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Irma Levy Lindheim

(1886 - 1978)

Born in New York City, to German Jewish parents, Lindheim became a Zionist at age twenty-one. After the birth of her five children, she began lecturing about Zionism.  In 1922, she began studying rabbinics at the Jewish Institute of Religion while also studying child development with John Dewey at Columbia Teacher's College.  After a trip to Palestine in 1925, she abandoned her studies and devoted herself to Zionism and fundraising for organization such as Histadrut.  The next year, she succeeded Henrietta Szold as president of Hadassah. Due to a political conflict, Lindheim was forced to resign from Hadassah; she traveled to Palestine and joined Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek where she remained except for periods of international lobbying on behalf of Zionist and civil rights causes. She spent a great deal of time in the United States with her family, who lived on the east and west coast. She helped develop family-based Jewish educational programs in the United  States. She died at her younger son's home in Berkeley, California in 1978.


Sources: Jewish Women's Archive