08/14/2024
Natan and the Jewish Book Council are thrilled to announce the Fall 2024 Natan Notable Book: Henrietta Szold: Hadassah and the Zionist Dream by Francine Klagsbrun (Yale Jewish Lives, 2024).
In this new biography of Henrietta Szold, Francine Klagsbrun details the incredible achievements of an extraordinary woman who understood not just ideals but the actions that were required of her — and of the world around her — to address those ideals. Known most widely as the founder of Hadassah — the Women’s Zionist Organization of America — Szold was also a scholar and editor, an educator who started a night school for new immigrants in Baltimore which became a model for schools across the United States, the director of Youth Aliya to Israel, and an advocate for numerous public health initiatives. She changed the lives of countless people — not only the people in the United States and Israel who benefited from services that her initiatives provided, but generations of American women for whom Hadassah became a mission and a lifelong community.
As Natan Notable Books committee member Felicia Herman said, “Henrietta Szold’s life is a model for us all, especially in difficult times. She was a true pioneer: as a woman in the world of Jewish intellectual life; as a Zionist in America long before Zionist ideas became popular here; and, literally, as pioneer in the pre-State Yishuv, building healthcare and child welfare institutions that have become core institutions in Israeli society.” Now, when so much of our world needs rebuilding, the Natan Notable Books committee is choosing – through the selection of this book– to highlight and honor the memory of a leader who took it upon herself to not only raise awareness about the issues that she saw but to raise money and mobilize generations of American Jewish women in particular on behalf of Israel.
On selecting Klagsbrun’s book as a Natan Notable Book, the committee noted that Szold’s grassroots organizations were initiatives designed to, like Natan, to respond to the needs of the time, and the community around her. Committee chair, Tali Rosenblatt-Cohen noted, “It is particularly resonant for Natan to honor a book about Henrietta Szold, a woman who identified the needs of the communities she was a part of and catalyzed tremendous change. Szold ‘set her eyes on the future,’ a clarion call for us all. Natan is also privileged to recognize Francine Klagsbrun, who has herself had tremendous impact on the story of American Jewish women, and has written a compelling, nuanced biography of a woman we would do well to remember.”
