Will Today's Woman Join Hadassah?
GILSON, ESTELLE
Will Today's Woman Join Hadassah? Wanted: Women to manage multimillion-dollar international corporation headquartered in New York. Extensive leadership training available. Must be willing to learn...
...American Jews are old and have not replaced themselves...
...Life memberships brought in another $1 million...
...She began working her way up through Hadassah's ranks in 1954, in her local chapter in Long Island...
...Hadassah is also one of the largest contributors to Youth Aliyah (S2.8 million in 1989...
...Today, Hadassah's endowment fund grows by about $2 million each year...
...After devoting decades to the organization and reaching the highest local or regional offices possible, many women find themselves locked out of a Hadassah future and power, because unlike national officer Hurwitz (who owns a racing stable—its colors are blue and white), they cannot afford weekly transportation to, or a pied-a-terre in, New York...
...There are those who feel we are only a fund-raising organization for a great medical institution," she observes...
...In medicine, if you don't increase, you go backwards," says national vice president Deborah Kaplan...
...The organization's diminishing ability to lure the Jewish American woman into volunteer activity and to keep her happy at it is a prospect that has evoked much soul-searching and researching at Hadassah House...
...And for keeping them in their pantyhose, she confesses to toying with the idea of sneaking into bedrooms with a tube of superglue...
...And what of the six percent of every contributed dollar (eight percent in the case of endowments and bequests) that Hadassah keeps...
...Says Schneider, "Equality, like charity, should begin at home...
...It also means myrtle, which rabbinic tradition identifies as "the fruit of the goodly tree...
...Scopus...
...When appealing to today's woman to join Hadassah, Pennsylvanian Francine Fettman, an elected member of Hadassah's national board, advises membership chairmen to avoid abstractions such as "Zionism" and "tzedakah...
...It moved to Mt...
...But a highly competent professional woman recently left a salaried position to join such a corporation as a volunteer...
...Administration, however, is centralized at the national office in New York, which considers units beyond a 100-mile radius of the city "in the country...
...Hadassah also receives yearly grants of about $1.5 million from the U.S...
...It is Hadassah's relationship to its volunteers that makes them so effective...
...She first rose to the national board in 1974...
...Everything we do in Hadassah goes back to Henrietta Szold, our founder, and to Zionism...
...But Israel's welfare is still its bottom line...
...Today's young working woman gets more peer approval for body building than for volunteering her free time...
...Scopus hospital was rededicated on October 21, 1975...
...Hadassah has problems," says national vice president and former national treasurer, Deborah Kaplan...
...The plethora of Jewish organizations serving Israel in ways more outspoken and political than Hadassah's are apt to appeal to women raised in an era of social activism...
...It is trying to "sell" the Zionist message to women too young to remember the Holocaust or the creation of the State of Israel...
...But only time will tell...
...With its sole commitment to Zionism, and the opportunity for less well-off women to earn prestige and honors through service and study, Hadassah is and has always been a comfortable place for women regardless of their social...
...Like Kaimanson and Hurwitz, today's national Hadassah officer is likely to be a middle-aged woman who has spent 20 to 30 years of her time, energy and money in the organization...
...Kaimanson also strongly disapproves of the trend among Jewish federations to use money as leverage with Israel...
...She envisions a time when Hadassah with its grass-roots connection to the Jewish grandmothers of America, "can make a shidduch (a match) between latchkey children and bubbes (grandmothers...
...Carol Diamcnt, for example, who earned her doctorate in Jewish studies at Ycshiva University, is director of the national Jewish education department, and there are about 125 professionals including secretaries at Hadassah House—control resides in the hands of volunteers...
...Hard work and heartbreak accompanied the growth of Hadassah's program...
...Some suggest that volunteers with special skills should be compensated, or that Hadassah should provide indirect subsidies to volunteers, such as housing in New York...
...I was so thrilled...
...Experience and training with Hadassah will have made her a professional...
