American Jewish History

Sitting on my desk is an impressive pile of books about Henrietta Szold, a woman history clearly has not forgotten. Hacohen's task in writing a Szold biography, thus, was not to introduce us to Szold but to broaden or deepen our already existing understanding.

Szold (1860-1945) lived and worked in Palestine only in the last twenty-five years of her life. Although like Herzl, who was born the same year, Szold was denied the pleasure of witnessing the creation of the State of Israel, she could take pride in the work she did in laying the State's foundations. Szold was a formidable force in transforming the Yishuv into a more modern society, primarily by improving health conditions and rescuing Jewish children through Youth Aliyah.

To say that Szold was indefatigable is an understatement. While still a young woman, she was tireless in her work with immigrants in Baltimore and as an editor in Philadelphia and New York. In her "Palestine Period," in addition to her temporary psychosomatic blindness, she drove herself to near collapse. And yet she continued to toil, dying in Jerusalem only when she reached 85. Work for a cause sustained her. And it seemed she was never without a cause.

Hacohen shows how Szold's self-esteem and standing "were a consequence of a social, cultural and professional world entirely dominated by men" (72-73). A remarkable exception was Solomon Schechter, head of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) from 1902 through 1915, and his wife, Mathilde, both of whom became Szold's unwavering friends. Hacohen tells us that Solomon Schechter had "a keen interest in the role of women in the Jewish community" (87). Not so the leadership of the Jewish Publication Society, where Szold toiled for many years under the thumb of Mayer Sulzberger, nor even at the JTS, where she was compelled to sign a document swearing that she would not seek ordination. The lack of female colleagues in both the JTS and the JPS left her to fight these battles largely alone, if at all.

From her father, Henrietta learned to accept the abuse of exploitative organizations. Hacohen details the negative effect that Baltimore's Congregation Oheb Shalom had on Henrietta's father, whom the synagogue eventually fired. On several occasions in Henrietta's life, Hacohen writes, "Szold was aware of the discrimination but accepted [the job] anyway" (134).

In 1908, when Szold was forty-eight years old, she wanted to marry Professor Louis Ginzberg, an eminent scholar at the JTS. But he never [End Page 212] proposed, and she, in turn, never loved another man. I would suggest that remaining single for the rest of her life contributed to her success. Women of great potential at that time (and even today?) lost prestige, autonomy and recognition when and if they married. Think of Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Emma Lazarus, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Florence Nightingale and many others who never married, or who became single as widows or divorcees, or women such as Golda Meir who separated from their husbands. Women satisfied their desire for intimacy by forming very close relations with other women. Szold befriended single, accomplished American Jewish women of the Yishuv including Alice Seligsberg, Jessie Sampter, and Nellie Strauss. She also befriended the Russian firebrand and kibbutz founder, Manya Wilbushevitz Shohat, whose unconventional marriage and family life included a husband, Israel Shohat, who lived alone in Tel Aviv while their two young children lived on Kibbutz Kfar Giladi near the Lebanese border. Szold was able to devote herself wholeheartedly to her projects without competing pulls from a husband or children.

In an era when American Christian women were creating self-improvement and activist clubs, Szold assembled a small group of Jewish women and deployed her outstanding organizational skills to transform the group into a chapter, and then many chapters, of the ever-growing Hadassah. Her fundraising...