’s last name became Kravitz. We’re not sure if they bought passports with those names or what. Within a few years of their arrival, my Zayde brought over my bubbe, Ada, from Moletai, who he married and settled with in the New Jersey Jewish settlement farming town of Woodbine, although he was not a farmer. Zayde opened and ran a men’s felt hat factory.” —Joyce Laiter, co-coordinator, Education & Advocacy Division
- "My father’s aunt had left Poland decades before the war started. In 1948, Tante Peppy provided the necessary paperwork for my father to leave Gabersee Displaced Persons camp in Bavaria and enter the US, where he found work, rented a room — apartments were in short supply — and immediately set to work to get my mother a visa. The US immigration quota for Polish Jews was very small. With the help of several distant relatives, my father received sponsorship and the money needed to book passage on a US troop carrier. After a very unpleasant transatlantic sea voyage (she never went on a boat again), Mom arrived in Boston, where a HIAS volunteer welcomed her to America in Yiddish, gave her a dollar and put her on a train to New York, where she was met by those distant relatives who housed her until she and my dad were married in Brooklyn in 1949. Determined to make a new life, they rarely shared their stories with my sister and me. It was my father’s nightmares and the not-so-infrequent quiet sobbing of my mother that reminded us of the horrors they left behind. But they made it to the goldene medina. And while they lost their entire families, and mourned terribly, they were determined to look ahead, not behind.” —Cheryl Sperber, co-chair, national Keepers of the Gate
- “Our ancestors pre-90 BCE were from Israel. Based on our participation in the National Geographic Genome Project, we have discovered that our migration patterns are varied, but my husband’s and mine are parallel: Israel, Egypt, Iran, India, China — the Silk and Spice Routes. Merchants! Add Greece, Spain, England. And add a bit of Russia. Add a little Argentina to the mix as well. Why did they come to the United States? Well, not everyone chose to migrate here. Those that didn’t were never heard from again. Those that did come to the States had two diverging stories.” —Peg Elefant, national vice president
When recalling our past to look forward to a brighter future, Henrietta Szold said it best: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