...Reports of project activities tend to be emotional, generalized and unrelentingly upbeat...
...Its dual purpose: to bring these issues to public attention and to demonstrate Hadassah's concern for those it considers not in the mainstream of Jewish life...
...But the most frequent reason for joining is social...
...Today's national Hadassah officers who solicit large contributions for medical care arc expert in the research and equipment needed to conquer and treat major diseases...
...Today HMO includes two technically advanced teaching and research hospitals that employ a medical staff of more than 4,000 people...
...Hadassah has begun to change its structure and nfission...
...We need to keep reinterpreting our mission...
...It took some "tooth and nail" battles, says Mizrahi, to get approval for another new venture: a book Hadassah has published entitled Jewish Marital Status, issued jointly with publisher Jason Aronson (see book review, p. 65...
...No one in Hadassah is called an ''administrator," Though some units hire professionals—Dr...
...Hadassah's annual membership income in fiscal 1989 was $2.1 million...
...On Purim, 1912, 38 women joined Henrietta Szold at Temple Emanu-El in New York to form the Daughters of Zion Hadassah chapter...
...Among them were charges that "detailed administrative budgets are not readily available" to members and that national Hadassah "excludes its membership throughout the country from the decisionmaking process...
...My own particular Hadassah "turn-off" is the tone of much of its communications with members...
...Although Hadassah has managed to increase its HMO contribution annually, need grows at a faster pace...
...There is no doubt that the bright, young women Hadassah would like to attract are working at serious careers with little time for the cake sales and such that their mothers and grandmothers mounted...
...But Hadassah is running scared...
...Perhaps...
...Will it still be Hadassah...
...They "should not feel they are determining the future of Israel...
...We are in her seventh-floor office discussing Hadassah's future...
...Vanguard and Jewish Marital Status are aimed at reversing depressing American Jewish demographics...
...But Hadassah's reputation for honesty and integrity among its members and the public is such that no one I spoke to seemed disposed to ask, as Lieberman did, for an accounting of the 6 percent plus that Hadassah "keeps...
...The government also supports some medical research...
...In conjunction with Hebrew University, Hadassah supports a school of public health and social medicine, a school of occupational therapy and a nursing school...
...Kaimanson, who went to Israel with other Jewish leaders to speak against the ' 'who is a Jew" conflict in 1988, observes, maternalistically, "We're on record, but we said it within the family in Israel...
...Some national Hadassah leaders deny Lieberman's allegations...
...Perhaps like me, other potential volunteers and contributors would find unglossed truth more compelling...
...With the recapture of Mt...
...Career education is Hadassah's other major effort in Israel—more than SI.5 million in fiscal 1989—Hadassah Israel Education Services (HIES) supports studies at Hadassah Community College, Hadassah Institute of Technology and a guidance program at Hadassah Career Counseling Service...
...Some of these women put their Hadassah training to work elsewhere, but not without pain...
...We are an organization of doers, not talkers...
...Beyond these, however, is a deeper psychological threat, which could affect the use of volunteers altogether...
...Hamagshimim (the Fulfillers) is a similar program for college-age youth...
...They're all transplants with no family structure," says Molly Novack, the chapter's immediate past president...
...HMO participates in an eye care program that has contributed to the cure of tens of thousands in the Third World...
...For us, $15,000 is a lot of money...
...Some point to the fact that Hadassah's policies have changed during the past ten years...
...It has begun to dole out volunteer activities in smaller "bites" and is under pressure to hire more professionals...
...This program is really about advanced shaikhamti (matchmaking...
...As to Hadassah's future, Kaimanson waves at the photos and plaques surrounding her desk...
...Although Hadassah's 1989 convention produced a strong statement from president Kalmanson supporting women's rights to reproductive choice, and "directing" chapters to take specific actions, as recently as four years ago, according to Roslyn Brecher, a pro-choice resolution had to be "pushed through" the convention floor, when Hadassah's executive director, the late Arline Kaplan, "tried every maneuver to squash" it...
