Several pioneering Jewish women created separate female Zionist organizations -but it was Henrietta Szold who united them into one: Hadassah, named for the biblical Queen Esther.

The organization quickly became known for its initiatives to help expecting and new mothers, combat rampant eye disease and provide nutritious meals to schoolchildren. Yet, its independence was eventually challenged by the men of the Zionist Organization of America.

“The men’s organization had a different view of Zionism,” said Francine Klagsbrun, author of “Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream,” published by Yale University Press.

“To them, a Zionism of health care and social work was not Zionism. It was not Zionism as they saw it – nation-building, creating settlements. They looked down on her and on Hadassah. They didn’t respect what she was doing or understand how tremendously important it was. Hadassah created these initial hospitals and health care in Palestine that did not exist before.”

“Inch by inch,” she said, “[the men] tried to take over much of what Hadassah did – fundraising, allocation of funds. The women pushed hard against this with Henrietta’s backing… In the end, the women succeeded.”

Multiple February anniversaries highlight Szold’s enduring legacy: the February 13 anniversary of her death in 1945 and the February 24 founding of Hadassah in 1912 – as well as Israel’s Family Day, held annually on the Hebrew anniversary of Szold’s death, the 30th of Shvat, which this year falls on February 17.

In Israel, Szold is memorialized as the ultimate “mother” in part because, in her later years, she devoted herself to rescuing Jewish children menaced by Nazism through the Youth Aliyah.

“It was the most important project she ever did in her life,” Klagsbrun said.

Klagsbrun addresses criticism that Szold was too accepting of British limits on Jewish immigration, and might have saved more lives had she pushed harder. Yet the author notes the warmth that Szold brought to the project. She greeted each child personally when they arrived and urged them not to forget the good parts of German culture – kindnesses that lingered in their minds long after her death.

“She became known as a mother in Israel,” Klagsbrun said. “She never married, never had children. She became the mother of thousands of these children who were rescued. There’s a letter I didn’t include, didn’t mention. It’s a lovely Hebrew letter from a boy who asked, ‘Can I call you mother? Mine died.’ … It’s what she became, a mother figure – maybe a grandmother figure – to some of them.”

Zionist who backed a binational state

Unlike many Zionist thinkers, Szold once backed a binational state for Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.

Klagsbrun argues that Szold’s early support for binationalism reflected the realities of her time – and that she would recalibrate her thinking in today’s political landscape.

“Her attitude was that Jews and Arabs could live together peacefully,” Klagsbrun told The Times of Israel.

Over a century after the founding of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, the pro-Israel group is advocating on behalf of sexual assault victims brutalized during the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel – an onslaught on a scale that Szold could likely never imagine.

“I don’t think she would go for one state, one shared binational state, any longer,” Klagsbrun added. “I think she would realize it’s not going to work.”

But, said Klagsbrun of the October US-brokered ceasefire and peace plan that ended the two years of war in Gaza sparked by the invasion, “For sure, she would be an advocate of a Palestinian state and very happy about the peace plan.”

Even as Arab-Jewish tensions roiled pre-state Israel, peace was very much on Szold’s mind. As Klagsbrun’s book states, Szold didn’t just found Hadassah – she was also part of Brit Shalom and Ihud, two groups that advocated for a binational state for Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine.

The author noted Szold’s “sympathy and caring about the Palestinians – not only Palestinians, but Israelis and Palestinians getting along, something that would be really important for people to pay attention to now… If she were alive today, she would be a very popular speaker because she would be promoting those ideas.”

The book contends that Szold was more active in promoting a binational state than is generally acknowledged: She was not an official member of Brit Shalom (“Covenant of Peace”), but was a founding member of Ihud (“Unity”) and served on its board.

“She, the great scholar Martin Buber and others like Judah Magnes thought there should be an equal sharing of the land, the homeland of two peoples,” Klagsbrun said. “It did not matter who had the majority. Neither should dominate the other. She did not feel there should be a political state just for the Jews.”

Neither Brit Shalom nor Ihud encountered reciprocal interest from an Arab leader during Szold’s lifetime; after she died in 1945, one such leader, Fawzi al-Husseini, showed interest but was assassinated.

Klagsbrun sees discussion of Szold’s advocacy for a binational state as a key difference between her book and the 2021 National Jewish Book Award-winning biography by Bar-Ilan University Israel studies Prof. Dvora Hacohen, “To Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah.”

In an email correspondence with The Times of Israel, Hacohen disputed the portrayal of Szold as an advocate for a binational state. According to Hacohen, Szold’s name was added to the membership of Brit Shalom and Ihud by their respective founders, Arthur Ruppin and Magnes, even though, in each case, Szold disagreed with the aims of the group but did not want to disappoint their founders.

Hacohen did state that Szold favored peace – “She tried to find a way for Jews and Arabs to live together peacefully, but could not find a solution” – and left a legacy of tolerance: “On all the institutes [Szold] established, like hospitals, she had a rule that they would serve all people regardless of nation, religion. [These] rules exist up to today in Israel all over the land.”

