|
July 9, 2004/Tamuz 20 5764, Vol. 56, No.42
Not your grandma's Hadassah - it's yoursHadassah broadens its reach, agenda
VICKI CABOT
|
 Hadassah Valley of the Sun Hadassah Leadership Academy participants traveled to Israel last year as part of a two-year educational program. Pictured in Jerusalem, from left, are Liz Fox, Julia Sohn, Sheryl Quen, Lori Goss and Beth Shapiro. Photo courtesy of Hadassah Valley of the Sun |
It is not their grandmother's Hadassah - it's theirs.
That's no more evident than here in the Valley of the Sun, where the merger of three existing chapters has catapulted the local organization to national prominence. Since the decision to streamline the volunteer structure while amplifying professional resources, the chapter has grown from 1,500 members and revenues of less than $100,000 to its current 2,600 members raising in excess of $500,000 this past year.
Its number of groups, smaller organizational components that comprise the chapter, has nearly doubled, many of the newer ones reflecting its broad demographic and geographic reach.
"We belong to all generations," says Beth Shapiro, who admits to the earlier perception that Hadassah was just for older women but has found that one of its strengths, and its innate appeal, is its ability to cross the generational divide.
Shapiro will be one of the more than 250 local Hadassah members on hand July 11-14 to greet delegates at the 90th annual national convention in Phoenix. It's a first for the Valley - and a welcome opportunity to show off not only Arizona's natural attractions but also Hadassah's ardent homegrown supporters.
"Go to the desert, nourish the hope" is the apt theme for both conference and venue, but the words, too, capture the spirit of the intrepid pioneer women who settled here at the turn of the century and planted the seeds for Jewish communal life. The Arizona Jewish Historical Society, which is compiling an exhibit for the convention chronicling Jewish life, says Jewish women's organizations in Arizona predate its 1912 statehood. In the late 19th century, the Hebrew Women's Benevolent Aid Society was founded in Tucson. At the time there were 48 Jews in the entire state.
"They were an amazing group of women," says Risa Mallin, AJHS executive director, of the pioneers. "Whatever Jewish women do today is just a carryover from that time."
Hadassah, founded in 1912 in New York by Henrietta Szold, was dedicated to "practical Zionism," helping to meet the needs of Palestine's peoples. Over the past 92 years, its members have founded and supported two major hospitals in Israel, one at Mount Scopus and one at Ein Karem, world-renowned medical research centers, medical, dental and nursing schools and a network of public health, education and social services.
In the Valley, the first Hadassah chapter was started in 1940. In a March 1987 Jewish News story on Hadassah's 75th anniversary, the late Bert Goldman Feiler, a founding member, recalled that the group was formed in response "to the desperate need in Palestine." As initial reports of the horrors of the Holocaust began to trickle out of Eastern Europe, the women knit thousands of sweaters to send to the new refugees in Palestine.
Pearl Newmark, Jewish News publisher emeritus, was founding Hadassah president. She agreed to serve for just a few months, as she was pregnant; daughter Flo Eckstein, current Jewish News publisher and a Hadassah life member, was born in October of that year.
The small group of Arizona women persevered and Hadassah grew. In 1938, Sol and Sylvia Mallin moved to Prescott where Sylvia later started a Hadassah chapter, working hard to rustle the requisite 10 women needed for a charter. Her daughter-in-law Risa surmises that she fudged the list.
Sol Mallin, who passed away several years ago, told an amusing anecdote recorded by the AJHS, of two women puzzled by a poster in a Prescott bank advertising a Hadassah bingo game. "Hadassah, Hadassah?" they pondered. "Then one said to the other, 'That must be the name of some Indian tribe that moved in from up north.'"
But in the Valley's by-then-growing Jewish community, Hadassah had established a presence, especially after the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.
"Everybody joined Hadassah," recalled the late Dorothy Pickelner who served as Hadassah president in 1950.
She remembered Hadassah bringing the Israel Philharmonic to Phoenix for a concert, a real coup for the fledgling organization. The group solicited $10,000 in underwriting from the business community, an unheard of sum in those years, filled the hall and raised a substantial amount for Israel. "And we let the people of Phoenix know that the Jewish people had this wonderful orchestra in Israel," she said in a recorded AJHS interview.