...The idea of distancing yourself and withholding funds is dangerous...
...Sure they "hit" their doctors, butchers, pharmacists...
...Israel Bonds wants me, UJA wants me, but Hadassah doesn't anymore," said one...
...Scopus by Israel during the 1967 war, Hadassah returned to the site...
...And Hadassah is losing some of its most highly trained, skilled leadership...
...Vanguard" (a title Mizrahi deplores...
...Already there are old-timers who mourn the lost intimacy of the days when volunteers helped each other switch departments and acquire new skills...
...This $9 million, or 13 percent of the S68 million that the organization brings in, also pays for administrative and fund-raising costs, salaries and upkeep for Hadassah House, some travel expenses, as well as for all publications— including a subsidy of around 8500,000 for Hadassah magazine...
...The full national board meets only twice a year...
...HMO institutions admit and treat anyone who needs their care, including all Arabs in war and in peace...
...They should have co-opted me," she says...
...This money, plus $1^ of each member's S25 annual dues (S,l 1 stays with local units), supports a myriad of programs to interest, educate and reward Hadassah's volunteers and donors...
...Hadassah may no longer be all about Israel...
...Hadassah raised nearly $2.4 million for the programs last year...
...You sit down and you talk it out...
...No one questioned for example, Youth Aliyah's effectiveness with its caseload of children, "some of [whom] have criminal associations, almost all of [whom] have recordfs] of scholastic failure...
...The Mt...
...Then two ladies followed because they loved me...
...I don't like what you're doing, therefore I'm going to tell you to go away and never see me again...
...If a new venture serves the public, if it attracts favorable attention, if it gains and holds members, and most importantly, if in the long run, no matter how indirectly, it creates support for Israel, it will become a permanent part of Hadassah...
...It had more Now in her second term as Hadassah national president, Carmefa Efros Kaimanson, 60, directs Hadassah full-time from her New York office...
...Not that Hadassah doesn't have to shore up its grandmothers too...
...They don't have time to volunteer," The issue of volunteer lime is crucial to Hadassah, which has traditionally not used professional fund-raisers...
...Five ladies in my group followed my example...
...And Hadassah has internal problems...
...We never had founders in my group, I discussed it with my children...
...Along with Kupat Holim (Israel's national insurance plan), Israel's government pays part of the bed costs each year as it does for other hospitals in Israel...
...It is the largest women's voluntary organization in the country...
...continued from page 33 married, not-quitc-married, divorced and gay and lesbian...
...The fear for the future—and there is already a whiff of it in the air—is the resentment middle-aged volunteers feel working for nothing beside younger paid professional* with little experience and no knowledge of, perhaps without love for, the organization...
...More than 22,000 men are members of Hadassah Associates, which provides financial support through onetime dues of S200...
...The Israeli government has been as much as $6 million behind in what it owes Hadassah for patient care, a reliable informant alleged...
...Even women with leisure are not giving their time away...
...As a decades-long member of Hadassah myself, I would have known that had I volunteered my time or attended meetings...
...American Jews are in a "limited partnership" with Israel, says Kaimanson...
...The test, say critics, is whether the doyenne of Jewish women's organizations will be able to think and speak like a woman of the nineties...
...Kiryat Hadassah/Ein Karem completed its fifth heart transplant during Hadassah's July 1989 convention...
...The big money, however, comes from gifts and endowments, bequests, annuities and trusts which brought in $22.4 million in 1989, and volunteer fundrais-ing efforts which brought in $30.8 million targeted for specific projects...
...And for the first time, Hadassah's mission and style have also been called into question...
...Despite a Jewish-mother tragedy—there wasn't enough food—the participants formed a singles group...
...The days I recently spent in connection with this article at Hadassah House, the organization's West 58th Street headquarters in New York, and the conversations I had with Hadassah women across the country were a discovery for me in how hard Hadassah works for its women and how hard they work for it...
