אל על | אטמוספירה

One Woman’s Vision Helps Millions

1934, over 300,000 vulnerable youth, including refugees and teens displaced by war, have been supported at Hadassah’s youth villages.

Saving Children from an Epidemic

In the early 1900s, tens of thousands of children in pre-state Israel were going blind. The disease was trachoma. In 1912, an extraordinary woman named Henrietta Szold from Baltimore brought American Jewish women together to make an impact. This was the beginning of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Hadassah not only helped eradicate the disease but helped pioneer a national healthcare system that set the standard for medical excellence and innovation.

Building Israel’s Health Infrastructure Hadassah was instrumental in creating Israel’s healthcare infrastructure even before the State was formed. Hadassah Medical Organization, established in 1918, built hospitals, clinics and medical training facilities, and opened its two major medical centers in Jerusalem—Hadassah Mt. Scopus in 1939 and Hadassah Ein Kerem in 1961. Today, these world-renowned hospitals treat over 1 million patients a year.

Rescuing Children Since the Holocaust In the 1930s and ’40s, European children needed to be saved from the horrors of the Holocaust. Henrietta Szold and the women of Hadassah successfully helped rescue approximately 13,000 Jewish children and gave them homes, medical care and the love they needed to lead meaningful lives. Since