Hadassah was founded in 1912 to organize American Jewish women to help bring healing to all who needed it in what would become the State of Israel. From the beginning, we served as a bridge to peace through medicine.

On normal days, Hadassah steps up, and at the lowest moments we step higher. When World War I undermined our first medical undertaking, we worked harder and dispatched a fully staffed mobile hospital from New York that became the nucleus of the Hadassah Medical Organization—and of Israel’s health care system. We built our first free-standing hospital on Mount Scopus during the Great Depression. We began sheltering and educating the first Youth Aliyah children from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe, and then Jewish children whose families fled Arab countries after 1948.

We lost our hospital building in 1948 during Israel’s War of Independence but never stopped working and healing. And after building a new campus in Ein Kerem, we reclaimed our original Mount Scopus hospital after the Six-Day War in 1967.

Today, as Israel’s longest war grinds on, our work is more important than ever. We don’t have time to both repair the world and indulge in despair—not in Israel and not in the United States.

Our resilience has been a constant from the outset, but the examples reflect the challenges of the moment. We accelerated the scheduled opening of both the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus and the renovated Round Building on our Ein Kerem campus to more fully meet the needs—emergency and long term, physical and mental—of today.

In recent days, we’ve seen some poignant stories involving Israeli soldiers in our care. One involved an infantry soldier—identified only as “A”—who served as a personal guard and driver for a senior military commander. Accompanying a unit searching for booby traps in Gaza, their vehicle hit a roadside bomb and A threw himself on top of his commander, saving him from injury. A himself suffered wounds to his face and eye and, thanks to Hadassah, is expected to make a full recovery. “I reacted on instinct,” he said. “The commander has huge responsibilities. I needed to protect him.”

Another soldier performing combat duty in Gaza saved a life in a very different manner. As part of his induction in the IDF, Matan Amir had given a saliva sample to the Hadassah Medical Organization’s bone marrow registry. A few months later, he came up as a match for a 3-year-old child with leukemia who needed a transplant. After coordination between the IDF and Dr. Reuven Or, director of HMO’s bone marrow registry, Amir went to Jerusalem, made his donation, and the procedure was successful. “Every donor is a hero,” said Dr. Or, “and Matan is a hero in every sense, saving lives at Hadassah and in the military.”

Hadassah hospitals constitute an oasis of peace where doctors, nurses, technicians, patients and families of all faiths and ethnicities encounter one another in an atmosphere of shared purpose and understanding. That ethos extends to America as well. Late in March, in a powerful demonstration of interfaith collaboration, Hadassah and the American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council co-hosted an interfaith iftar—the fast-breaking evening meal during the month of Ramadan—in Washington. In attendance were members of Congress, international diplomats and community leaders. It was an inspiring example of women driving social change, sharing a meal and engaging in discussion about combating hate and fostering peace.

Hadassah is renowned not only for medical care but also for providing refuge from the stress of war, in recent times for kids from Ukraine and from within Israel as well. A few days ago, we received a lovely message of thanks from a young man at the Hadassah Neurim Youth Aliyah Village. Eliad Malka is from Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanese border; he came to us after his city was evacuated because of constant Hezbollah rocket fire. At Neurim he has continued his studies, made new friends and also discovered the sea. The village is becoming widely known for its marine education and surfing center—and Eliad has become a passionate surfer.

Surfing may be a relatively new enrichment program at Hadassah Neurim, but navigating the tides of history is part of Hadassah’s DNA.

We will continue to stand up and speak out for Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people.