The Jewish people are known for movement, from the sandal age to the Boeing 777X age. But if our history proves anything, it is that the most important kind of journey is the round trip. During slavery in Egypt, our forebears dreamed of returning to the Promised Land. When the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem, they exiled much of the population; two generations later, Persian King Cyrus the Great conquered Babylonia and allowed the exiles to return. This led to the building of the Second Temple.

For 2,000 years after the Romans destroyed Judea, most of the Jewish people remained in exile, but there were constant streams of migration—large and small—back to the Jewish homeland. After 1492, exiled Spanish Jews began spreading across the Mediterranean, with some eventually reaching the Land of Israel.

The return of Jews after the birth of the Zionist movement in 1897 followed a well-trodden path. Finally, modern Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence marked the restoration of Jewish sovereignty.

Every time a Jewish family or individual arrives in Israel today, either as a tourist or immigrant, it is in one manner or another the completion of a round trip. There are also round trips that take place entirely within our historic and modern homeland. This is certainly the case with Hadassah. And it is around this time of year, in early June, that two of the most important Hadassah returns took place.

Our first freestanding hospital on Mount Scopus was inaugurated in 1939. In 1948, just before Israel’s rebirth, a convoy on the way to the hospital was attacked by terrorists, killing 78 people—patients, nurses, doctors, medical students and guards. Within a few weeks, we were forced to evacuate the hospital. In an armistice agreement signed a year later, our Mount Scopus building became part of a demilitarized Israeli enclave surrounded by Jordanian territory.

Success in the six-day war in 1967 not only eased a crushing security burden on Israel, it also made Hadassah whole. On June 9, 1967, Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek called Dr. Kalman Mann, then director of our new medical center in Ein Kerem, and said, “If you want your hospital on Mount Scopus, come and get it!” And we returned.

After losing our Mount Scopus hospital, Hadassah had spent years operating out of rented and donated spaces in central Jerusalem. As The New York Times reported on June 6, 1961, “Convoys of Israeli Army ambulances moved most of the hospital patients [in Jerusalem] today to a new Hadassah Medical Center here in the Judean Hills…. In a smooth operation, the ambulances completed the transfer of 195 patients from three hospitals and one clinic.” Today, 65 years later, under the threat of Iranian missiles, we moved patients even more swiftly to modern underground facilities at both of our hospital campuses.

Hadassah’s leaders chose Ein Kerem, a Jewish village dating to the Second Temple period, primarily out of logistical considerations. Nonetheless, it also marked the closing of a circle. Ein Kerem is traditionally regarded as the source of stones used in the Temple’s construction. In 2015, a family in the village—now a neighborhood in Jerusalem—discovered what archaeologists later confirmed was a 2,000-year-old mikveh under their home.

For Hadassah, travel to Israel has long been both a joy and a sacred commitment, but in recent years—amid pandemic and war, first in Gaza and later with Iran—making that round trip has become more rarefied and all the sweeter. At this moment, we are planning a very special homecoming. The Dream Is Real: Hadassah in Israel will be held October 26 to 29. 

Please consider joining this national conference as we show our love and support for Israel. In war. In peace. Hadassah.