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Sale 49
Lot 593
Szold, Henrietta (1860-1945) U.S. Jewish scholar and Zionist leader, born in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of a rabbi. She founded the Jewish women's organization Hadassah in 1912 and served as its president until 1926. In 1933 working with Hadassah in Palestine, she ran Youth Aliyah which rescued some 22,000 Jewish children from Nazi Europe. Szold lived the rest of her life in Palestine and died in Jerusalem on 13 February 1945.
Remarkable autograph letter signed as president of Hadassah, 4pp, 6½ x 5¼ in., on a folded lettersheet, Waco, Texas, 31 December 1917. Written to Judge and Mrs. S. J. Strauss in Pennsylvania only weeks after the Balfour Declaration was issued. Accompanied by the original envelope with Szold's return address care of Hadassah. In part: "…I have a very strong sense of obligation towards you – your hospitality extended to my person and my propaganda of the 're-establishment of the People of the Holy Land as an independent nation' in relation to the Jews. But the centre of Jewish (?) which, according to your idea, could then arise in Palestine, would not be the Zionist centre we dream of. The Zionist insistence is that the Jew must have one spot on earth on which the Jewish spirit shall be absolutely free, and to secure such freedom the whole…must be Jewish, its political form as well as every other national manifestation. Such Jewish predominance acknowledged…will not stand in the way of that equal protection for all faiths which in your opinion can be secured only by the…predominance of the Jew through slow infiltration. In this Christian American nation of ours equal protection for all faiths has been secured. Under our Jewish Jewish nation – a nation Jewish in race and faith - all faiths will be free as well. But this freedom that will prevail will be one of the affluences of the Jewishly-constituted national life. The Zionist demand is unblinking - a legally-assured, publicly sound…homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine…If you are to visit Palestine and see our new Jewish life then with your own eyes, you who drew up the near-Zionist resolutions would take the small but all-significant step to the Zionist platform… With cordial regards and with best wishes for a happy new year for our stricken world…" S.J. Strauss was a Pennsylvania judge and early Zionist leader. Minor fold splits and a few contemporary ink smears on one page, otherwise about fine.
Estimated Value $3,500 - 4,500.
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