Sonia Karp, twice a Hadassah president, recalls the early 1960s when Hadassah began to attract a younger cadre of leadership. Her mentors - women such as Pickelner, Feiler and the late Fay Gross - were looking to pass on the mantle of leadership, and Karp and her contemporaries - mostly young married women with children - were eager to take it on. For many of them, the communal work provided a welcome outlet from raising children and housekeeping, and Hadassah's Zionist mission appealed.
Hadassah Ziskin, who was president of the then Phoenix chapter in the mid-1960s, recalls, "At that time Hadassah was the organization for Jewish women." Ziskin remembers an immediacy that infused the work. "All of us who were Zionists were active and working toward helping the state," she says.
Bake sales, rummage sales, donor luncheons: these were the stuff of Hadassah. Then, as now, each group was given an annual fund-raising quota and members planned and organized events to meet that goal.
A big moneymaker was the Hadassah Thrift Shop at 16th Street and McDowell Road. "Be a Giving Doll," trumpeted ads seeking donations. Chapter scrapbooks, now housed at AJHS, provide a snapshot of the variety of fund-raising activities from latke parties to dinner dances to card parties to paid-up luncheons.
Hadassah national board members Seema Liston and Sharon Briskman, both presidents of the then-Phoenix chapter in the mid-to-late 1970's, were drawn to Hadassah for both the opportunity to help Israel and to meet other young Jewish women with similar interests.
"My friends of longest standing are my Hadassah friends," says Briskman.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hadassah's numbers declined as its membership aged. Risa Mallin, Phoenix chapter president 1989-92, recalls its changing face and diminished numbers.
"But we kept it going," says Mallin, inspired as much by a commitment to Israel as loyalty to the longtime dedicated volunteers.
"I loved those ladies," says Mallin simply.
The Zionist mission continued to excite while Hadassah began to expand its agenda to attract new, younger supporters.
"We have not moved from our basic projects," says Briskman. "We have taken them a step further."
Causes on the domestic front, many which play off cutting edge research at the Hadassah hospitals, run the gamut from health education to breast cancer to reproductive choice to voter registration.
"We are forward-thinking, proactive," says Briskman, whether it is supporting Hadassah hospital - "my" hospital as she calls it - or advocating for women's and health issues on Capitol Hill.
Shapiro, one of the chapter's younger members, says that Hadassah's social activism was particularly attractive to her. And she is especially proud of Hadassah's independence and resolve.
"Hadassah stays the course," she says. "It goes forward despite the opposition."
Gail Nochomovitz, another young member who joined as a single professional and now is married with two small children, says that for her generation, "just to say our money goes to Israel does not do it. It is much easier to say it is for domestic health issues - things we can relate to better."
Nochomovitz also says that being part of a large, respected organization provides a welcome platform.
"We are a large organization, and we can really take a stand and make a difference," she says.
Nochomovitz's Hadassah group, Ruach, geared toward professional women, reflects the trend to target particular demographic groups or geographic areas within the larger organization. Melissa Singer, another young Hadassah member, founded one of the newer Hadassah groups, Miriam, that attract members, many married with young children, in the Chandler/Gilbert area.
Lee Levine, immediate past chapter president, says her group, PrimeTimers, and another newer group, Sabra, attract older or retired professional women like herself. So does Tikvah group in Sun City Grand.
"The women have the skills, the time and the means," she says. "And they do fantastic things."
Levine says she is especially gratified with the growth and the diversification.
"It's wonderful to watch what has evolved," she says.
Shapiro says one of Hadassah's strengths is to engage a broad cross section of members.
Geographically, Hadassah continues to reach out. In 1994, the Shalom Chapter was formed in Sun Lakes. There is a new group in Flagstaff and groups being formed in Arrowhead Ranch and Anthem.
"We really have a presence now," says Fredi Brown, chapter president. "Our numbers have grown exponentially."
Singer, whose group exceeded its fund-raising quota this year and was recognized by the Hadassah Desert Mountain region for its accomplishments, says that the Hadassah she knows - and the one her mother knows - are really not that different.
"I think Hadassah is the same," says Singer, citing its projects in Israel and its programs for families and children, the opportunities for socializing and doing community service.
Her mother was active in Hadassah when Singer was growing up and will attend the national convention this week with her daughter.
"I just think the members are different," she says.
Contact the writer at vicki_cabot@jewishaz.com.
| Hadassah spans generations | Decades of Valley leaders |