Natan and the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil are thrilled to announce the Fall 2024 Natan Notable Book: Hen­ri­et­ta Szold: Hadas­sah and the Zion­ist Dream by Francine Klags­brun (Yale Jew­ish Lives, 2024).

In this new biog­ra­phy of Hen­ri­et­ta Szold, Francine Klags­brun details the incred­i­ble achieve­ments of an extra­or­di­nary woman who under­stood not just ideals but the actions that were required of her — and of the world around her — to address those ideals. Known most wide­ly as the founder of Hadas­sah — the Women’s Zion­ist Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­ca — Szold was also a schol­ar and edi­tor, an edu­ca­tor who start­ed a night school for new immi­grants in Bal­ti­more which became a mod­el for schools across the Unit­ed States, the direc­tor of Youth Aliya to Israel, and an advo­cate for numer­ous pub­lic health ini­tia­tives. She changed the lives of count­less peo­ple — not only the peo­ple in the Unit­ed States and Israel who ben­e­fit­ed from ser­vices that her ini­tia­tives pro­vid­ed, but gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can women for whom Hadas­sah became a mis­sion and a life­long community.

As Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee mem­ber Feli­cia Her­man said, ​“Hen­ri­et­ta Szold’s life is a mod­el for us all, espe­cial­ly in dif­fi­cult times. She was a true pio­neer: as a woman in the world of Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­al life; as a Zion­ist in Amer­i­ca long before Zion­ist ideas became pop­u­lar here; and, lit­er­al­ly, as pio­neer in the pre-State Yishuv, build­ing health­care and child wel­fare insti­tu­tions that have become core insti­tu­tions in Israeli soci­ety.” Now, when so much of our world needs rebuild­ing, the Natan Notable Books com­mit­tee is choos­ing – through the selec­tion of this book– to high­light and hon­or the mem­o­ry of a leader who took it upon her­self to not only raise aware­ness about the issues that she saw but to raise mon­ey and mobi­lize gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can Jew­ish women in par­tic­u­lar on behalf of Israel.

On select­ing Klagsbrun’s book as a Natan Notable Book, the com­mit­tee not­ed that Szold’s grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions were ini­tia­tives designed to, like Natan, to respond to the needs of the time, and the com­mu­ni­ty around her. Com­mit­tee chair, Tali Rosen­blatt-Cohen not­ed, ​“It is par­tic­u­lar­ly res­o­nant for Natan to hon­or a book about Hen­ri­et­ta Szold, a woman who iden­ti­fied the needs of the com­mu­ni­ties she was a part of and cat­alyzed tremen­dous change. Szold ​‘set her eyes on the future,’ a clar­i­on call for us all. Natan is also priv­i­leged to rec­og­nize Francine Klags­brun, who has her­self had tremen­dous impact on the sto­ry of Amer­i­can Jew­ish women, and has writ­ten a com­pelling, nuanced biog­ra­phy of a woman we would do well to remember.”