TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 11, Palestine Zionist Executive letterhead, May 21, 1928. Szold writes a New York doctor concerning the situation in Palestine. In part: “What Doctor Bluestone says concerning letters from Americans whose relatives in Palestine are undergoing the severe trials of unemployment is entire true. Practically I get no American mail without a request to interest myself in one or another member of the writer’s family. So far as Hadassah is concerned…I am not even in the remotest way connected with its internal administration. I never interfered with the appointment of the personnel. It is for that purpose that we have always insisted that we must put at the head of the medical organization a professional man who will choose his personnel from the professional point of view insofar as that is possible in Palestine. Moreover, there is very little movement in Palestine from place to place, and once an employee has a situation, it is only a rare occurrence for him to go to another. Opportunities are too few in Palestine for any such experiments in employment. The result is that vacancies occur very infrequently.” In very good condition, with multiple intersecting folds, small clear stain over her first name, paperclip impression at the upper left corner, and small edge tears many of which have been repaired on the reverse with vintage tape.
Szold was one of the seven women who, in 1912, founded Hadassah, serving as its president until 1926. The organization’s purposed was to recruit American Jewish women to upgrade health care in Palestine, going on to create hospitals other medical services for Palestine's Jewish and Arab inhabitants. She eventually stopped her involvement with its internal administration, and by the time of this letter was serving on the Health Department of the Palestine Zionist executive committee.
As noted here, a severe economic crisis gripped the Jewish community in Palestine from 1926 until mid-1928, resulting in a high level of unemployment. “Practically I get no American mail without a request to interest myself in one or another member of the writer’s family,” Szold writes the New York doctor, who was obviously one of the many people who turned to her,unsuccessfully, for assistance. “Once an employee has a situation, it is only a rare occurrence for him to go to another. Opportunities are too few in Palestine for any such experiments in employment,” Szold bluntly states. RRAuction COA.
