Dvora Hacohen - To Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold

1. 3THE IMMIGRANTS
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IN MY GROWING-UP YEARS,my mother held in highest esteem three Jewish women: Emma Lazarus, Lillian Wald, and Henrietta Szold. She praised their devotion to the public good, their brave efforts to repair a broken world. My mother hoped I would be inspired by Lazarus, Wald, and Szold in caring about the well-being of members of my family, students and teachers at schools I attended, and people in the communities and world in which I live. As a child, I was indeed inspired by those way-paving women, and I remain touched by their example to this very day.

Emma Lazarus was cousin to the great jurist Benjamin Nathan Cardozo. Twenty-one years Cardozos senior, Lazarus wrote constantly, from her first volume of poetry published in 1866 at age seventeen until her tragic death from cancer at age thirty-eight. Her poem The New Colossus, inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, welcomed legions of people newly arrived in the United States, among them my father and grandparents. A Zionist before that word came into vogue, Emma Lazarus conveyed in her poetry and prose her love for her people and appreciation for their endurance.

Lillian Wald, nurse, humanitarian, civil rights activist, and writer, born in 1867, lived until 1940. Initiator of public health nursing, she is best known for founding the Henry Street Settlement on New Yorks Lower East Side. The settlement provided neighborhood and home health care, accessible without regard to race, gender, or age, and it promoted paid employment for women, enabling them to support their families. For my mother and her siblings, the settlement, including the Neighborhood Playhouse associated with it, served as a center for young peoples social life. Affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Wald was also a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); that organizations first major public conference was held at the Henry Street Settlement.