Hadassah
OUR BIRTHDAY
OUR BIRTHDAY AT PURIM, 5672, five years ago, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, had its official birth. For the year following we were only a New York society. Then we began to grow in scope, because our natural task is country-wide, not local. To-day we number more than 2,100 members in thirty-two cities of the Union. And by courtesy of the Federation of American Zionists, of which we constitute the women’s section, The Maccabaean, as the official organ of all American Zionists, has been put at our disposal for this birthday number. We look upon this courtesy as another opportunity for service. That is the only kind of birthday gift we wish.
OUR REASON FOR BEING
WE. NEED no reason for being or for being Zionists. But every new form of organization must justify itself. Why, when--in-+theZionist movement ‘men and women have worked and voted side by side from the beginning, and will continue to do so in the new communal life that we are building up in Palestine, should American women organize a ‘separate Zionist Society within the Federation? Because we discovered that here and over there we have specific tasks that are peculiarly the weman’s tasks. In America large sections of the unorganized Jewish women could not be reached in any: other way than by a women’s society. And the women, in thus organizing for women’s purposes, were in no way prevented from continuing also to work side by side with their male companions.. We have not taRen anything from the men’s organization. Adam’s lost rib leaves no gap, and in its place he has found a full grown woman and helpmate.
A WOMAN WHO MISSED HADASSAH
\\ HAVE had Zionists before Zion- + ism. One of these, in America, was a woman, Emma Lazarus. How often have we wished that her lonely voice, singing Hanukah hymns in a wilderness, might have been spared to us for the day of our assembling! But her older sister, Josephine Lazarus, also a Zionist, and a Zionist in the days of Zionist organization, missed equally the too long delayed opportunity for leadership and service. Zionistically speaking, Josephine Lazarus was a lonely woman. Even though she had _ fellow Zionists, she had no Zionist companions. The young enthusiasts of our New York societies came to. visit her in her great house and discussed Zionist -philosophy. And-she, once or twice a year, went to their meetings as speaker, almost as one from a distant city. “These young Russian Zionists,” she would say, “are the hope, the life of our Jewish future.” But where. in the Zionism of that time, could Josephine Lazarus have fitted in? A woman of sixty. she had no place in these societies of young
people. A woman bound by home duties, she could not take her place beside the men who led the movement. She fitted into no Zionist social group; and the social group is the unit in Zionism. For her, Hadassah would have been that group. She
died seven years ago, exactly two years before Hadassah was organized. If only Hadassah had come into being in time to enlist Josephine Lazarus, or if only Josephine Lazarus might have been spared for a while to serve Hadassah!
Purim, 5677
CONTENTS
THE GROUP AND THE INDIVIDUAL
THE social group is the unit in Zionism. A non-integrated individual is almost literally cut off from his people. Women especially realize and utilize this truth because of their keen instinct for social facts. Hadassah's task in America is to integrate the Jewish woman in the Zionist organization. Zionism is based upon this ideal of groups, international, national, religious, social, functioning within one another. It is this discipline which truly constitutes organization—yes, civilization itself. Hadassah aims to provide a Zionist group and the machinery for group service to all its members, hence to every type of American Zionist woman. The result has been a constant development of new group forms within and around the essential form, membership in the Hadassah chapter. In thirty-two cities Hadassah has chapters, each an independent organization based upon a standard constitution which is modified to meet local needs.
These chapters are held together by a Central Committee of nine, meeting in ‘New York, whose 5016 business is to manage the Palestinian enterprises and to attend to all those matters of organization and educatiou. which affect all the chapters equally. Once a year, in conjunction with the convention of the Federation of American Zionists, Hadassah holds its sub-convention and elects its Central Committee. This Central Committee, besides issuing all other,publications of the society, edits monthly a Bulletin which goes not only to the officers of all chapters, but to all individual members. This Bulletin contains such organization matter as every member should read and understand in order to feel her responsibilty to the whole movement. Every member of Hadassah by paying her $3.00 yearly nays her Shekel, her. Federation tax, and helps to support a definite Zionist enterprise in Palestine. She receives monthly Hadassah’s Bulletin which keeps her in touch directly with Hadassah work everywhere, indirectly with all Zion-. ist work. She may be the busiest of hotse- wives or workers or students, yet she is integrated in her Zionist group. She may be the only Jewish woman in a small town, out of the purview of any Hadassah chapter, yet she can affiliate with the Central Committee on the same terms, and still fit into her group for service. For who that has faith cannot serve? If little is demanded, yet everything is suggested. The group reaches out to her wherever she is able to grasp it. The circulating library of Hadassah puts at her disposal Zionist and other Jewish literature in English and Yiddish; the Hadassah School of Zionism welcomes her as a correspondence student: every form of activity is presented to her through the Bulletin. From one lone Hadassah member in a Western town came a request for patterns for sewing circles.