...Changes in Hadassah come slowly and in small increments...
...That's because—from your neighborhood Hadassah lady, the butt of loving and sometimes not-so-loving jokes about herability to extract money from anyone who crosses her path, to its president, Carmcla Efros Kaimanson—Hadassah is an organization of volunteers...
...But the minute she comes home and they're off, that's it," Minkes says...
...fli...
...Ruth B. Hurwitz, who lives in Baltimore, now spends at least three days a week in New York—Amtrak and lodging, at her own expense—to fulfill responsibilities as a national Hadassah officer Hadassah is the Women's Zionist Organization of America, which supports medical, social and educational projects in Israel and a Zionist youth program in the United States...
...Hadassah is the Hebrew name of Queen Esther...
...Must be willing to learn on the job, be free to travel and be able to pay some of own expenses...
...How do Hadassah women do it...
...We think the Jewish lifestyle should be married," the enthusiastic Mizrahi says...
...The national office is organized into divisions and departments...
...Sound like a feminist joke, a demonstration of how foolish and put upon women are...
...It's not 'in' to go to meetings any more," says national Hadassah vice president Bonnie Lipton of Pittsfield, Massachusetts...
...But I've been content to scan Hadassah magazine and, when asked, to write a check...
...And no one questioned national Hadassah's participation in any project or the nature of the projects themselves...
...The program was kicked off at New York's Jewish Museum in 1988 when 250 singles bought advance tickets to a Chanukah parly and 700 turned up at the door...
...Scopus, Hadassah founded medical and dental schools in Israel in 1949 and 1953 respectively...
...It set up infant welfare stations, malaria control centers and school lunch programs, and it dealt with the exigencies of World War I in Palestine...
...Minkes, who works full-time and also hosts a Hadassah talk show-on local television in Miami, is referring-to what she calls "the panty hose syndrome...
...In Miami Beach, where single condominium complexes form their own Hadassah groups, says one member, "you get 112 percent attendance...
...The women in these groups, many as old as Hadassah itself, are among the organization's most committed workers and fund-raisers...
...Through Hadassah, women can attend kallahs (weekend retreats), lobby in Washington, D.C., practice public speaking, learn management training skills and gain peer recognition...
...Agency for International Development for equipment purchased in the United States for use in its hospitals in Israel...
...Within a year the group had begun the study of Judaism that characterizes Hadassah to this day and had established a small clinic in Jerusalem...
...Thousands of Third World doctors, nurses and technicians have been trained at HMO facilities, as well as in their own countries, and for the past three years HMO has been part of an international team that helped Zaire establish a new hospital in Kinshasa...
...But committed volunteers don't just happen...
...We're no longer all about Israel," says Sue Mizrahi, a vice president in charge of Hadassah's Jewish singles program...
...Hadassah suffered its greatest setback on April 13, 1948, when Arabs attacked an armored ambulance convoy headed to Mt...
...The group set itself a dual mission—supporting "Jewish institutions and enterprises in Palestine" and fostering "Jewish ideals...
...In another innovation, members were recently urged to "initiate and organize educational programs for disadvantaged youth in your community" as part of an American affairs department plan to promote civic activism...
...Come to Hadassah.' " "We need to be active advocates for child care," says vice president Sue Mizrahi...
...it sounds like a cigarette or a condom") that Hadassah plans lo introduce throughout the country...
...Can an organization seeking to attract the contemporary woman afford to avoid these issues...
...If we can find a way to have a meeting when a woman has her panty hose on, she'll go...
...The average Hadassah member is about 50...
...I joined because as a woman and a Zionist it seemed unthinkable not to...
...And the millions are harder to raise— some collections were down from the previous year...
...The message is, 'Do you feel out of it socially...