“Henrietta Szold” chronicles its subject from her beginnings in Baltimore to her final years in pre-state Israel. Within that span, she achieved much, founding Hadassah, working toward improved health care in Palestine and helping to bring thousands of child refugees from the Holocaust in the Youth Aliyah. It all happened after a midlife heartbreak – her unrequited love for Prof. Louis Ginzberg when she was studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

Szold grew up the daughter of Benjamin Szold, a rabbi, and Sophie (Schaar) Szold, a homemaker. While she was dazzled by her father’s scholarship, it was her mother who showed how to run a household that included five daughters who lived to adulthood.

Young Szold showed organizational talent in establishing a groundbreaking night school for Russian Jewish immigrants in Baltimore. She taught English to prepare them for employment in their new country. They instilled something in her, too – Zionism, with some supporting the Hovevei Zion organization that brought early Jewish settlers to Ottoman Palestine.

The Jewish Publication Society hired Szold for her prowess in working with manuscripts. (The book notes that her job title was that of a secretary, not an editor.) At JTS, where she was the first full-time female student, one scholar whose texts she edited was Prof. Ginzberg. Thirteen years older than him, she fell deeply into unrequited love.

“When I began this book, so many people didn’t know her any longer,” Klagsbrun said. “They didn’t know who she was. But they asked, ‘Didn’t she have kind of a love affair that did not go right?’ It was the very turning point of her life, a very central part of her life.”

When Ginzberg’s father died, it seemed a new bond had been forged between him and Szold. Ginzberg had gone to Amsterdam for his father’s final months. When he returned, he asked to see Szold alone. At the rendezvous, he said that he was engaged to a woman named Adele Katzenstein, whom he had met in Berlin. Szold was heartbroken. She later collapsed, suffered blindness and underwent surgery on her right side. What helped was rest at her sister Bertha’s residence in Maine, during which time her eyesight returned.

By then, she was ready to go back to Palestine. She had first visited with her mother following a 1909 trip to Europe. In the Middle East, Szold was shocked by the prevalence of diseases such as the bacterial eye infection trachoma. Her mother urged her to work with friends toward a project that would remedy this situation.

Klagsbrun has a multifaceted background as an author and an activist. (A member of the Hadassah Magazine editorial board, she said that working on the Szold biography made her better appreciate the women who volunteer for the overall organization.) In 1988, Klagsbrun became the first woman to carry a Torah to worship at the Western Wall. As she recalled, the group of women she was marching with entrusted her with the honor. The night before, she called her husband to inform him; he responded with disbelief and alarm. Nevertheless, she went ahead. She was shocked to be on the receiving end of anger from Orthodox Jews. The group subsequently became known as Women of the Wall, and she donated a Torah to it.

“Henrietta Szold” is Klagsbrun’s second consecutive biography of a Jewish Zionist female leader, following the 2017 “Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel,” which won a National Jewish Book Award. The author sees similarities between Meir and Szold, including that each operated successfully in a man’s world. In Palestine, they crossed paths: A colleague counseled Meir against speaking anything but Hebrew in front of Szold.

Klagsbrun notes that Meir, while possessed of an ability to charm, could sometimes terrify the men she worked with, whereas Szold was more proper and Victorian. Klagsbrun initially thought Szold too saintlike a subject. After doing some research, to her delight, she found abundant complexity. The ensuing three-year project helped Klagsbrun during a difficult time: She lost her longtime husband, psychiatrist Samuel Klagsbrun.

The more Klagsbrun researched the health care infrastructure established by Hadassah in Mandatory Palestine, the more she respected Szold’s organizational ability.

“She was a person who got things done,” Klagsbrun said. “I think she didn’t have patience for goofing around. She got things done – setting up a nursing school, sending doctors and nurses over to Palestine.”

“Go back to the beginnings [of Hadassah],” she reflected. “They were devoted to raising a great deal of money. They took on the Youth Aliyah as their project, built the first hospitals and brought health care to a country that lacked it.”

If so, we have a request. 

Every day during the past two years of war and rising global anti-Zionism and antisemitism, our journalists kept you abreast of the most important developments that merit your attention. Millions of people rely on ToI for fact-based coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. 

We care about Israel - and we know you do too. So we have an ask for this new year of 2026: express your values by joining The Times of Israel Community, an exclusive group for readers like you who appreciate and financially support our work. 

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting valuable, in a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically since October 7.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 Award-winning ‘Tehran’ producer found dead in Athens hotel room

2 New settlement to ‘expand Jerusalem’ for first time since 1967 


3 New anti-government chants reported across Iran after major rallies abroad

4 Hamas used emojis to signal operatives to prepare for Oct. 7 assault

5 US ambassador to Belgium urges nation to drop charges over illegal circumcisions

6 Top Netanyahu aide: Hamas will have 60 days to disarm or IDF will ‘complete’ mission

7 Anti-Zionist groups in Canada target Jewish children’s summer camps

8 Prosecutors said set to indict settler accused of killing Palestinian activist

Hadassah the Women’s Zionist Organization of America

© The Times of Israel