Everyone associates Detroit with the auto industry, but there’s another Detroit product that deserves our attention. Instead of engineering and metal, its main components are cloth and tender loving care.

I am referring to dolls, handmade by women and friends of Hadassah Greater Detroit. On my most recent trip to Israel, in July, I took several tote bags filled with the dolls for children being treated at the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Mother and Child Center at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem.

These dolls are dressed in surgical gowns and have features like splints, sutures and IVs added. Our pediatric doctors and nurses use them to explain medical procedures, helping their youngest patients better understand what to expect during their hospital stays. In addition to explaining, the dolls also serve as an emotional outlet, encouraging kids to express their feelings about their illness or injury.

“With over 80,000 dolls lovingly made, we’ve delivered comfort and compassion when children are at their most vulnerable,” says Marcie Rosen, president of Hadassah Greater Detroit. “Each doll we send is a hug from us to a child in Israel, a reminder that even in the hardest moments they are… never alone.”

A lot of history went into the dolls I was privileged to carry. It’s a history that began with the first two nurses Hadassah sent to Jerusalem in 1913—the same year Detroit’s first auto assembly line went into operation. More than a century of building and healing has made Hadassah a fixture of Israel’s medical and emotional landscape and a palpable symbol of American Jewish activism in the Zionist movement.

My recent trip also included meetings with high-ranking Israeli leaders. Accompanied by Hadassah Medical Organization Board Chair Dalia Itzik, I met with members of the Knesset, including Speaker Amir Ohana, Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Benny Gantz, who is a former deputy prime minister, minister of defense and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff. I shared with them our pride in helping build Israel’s health care infrastructure, making Hadassah a global leader in medical treatment and research, and also Jerusalem’s second-largest employer behind only the Israeli government.

My schedule also included the opening ceremony of the 42nd Jerusalem Film Festival, held at Sultan’s Pool amphitheater. Gal Gadot—a true Wonder Woman on screen and off—was on hand to receive two awards. One was from the Film Festival itself, in recognition of her two-decade career and her contributions to international cinema. And I was privileged to present her with Hadassah’s Power of Dreams Award. Before—but especially after—October 7, 2023, this celebrated artist has been a vocal defender and champion of Israel, often in the face of criticism, making her as much a hero in real life as she is in her films.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“I love my country, and I am proud to be a part of it and to make our voices heard,” she told the audience of 7,000. She also shared her prayer for an end to the Gaza war and for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages.

While Gadot and I were talking, I remarked how proud I thought her parents must be of her. She said that regardless of her career she was still “just a girl from Rosh Ha’ayin.” To me, this was one more indication that success has only amplified the values she grew up with. And it reminded me of the Jewish women who likewise took their values from families and communities in Detroit or Cincinnati, in West Hollywood or North Miami Beach, Crown Heights or Shaker Heights, and across America. This is the power we harness in Hadassah—the power of dreams, to be sure, but also the power to heal and repair the world.