Szold, Henrietta, 1680-1945

Henrietta Szold, Zionist leader, was born in Baltimore of Hungarian-Jewish parentage. She taught school at the Misses Adams School in Baltimore, and was the founder of a night school for Russian immigrants in Baltimore in 1889. From 1892-1915 Szold was the secretary of the Jewish Publication Society of America. A trip to Palestine in 1909 was the turning point in her life. She became an enthusiastic Zionist, became the Secretary of the Federation of American Zionists and founder and first President of Hadassah, the organization dedicated to supporting health work in Palestine. During 1920-1933 Szold divided her time between the United States and Palestine. In 1933 she settled in Palestine and directed the Youth Aliyah, the youth immigration movement from Germany to Palestine.

Henrietta Szold (/zoʊld/ ZOHLD, Hungarian: [ˈsold]; December 21, 1860 – February 13, 1945) was a U.S. Jewish Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. In 1942, she co-founded Ihud, a political party in Mandatory Palestine dedicated to a binational solution. Henrietta Szold was born in Baltimore, Maryland, December 21, 1860. She was the daughter of Rabbi Benjamin Szold Szold established the first American night school to provide English language instruction and vocational skills for Russian Jewish immigrants in Baltimore.[4] Beginning in 1893, she worked as the first editor for the Jewish Publication Society, a position she retained for over 23 years.[5] "The sole woman at the JPS, Szold's duties included the translation of a dozen works, writing articles of her own, editing the books, and overseeing the publication schedule.

In 1896, one month before Theodor Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), Szold described her vision of a Jewish state in Palestine as a place to ingather Diaspora Jewry and revive Jewish culture. In 1898, the Federation of American Zionists elected Szold as the only female member of its executive committee. During World War I, she was the only woman on the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs.

In 1899, she took on the lion's share of producing the first American Jewish Year Book, of which she was sole editor from 1904 to 1908. She also collaborated in the compilation of the Jewish Encyclopedia.[6]

In 1902, Szold took classes in advanced Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. However, its rabbinic school was restricted to males. Szold begged the school's president, Solomon Schechter, to allow her to study, he did only with the provision that she not seek ordination. Szold did well at the seminary, earning the respect from other students and faculty alike. [7]

Her commitment to Zionism was heightened by a trip to Palestine in 1909, at age 49. Here, she discovered her life's mission: the health, education and welfare of the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community of Palestine). Szold joined six other women to found Hadassah, which recruited American Jewish women to upgrade health care in Palestine. Hadassah's first project was the inauguration of an American-style visiting nurse program in Jerusalem. Hadassah funded hospitals, a medical school, dental facilities, x-ray clinics, infant welfare stations, soup kitchens and other services for Palestine's Jewish and Arab inhabitants. Szold persuaded her colleagues that practical programs open to all were critical to Jewish survival in the Holy Land. She founded Hadassah in 1912 and served as its president until 1926.[4]


Henrietta Szold at her home in Jerusalem, ca. 1922
In the 1920s and 1930s, she supported Brit Shalom, a small organization dedicated to Arab-Jewish unity and a binational solution. In 1933, she immigrated to Palestine and helped run Youth Aliyah, an organization that rescued 30,000 Jewish children from Nazi Europe.[8] In October 1934, Szold laid the cornerstone of the new Rothschild-Hadassah-University Hospital on Mount Scopus.[6] In 1942, she was one of the co-founders of the Ihud party which advocated the same program.

Szold never married and never had children of her own. While she was in her forties, she had an unrequited relationship with Talmudic scholar Rabbi Louis Ginzberg.