Hadassah has been a pioneer of healing for more than a century, from initiatives to eradicate diseases like malaria, trachoma and cholera in pre-state Israel to the most advanced technologies and treatments of today.

Our medical center in Jerusalem is a global leader in areas from AI to personalized cancer treatments to robotics. We played an early role in the development of the Mazor Robotics Renaissance Guidance System for spine surgery, and today, our doctors and technicians are working closely with Medtronic to develop its robotic-assisted surgery system. Hadassah has partnerships with the world’s leading medical and pharmaceutical research firms, including GE HealthCare, Roche and Merck.

At the same time, we are role models of coexistence. The Hadassah Medical Organization employs and trains doctors and nurses from around the world, including some 70 fellows from the Palestinian Authority. It takes no more than a few minutes walking the hallways of our hospitals to understand our reputation as a bridge to peace, with Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze medical professionals, patients and families interacting with one another and routinely bonding over shared concerns.

Our medical and educational centers did not grow by accident. Hadassah’s excellence, ethics and ethos flow from its roots. The Jewish people have experienced and survived more civilizations than any nation extant today. Our forebears saw the best and the worst the world has to offer, and those of us alive today are witnessing some of history’s worst reruns.

Hadassah and its members are fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism on many fronts. This past summer, Karen Bloom, president of Hadassah’s Central Pacific Coast region and a middle school math teacher, spearheaded efforts to reverse a tide of discrimination and harassment that has plagued the National Education Association Annual Meeting Representative Assemblies since October 7, 2023. At this year’s gathering, she and the NEA’s Jewish Affairs Caucus—with support from Hadassah and other organizations—successfully advanced a series of constitutional amendments and resolutions that address bullying and hate crimes against Jewish students and educators, recognize Jewish American Heritage Month and update the union’s Holocaust resolution to state explicitly that the Shoah was, above all, the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people.

In August, HMO Director-General Dr. Yoram Weiss and I wrote a letter to the editor that was published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet in which we characterized an effort to expel the Israel Medical Association from the World Medical Association as a thinly disguised act of antisemitism and anti-Zionism that would harm global health.

Jewish civilization thrives on simultaneously looking forward and being conscious of our long history. Twists, turns and challenges in our history have fostered intellectual agility and a knack for multitasking. As a people, we have endured and outlived every tyrant and movement that tried to write the final chapter of our story.

At this moment, we are in the waning light of 2026 and already well into the year 5787 on the Jewish calendar. We will soon celebrate an American civic holiday with roots that predate our arrival in the region. The first Thanksgiving was initiated by the Pilgrims, who relied heavily on the Hebrew Bible. They called their place of worship a “meeting house”—a perfect translation of beit knesset
—and hosted their Wampanoag neighbors at a harvest celebration at least partially inspired by Sukkot.

This year, Thanksgiving is followed a week later by Hanukkah, a holiday that recalls imperialists of the past who insisted that an independent Jewish state fell outside the bounds of coexistence.

From Hadassah’s 114 years of accomplishment and from the Jewish millennia, we are blessed with teachings and experiences that are both weighty and light to bear. May we all enjoy this holiday season that exalts gratitude, good neighbors and independence.