JJ Packer Sar El volunteer transition to Joanne Packer RN MSN – Part 2

Before I introduce you Henrietta Szold, I want to mention another dynamic Hadassah woman. Last fall during the early planning stages for my sabbatical, I read an article in one of the freebie nursing magazines about Nancy Falchuk. She was the newly elected president of Hadassah International and she is a nurse. The article, which portrayed her as a dynamic leader, was in my sabbatical folder since then.

I love it when the stars align and good things happen. Just before leaving the country I received an email that we would be having High Tea with Nancy and the former president, Marlene Post (also a nurse). Needless to say, the article came with me to Israel.


Nancy Falchuk was as warm, charming, and a “people person” as one might expect of someone in her position. She was thrilled with the article, as she had never seen it in print! She spoke with us about Israel’s nursing shortage that is expected to worsen in the next decade. The first clinical master’s program has been established at Hadassah School of Nursing. There is only one nurse practitioner in the country; advanced practice nurses do not have the support of/or partnerships with their medical colleagues. Complicating the outlook to remedy this shortage are the Ministries of Health and Finance. These two cabinet posts set the “caps” on admissions to the school of nursing. Since they are not on the same page re: the dire prediction of the workforce, the limits have remained unchanged. Currently 1200 nurses graduate each year; 2000 nurses are needed. Nancy closed her comments by issuing a call to action to get involved and be proactive in facilitating change.

Henrietta Szold was, in many respects, a forerunner of Jewish women's liberation. When her mother died in 1916, she graciously refused the offer of a close male friend to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for her. She believed that women could and should perform the duty as the laws and customs never intended them not to considered as valuable or valid as when performed by the male sex!

Her most outstanding lifetime contribution was creating Hadassah Women, the largest Jewish organization in American history. Although a Zionist organization, Hadassah was involved in meeting the health care needs of both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Today, the renowned Hadassah Hospitals: Ein Kerem and Mt Scopus, continue in that tradition providing care to all. The Arab leadership initially (and unfortunately) rejected the early spirit of volunteerism and non-discrimination, as they feared that it would lessen the hatred between the Jews and the Arabs. In early 1948, just before the State of Israel was declared, Arab troops ambushed and murdered seventy-eight Jewish doctors and nurses from Hadassah Hospital.

During the 1930’s, Henrietta involved Hadassah in a program to rescue Jewish youth from Germany; she later expanded the program to Jewish children throughout Europe. The Youth Aliyah program is believed to have saved 22,000 children from the concentration camps. Henrietta was the “ima” (mother) to all of them; she never married and regretted never having a child of her own.

To this day Henrietta Szold is regarded as one of the genuine heroic figures of American-Jewish history. A scholarly woman and a passionately committed Jew, she was a tireless worker on behalf of her adopted country.



The history lesson is over for now. The Nurses’ Mission continued at the proverbial crack of dawn with a post–breakfast presentation by Judy Seigel Itzkovich, a columnist from the Jerusalem Post. Much to our surprise, she was a dynamic early morning speaker. At a point in her career at the Post, the editor decided to shake-up the staff and each of the writers had to pick a new topic to cover. Judith became the Science and Health writer (with no science background other than being 8 months pregnant). She has learned a lot about healthcare, science, and politics; ultimately proving her credibility as an ally to health care providers and an intrepid journalist. She re-iterated the “politics” of the nursing shortage in the hospitals with similar dire projections. She did tell me that school nurse positions were eliminated due to budget cuts and the services were now being provided through private contracts. The issue of school health services was in the news recently. An outbreak of measles necessitated immunizing a group of young children at school. Unfortunately, the children received the wrong dosing (nothing harmful), but the trauma of the injections was enough to make headlines.








On our way to the hospital, we stopped at the Mount of Olives to pay our respects to Henrietta. Greeting us was Abbed Sayad, the Arab caretaker. Abbed knew Henrietta, and for the past 63 years since her death, has cared for her plot according to her wishes. We each received a sprig of rosemary during the short graveside memorial service.



This was the day of dynamic speakers. At Hadassah Hospital – Mt Scopus, Anna Woloski-Wruble, a “nurse doctor” spoke with us about her faculty practice at Hadassah. Her specialty is sexual healthcare, focusing on quality of life and life satisfaction issues. She is an observant Jew, married to a rabbi, with a practical sensibility and a sense of humor. This is the perfect equation for her success in counseling/caring for the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox woman whom she sees in her sexuality clinic.



There are many group pix along the way; I won’t bore you with too many! (but a couple in case Pennie, one of our leaders is reading the blog.)









We toured the new outpatient Center for Genetic and Chronic Diseases. It is a beautiful facility run by a physician director and nurse manager, who are the poster health care professionals for “teamwork”. They have rooms for cardiac testing, pulmonary testing, metabolic testing, and day treatments.






Barbara Sofer, also a columnist for the Post, brought Henrietta “to life” in her library at the hospital. We each had the opportunity to sit in Henrietta’s chair for a photo op. As far as I was concerned, they were HUGE shoes to jump into!

In our travels, we stopped at the memorial for the 78 doctors and nurses who died in the ambush by the Arabs. We said a prayer, read all of their names, and left a wreath from Hadassah.


Well after sunset, we found our nurse heroines touring the tunnels at the Western Wall and leaving prayers tucked in the cracks at the Wall. It was a very different experience being at the Wall at night, as I had previously been there in the heat of the noontime sun. The moonlit sky was lovely and the cool breeze was great.

Enough of this…..tomorrow we pack our bags and head north!