How Hadassah Taught Me to Advocate for Women’s Empowerment

The author with other Hadassah members at a pre-Hadassah Convention trip to Petra, Jordan. Photo courtesy of the author.

Pictured left to right: Michele Foster, Bobbi Kraft, former U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, Paula Mann, and Joyce Laiter. Photo courtesy of the author.

I once was asked the question, “When did I become such a powerful advocate for Hadassah and Israel?” I will try to explain my journey.

When I got the terrible news last August that my husband was going to die from a Glioblastoma tumor in a few months I turned  to Jewish music to get me through my late evening tears. I heard the song by Elana Arian called “I have a voice” sung by teens from a UJC camp. I realized then that since I was a teen I had become fascinated by the question, “Can one person change the world?”

As I learned about the horrors of the Holocaust as a young student I became obsessed with this question. One person certainly turned an entire country against the Jews enough for them to murder and torture more than six million. Could one person have changed the course of history? Perhaps not one person, but a lot of people who believed they could change the world might have.

I started my life as a post-teen volunteer as a college student manning a child abuse hotline. Talking with both the abused and the abusers themselves gave me insight into the way history can repeat itself without intervention. This led to my changing my career choice from becoming a lawyer to becoming a counselor. I began to understand more about how life’s stressors could cause this abuse, as well as a past history of being abused.

My next volunteer activity was with battered women and children. I worked on starting a children’s program for all the children at the shelter including both fun activities and counseling specifically for them. I also started answering the hotline after intensive training, despite my already being a certified counselor.

I began to fight for legislation that supported women rather than their abusers. I learned how to be assertive with often unsupportive police and courts. I fought hard to remove the stigma of leaving an  unsafe family and reporting abuse. I became an advocate for battered women.

At 30, I became involved with Hadassah and was drawn not only to their support of the state of Israel and our two hospitals in Israel but of the story of Henrietta Szold, one woman who did change the course of history. Through Hadassah, advocacy on behalf of Israel and women’s health became my passion. Understanding their mission drove me to become a voice, admittedly sometimes a loud voice, on behalf of Israel.

I became president of a large Philadelphia Hadassah chapter, then on to the region board and then the presidency of the Hadassah Greater Philadelphia Region. I don’t think there was one moment exactly, but for me a singular moment of advocacy was when in my role as president, I spoke at the state capitol in support of legislation strengthening hate crime laws in Pennsylvania.

Along with the fifty Hadassah women who accompanied me, I felt I had a powerful voice and so did they. In that speech, I used this quote from Eli Weisel: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Many legislators told me it was the most motivating speech they had ever heard. Was it Elie Wiesel’s words that proved most effective, surely, but perhaps it was also the passion with which they were spoken.

Prior to this, I was asked to appear before a U.S. Senate panel on looking at the rise of antisemitism. In the moments before the hearing I was asked to answer a question on video: “How are hate crimes different from other crimes ” I thought quickly and I answered that all crimes are terrible but hate crimes make an entire community afraid.

I used the story of how our region president found a swastika on her lawn in the snow. It continues as the rising antisemitism around the world and at home on many college campuses and communities makes most Jewish people afraid. Only standing up against it can make us safer.

In my recent position as vice-chair of American Advocacy Affairs for Hadassah. I saw how the reversal of Roe v. Wade drove many young women in very conservative states to fight back and saw how successful they were. Did they learn that advocacy was about how many “one persons” could change the world? I hope they did.

Now, after October 7, when Israel needs our support, I hope these same Hadassah women will feel I have a voice, and my voice is powerful. Our very existence as a state might depend upon it.

For over 38 years I worked as a counselor in the Philadelphia public school system. In this job, I worked with many teens who were touched by gun violence, and this solidified my opposition to assault weapons.

My two worlds collided when Hadassah was asked to help with an around-the-clock filibuster of the U.S. Senate, hammering out a nonpartisan deal to take action on gun violence.

I engaged speakers for our effort from Hadassah and I decided to talk about my students lives. Just a month before at the high school where I used to work, a terrible shooting occurred. Five teens jumped from their cars and shot 78 bullets into a football practice with three schools. Many were injured and surely all were injured psychologically when one young student was killed.

That legislation was eventually hammered out and I felt the strong advocacy from both Hadassah and multiple organizations contributed. I spoke without my notes from my personal passion for the ban on assault weapons. Can I change the world? At 73, after more than 60 years of advocacy I still hope so. Can you?

The song that brought me to think and write about my journey is a beautiful one.

I will open my eyes, I will not look away.
I will use this gift I have been given every day.
I have a voice, my voice is powerful, my voice can change the world.
Change the world. Change the world.
I will give of myself, I will reach out my hand, I will use this heart I have been given to take a stand.
I have a voice, my voice is powerful, my voice can change the world. Change the world!
I will fight for the truth, I will stand up for what’s right, I will use this strength I have been given to stay alive.
I have a voice, my voice is powerful, my voice can change the world.

—

Michele is a member of the Hadassah Writers’ Circle, a dynamic and diverse writing group for leaders and members to express their thoughts and feelings about all the things Hadassah does to make the world a better place, to celebrate their personal Hadassah journeys and to share their Jewish values, family traditions and interpretations of Jewish texts.  Since 2019, the Hadassah Writers’ Circle has published nearly 450 columns in the Times of Israel Blog and other Jewish media outlets. Interested? Please contact hwc@hadassah.org.