Jessie Sampter | |
---|---|
Born | New York City | March 22, 1883
Died | November 25, 1938 55) | (aged
Resting place | Givat Brenner, Israel |
Occupation | Educator, poet |
Language | English, Hebrew |
Jessie Sampter (March 22, 1883 – 1938) was a Jewish educator, poet, and Zionist pioneer. She was born in New York City and immigrated to Palestine in 1919. [1]
Jessie Ethel Sampter was born in New York City to Rudolph Sampter, a New York attorney, and Virginia Kohlberg Sampter, who maintained an assimilated Jewish home. She had one sister, Elvie. At the age of thirteen she contracted polio which prevented her from leaving home. Since she was unable to attend school her family hired tutors. Later she audited courses at Columbia University.
In her twenties she joined the Unitarian Church and began writing poetry. Her poems and short stories emphasized her primary concerns: pacifism, Zionism, and social justice. [2] Around this time, she began spending time in the home of Henrietta Szold and began to appreciate the Eastern European Jews of New York City. She moved into a settlement house on the Lower East Side, then to a Young Women's Hebrew Association.
Assuming the role of Hadassah's leading educator, she produced manuals and textbooks and organized lectures and classes. She led Hadassah's School of Zionism, training speakers and leaders for both Hadassah and other Zionist organizations like the Federation of American Zionists (then the Zionist Organization of America). She composed educational manuals with Alice Seligsberg and edited a textbook on Zionism.
In 1919 she settled in Palestine where she helped organize the country's first Jewish Scout camp. Sampter developed a strong commitment to assisting Yemenite Jews, founding classes and clubs especially for Yemenite girls and women who often received no education. She adopted a Yemenite foundling and raised her with progressive education.
Sampter died at Beilinson Hospital at 10:00 am on Friday 25 November 1938 of malaria and heart disease and was buried at Givat Brenner the following Sunday afternoon, 27 November. [3] [4] At the time of her death she had established a vegetarian convalescent home at Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Szold presided at her funeral.
Sampter is one of several popular 'philosophers' whose quotations appear on the roadsigns of Project HIMANK in the Ladakh region of northern India. [5]
Henrietta Szold was an American-born Jewish Zionist leader and founder of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America. In 1942, she co-founded Ihud, a political party in Mandatory Palestine dedicated to a binational solution.
Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with nearly 300,000 members in the United States. Hadassah fundraises for community programs and health initiatives in Israel, including the Hadassah Medical Organization, two leading research hospitals in Jerusalem. In the US, the organization advocates on behalf of women's rights, religious autonomy and US–Israel diplomacy. In Israel, Hadassah supports health education and research, women's initiatives, schools and programs for underprivileged youth.
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Youth Aliyah is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their resettlement in Palestine in kibbutzim and youth villages that became both home and school.
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Dorothy Bar-Adon was an American-born Israeli journalist. Her early experience as a correspondent was gained on The Atlantic CityPress. From her immigration to Mandate Palestine in 1933 until her death she worked as a journalist for The Palestine Post, covering a wide range of international and domestic issues. She died at 43.
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Rose Gell Jacobs (1888-1975) was a founding member and two-term president of Hadassah Women's Zionist Organization of America.
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Olga Hankin was a feminist, professional midwife and Zionist activist who, together with her husband, Yehoshua Hankin, was responsible for most of the major land purchases of the Zionist Organization in Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine. While he became known as a prominent "redeemer of lands" (Hebrew) גואל האדמות she, too, was instrumental in this work.
Louise Wise was a Jewish-American artist and social worker. Her husband was Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.