National Jewish Book Awards Finalist
for the Barbara Dobkin Award for Women’s Studies, 2012.

In February 1912
thirty-eight American Jewish women met at Temple Emanuel in New York and
founded Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. This has become
the largest Zionist
organization in the Diaspora and the largest and most active Jewish women's
organization ever. Its history is an inseparable part of the history of
American Jewry and of the State of Israel, and the relationship between them.
Hadassah is also part of the history of Jewish women in the United States and
in the modern world more broadly. Its achievements are not only those of
Zionism but, crucially, of women, and throughout this study Mira
Katzburg-Yungman pays particular attention to the life stories of the
individual women who played a role in them.





Based on historical documentation
collected in the United States and Israel and on broad research, the book
covers many aspects of the history of Hadassah and analyses significant aspects
of the fascinating story of the organization. A wide-ranging introductory
section describes the contexts and challenges of Hadassah's history from its founding
to the birth of the State of Israel. Subsequent sections explore in turn the
organization's ideology and its activity on the American scene after Israeli
statehood; its political and ideological role in the World Zionist
Organization; and its involvement in the new State of Israel in the twin fields
of activity: in medicine and health care
and in its work with children and young people. The final part of the book
deals with topics that enrich our understanding of Hadassah in additional
dimensions, such as gender issues, comparisons of Hadassah with other Zionist
organizations, and the importance of people of the Yishuv and later of Israelis
in Hadassah's activities. The study concludes with an Epilogue that considers
developments up to 2005, assessing whether the conclusions reached with regard
to Hadassah as an organization remain valid. It considers developments within
Hadassah in the 1980s and 1990s, years in which the organization was affected
by the significant changes within the wider American Jewish community,
specifically the enormous increase in intermarriage with non-Jews and the
impact of the so-called 'second wave' of feminism.





This extensive, diverse, and balanced study offers a
picture of Hadassah in both arenas of its activity: in the land that is now the
State of Israel, and in the United States. In doing so it makes a contribution
not only to Zionist history but also to the history of American Jewish women
and of Jewish women more widely.