Henrietta Szold

Feminism, Zionism, and Learning

One of eight daughters of a Baltimore rabbi, Henrietta Szold (1860-1945) was a scholar, teacher, and Zionist. Her father ensured her fluency in English, German, French, and Hebrew, enabling her to teach in public schools, her father's synagogue, and to start her own school in Baltimore for new immigrants. She took classes at the all-male Jewish Theological Seminary, on the condition that she not seek rabbinical ordination. In 1909, Szold took her first trip to Palestine, and it changed the course of her life. She returned and began a mission to bring quality medical care to both Jews and Arabs living in Palestine. In 1912, Szold founded the Hadassah Chapter of the Daughters of Zion (now Hadassah) as a women's organization to provide Jewish Zionist education in the U.S. and public health care in Palestine. In her retirement, Szold helped run the Youth Aliyah movement, helping to train children for life in agricultural Palestine, as a way to help them escape Nazi rule. She died in Jerusalem on February 20, 1945, after spending her last decade organizing the movement, greeting newly arrived children in Palestine and helping them acclimate to their new homes.