Tamar de Sola Pool (1890–1981)

Tamar de Sola Pool, née Hirschensohn, was born in Jerusalem, the daughter of a scholarly family. The family emigrated first to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), then to the USA in 1904, settling in New Jersey. Influenced by Eliezer Ben Yehuda’s efforts to revive the Hebrew language for modern use, the Hirschensohns spoke only Hebrew with their children at home. In 1913, she graduated from Hunter College, where she studied Latin, Greek, and French. After a year in Paris doing graduate work, she became an instructor of comparative literature at Hunter College. In 1917, she married David de Sola Pool, who became the rabbi of the historic Congregation Shearith Israel -- known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue -- in New York City, and had two children. The couple travelled to Jewish communities in the Far East and Europe to offer help when needed. Along with her older sister Nima Adlerblum, Tamar de Sola Pool was active in Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, and she served as its national president in 1939-1943. She continued Henrietta Szold’s commitment to bring modern medical care to Palestine, promoting the expansion of Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Tamar de Sola Pool also joined the struggle to save the Jewish children in Europe from Nazi persecution. Beginning in 1934, through a project entitled Youth Aliyah, she worked to rescue and resettle children safely in Palestine. After World War II, she arranged teachers and textbooks for displaced children in the detention camps in Cyprus. She co-authored two books with her husband, An Old Faith in the New World (1955) and Is There an Answer? (1966). She also edited a Passover Haggadah for Jewish soldiers serving in the U.S. Armed Forces throughout the world.