...In small, isolated towns without regular religious services (shtetls, they're called on 58th Street: Clarksburg, West Virginia or Fairbanks, Alaska), Hadassah may be the only Jewish game in town...
...The financial pinch has caused Hadassah to decide not to accept gifts for special medical projects unless the gift contains funds for continuing support of the project...
...Interest and dividends on Hadassah's $30-million-plus endowment plus the millions that pass through its hands each year amounted to another $8.8 million...
...It is also the largest contributor (nearly SI.2 million in 1989) to the Jewish National Fund for land reclamation and reforestation...
...Though forced to leave Mt...
...The strength of Hadassah is in the quality of life of the Hadassah member," says Carmela Kaimanson...
...Salary: None...
...Hashachar (the Dawn), a program for youngsters 8 to 18 years of age, includes after-school activities, Young Judea summer camping, experience in Israel, and leadership training...
...There has been some belt-tightening at HMO and occasional strained relations with Israel's ministry of health as a result...
...Feminists have also faulted Hadassah's conservative leadership for its reluctance to deal with controversial women's issues such as child care and abortion...
...Late marriage, no marriage, low birthrate, intermarriage and assimilation have shrunk the pool of potential Hadassah volunteers...
...Hadassah has spent over S200 million building and rebuilding the center at Ein Karem in the past 30 years...
...While national Hadassah puts a bright face on all aspects of its work, distant chapters and regions feel misunderstood and resent or fear New York's control...
...The Rothschild-Hadassah-University hospital was created in 1936...
...What do you say to your child...
...The future will depend on continuity in America, and on the woman who is knowledgeable...
...But I don't think that will grab someone in Omaha who has her own hospital to support...
...Those who become presidents of "big chapters" (over 5,000 members) or regions, which cross state lines, serve on Hadassah's 214-member national board...
...Tryon, N. Y.: "I have to set the example, be the first to make a donation...
...It's a part of the social fabric...
...Scopus in 1939...
...In 1960, it dedicated the new Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center at Ein Karem—a location suggested by David Ben-Gurion...
...Miracles" and "wonders" that bring tears to the eyes seem to occur so regularly at Hadassah hospitals, camps and schools that I have felt condescended to and, as a result, cynical about the need for and the efficacy of the programs...
...The HMO budget rises yearly...
...Kalmanson is a Jewish educator trained at the Teachers' Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary, She was raised in an active Zionist family—her Israeli-turn mother was a member of Hebrew University's first graduating class...
...Women join Hadassah for many reasons...
...With volunteers a dwindling species, there has been increased strain on Hadassah's staff...
...So Hadassah is dressing up in a business suit trying to look like a woman of the nineties...
...The demographics affect membership...
...Hadassah hasn't yet run a help-wanted ad, but it did place a full-page ad seeking members in the .Vetti Tork Times...
...Like the family-conscious Jewish mother who feels stricken when a Jewish name is equated with trouble in a newspaper, Hadassah deplores public criticism of Israel...
...While other fund-raising organizations' expenses may run up to 35 percent of receipts, Hadassah assures donors that whether they give one dollar for the sight savers project, a thousand for a computer or a million for a lithotripter that breaks up kidney and gall stones, that 94 cents of each dollar will go to the cause they've selected...
...One of the large ones is "founder" (SI5,000...
...As to young working women, in 1979, in response to complaints from members under 40 and career women that Hadassah wasn't "listening" to them, the national board created an outreach program that has since become an administrative division...
...She also faults the organization for its response to her criticism...
...If we have something to say," says President Kaimanson, "we don't say it on the front page of the New York Times...
...Speaking a decade later, Lieberman, who is a past national chair of the Women's Division of the Council of Jewish Federations and a staff member of her local federation, believes that Hadassah is' 'still not out in front on many issues," and that its members "still have very little . . . input on how money is spent...
...Whether this or any other new program becomes a permanent part of Hadassah remains to be seen...
