Trenton Haddasah

 

To be honest with you, my prior knowledge of the organization was well limited to Allan Sherman's shout out to the "Ladies of Haddasah" during the multiple repetitions of the chorus of "My Zelda" from his album, "My Son the Folk Singer" album. He also immortalized them in another song, "Westchester Hadassah", sung to the melody of Winchester Cathedral. Music is a great way to warm up an audience, so that's where my talk started.  Sherman's song pokes fun at the fundraising prowess of Hadassah, but as I started my research, I found out that Hadassah was, in fact, something a little different from when it started 100 years ago. Henrietta Szold, the founder, studied at the Jewish Theological Society, at the time under the direction of Solomon Schecter. She studied there if she agreed not to press for ordination.

Szold went to pre-Israel Palestine in 1908, and it changed her life forever. She founded Hadassah in 1912, and the Women's Zionist Organization dedicated itself to providing health services. It is first mission was to send two nurses to Palestine with pasteurized milk for infants. Eventually Hadassah was instrumental in setting up the Israeli Medical service. But the organization was different from other American Zionist organizations. While searching the Internet for background, I came upon a book called Western Jewry and the Zionist Project by Michael Berkowitz.  In addition to positing that had Szold been born a hundred years later, she probably would have been a Rabbi, Berkowitz talks about the tension that Hadassah caused, because it not only raised money to send to Israel, but it made sure to maintain control over how those funds were spent.

 

Twenty-one years after the organizing of the national organization, a group of women in Trenton started their own chapter. At their first meeting, on March 15, 1933, Mrs. Robert Szold, who became President of Hadassah in 1929 was in attendance and accepted the charter.

Three weeks later, at the home of Mrs. Hyman Peretz, the first board meeting was held and the minutes from that meeting can be found at the library.

There was no initial membership drive, in fact, the decision was made that membership was "open to those women who earnestly desired to join."

The first president of the chapter was Dr. Hannah Seitzick-Robbins, an ob-gyn.  At the meeting at which I spoke, one woman proclaimed, "She delivered me!" and another confided that Dr. Seitzick-Robbins was her doctor. As you can see in the minutes above, the first order of business was to set up committees and chairs.

Dr. Seitzick-Robbins served two years as president and a copy of the letter she wrote upon her resignation is also part of the library's collection.

I can only imagine that Dr. Seitzick-Robbins would have been glad to know that, not just 25 years later, but 77 years later, her role as President of Senior Hadassah was being remembered and celebrated.

Also included in the letter were the names of the 16 women who attended that first meeting in 1933.

The archives have many newspaper articles that trumpet events held through the years for Junior and Senior Hadassah, Young Judea, and many of the other initiatives undertaken by the Trentonians. One that caught my eye, and which I presented at the meeting caused quite a stir. I selected this picture because this was the contingent that the local chapter sent to the first Hadassah National Convention after the creation of the State of Israel. Two of the women pictured here are the mothers of two of the current members. The then-President of Sr. Hadassah was Mrs. Leon Entin, whose daughter, Bonnie Perlman was ecstatic to see the picture. The current President of the Trenton chapter’s mother, Mrs. Herman Wolfer.

 

27 years later, Sayde Entin was still active in the chapter when the Youth Aliyah Dinner featured Marvin Hamlisch. Hadassah really is a lifetime passion for its members.

My last Hadassah photo published in 1996. Included in the picture were Ernestine Urken, who invited me to speak, and current member Florence Lipstein.

http://trentonjewishproject.blogspot.com/2012_10_28_archive.html