...Since 1931 Hadassah has built, developed and turned back to municipalities or to the Israeli government four hospitals in Tel Aviv, Tiberius, Safed and Hebron, and hundreds of health and welfare stations and playgrounds...
...Stress the nitty-gritty of women's lives," she tells them...
...Jewish feminists such as Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of Lilith magazine, have repeatedly urged Hadassah to develop hiring, promotion and salary practices equitable to women and to encourage women to apply to its medical and dental schools...
...The next day a lady who doesn't like me took her checkbook down to National and became a founder, too...
...Ruach" (spirit) is what ties Hadassah's volunteers to the organization, according to one national officer...
...In 1979, Betty Lieberman, a former Milwaukee chapter president, itemized a number of complaints about Hadassah in Lilith magazine...
...Here again, interest only is used on projects in Israel...
...Financial plans, budgets, plans for new construction, new research or new-programs for all Hadassah projects in this country and abroad are made, reviewed, administered and supervised by national Hadassah's volunteer officers, who educate ihcmsclves as needed and travel the world over—in large pan at their own expense (they pay lodging and food wherever they are) — in performance of their duties...
...More than 25,000 women, representing 1,600 units in every state of the union including Hawaii and Alaska, as well as Puerto Rico, hold a Hadassah office...
...Last year, the HA fund increased by $155,200...
...Power is tightly held in New York, where the New York board and executive committee meet on alternate "holy Thursdays...
...As a woman and a Zionist, I'll put my money on it...
...Sure they run card parties, rummage sales, raffles and the rest, but listen to one group president, Betty Eisner of Ft...
...Divorce and single parenthood have created economic and social hardships for women who have neither the time nor money to maintain a Jewish ' 'connection" for themselves or their children...
...The volume is made up of scholarly essays and anecdotal, first-person accounts of current Jewish lifestyles, including single, continued on page 55 Will Today's Woman Join Hadassah...
...It is the largest Jewish organization in the country...
...Haim Yassky, director general of the Hadassah Medical Organization, and 77 others were killed...
...The range or what Hadassah women have lo know has changed somewhat over the years...
...The major objections are obvious—increased expense and loss of control by volunteers...
...Even arranging meeting times for working women is a challenge, says another national vice president, Linda Minkes (there are six national vice presidents...
...Women are working...
...Roslyn Brecher, former national board member, believes that Hadassah has to rethink its image...
...Hadassah has no current plans to deal with child care, a major concern for women as well as for any organization that needs to "buy" working women's time...
...The major recipient of Hadassah's support in Israel is still Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO), for which volunteers raised more than 823 million in 1988...
...Before speaking to me, one national leader asked if others had done so without "clearing with National...
...Nearly half of Hadassah women are life members—they have paid a lump sum (now $250), which guarantees lifetime rights and privileges...
...In response to these problems...
...To create future Zionist leaders in the United States, Hadassah has increased its commitment to youth programs...
...It is directed by top-echelon volunteers, many of them commntcrs, who work three to five days a week and are called coordinators and chairmen («V...
...political or Jewish background...
...They ignored me...
...Hadassah merges, combines and recombines what is left of once-powerful units now decimated by death, illness, urban flight and retirement to warmer climates...
...Be mice Tannenbaum, a former president, remembers having to know all about furnaces, Roslyn Breeher, now retired from the national board, recalls being an expert at printing and layout...
...ESTELLE GILSON members (385,000) and raised more money (S68 million) in fiscal 1989 than at any time in its history...
...Everybody" belongs...
...The intent was to keep women bound to Hadassah and to use the interest from the fund for projects...
...I put it in the bulletin that I became a founder...
...Membership is at best static—income from dues fell last year...
...Within six months of New York's singles party, a Vanguard group was in the works in Beverly Hills, where Jewish singles are at high risk of intermarriage...
...Do you need to talk to other bright young women...
...Is this what Israel needs to help build the nation...
Vol. 15 • February 1990 • No. 1
