NEW YORK, NY — At its recent 2025 Founders Dinner in Miami, members and supporters of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, pledged $23 million for its Jerusalem medical center, the Hadassah Medical Organization, and programs in Israel and the United States. Philanthropists Ernest and Evelyn Rady, Eva Cantor and Jane Winer made multi-million-dollar pledges worth a combined $18 million.
Mr. and Mrs. Rady announced a gift of $10 million for pediatrics programs and facilities at the Hadassah Medical Organization. This is the second multi-million-dollar gift from the couple, who funded the creation of the Rady Mother and Child Center, which opened on the medical center’s Mount Scopus campus in 2018.
Eva Cantor pledged $5 million to fund the creation of the Eva and Mark Cantor Neurorehabilitation Department at the medical center’s state-of-the-art 323,000-square-foot, eight-story Gandel Rehabilitation Center while Jane Winer pledged $3 million for an operating room at the medical center dedicated to in vitro fertilization.
“The overwhelming generosity shown at this year’s Founders Dinner demonstrates our members’ and supporters’ passion for Hadassah’s work and our mission to help heal the world,” said Carol Ann Schwartz, National President. “We are particularly grateful to Ernest and Evelyn Rady, Eva Cantor and Jane Winer for their transformative gifts.”
Other major gifts include a generous gift of $650,000 from Jacquie Bayley to establish The Bayley Family Limb Center at the Gandel Rehabilitation Center. The Bayley Family Limb Center will serve patients who have lost an arm and/or a leg and need osteointegration, an advanced reconstruction technique that eliminates the need for traditional prostheses.
Large pledges were made to fund a patient welcome center and an orthopedic unit at the Gandel center, medical research and nursing, and to support Evolve Hadassah: The Next Generation, Hadassah’s leadership development initiative.
Among the many other Hadassah programs for which pledges were made is Hadassah’s Youth Aliyah program in Israel, which sets vulnerable teens and pre-teens on the path to a successful future. Since 1934, more than 300,000 students from 80 countries have graduated from Youth Aliyah.
“Seeing so many people stand to share their personal stories and connections to Hadassah as they announced their gifts was extraordinary,” said Ellen Finkelstein, CEO, who joined Hadassah in January. “I am grateful to those with long histories who continue to support this organization and I am honored to welcome the newcomers who attended the Founders Dinner for the first time.”
A highlight of the evening was a conversation between Finkelstein and Michael Oren, Israel’s former United States ambassador, who attended the dinner with his wife, Tamara. Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz and Hadassah Medical Organization board of trustees chair Dalia Itzik and director general Yoram Weiss, MD, also addressed the guests.
The formal program ended with a moving presentation by a young Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who had been severely wounded in the war. He credited not only his Hadassah Medical Organization surgeons, doctors and nurses for his recovery but also the exceptional and highly personal care he received at the Gandel Rehabilitation Center. He thanked his psychologist, in particular, for helping him come to terms with the extreme stress of having been a 23-year-old unit commander in a remote Gaza outpost and later a critically injured casualty who initially had to contemplate losing a leg.
The Gandel center, at which care for those dealing with PTSD, anxiety and depression is just one of many specialties, has treated 1,000 people since welcoming its first patients, 72 wounded IDF soldiers, in January of 2024 after its opening was accelerated because of the war. While many of the $133 million facility’s services and departments are up and running, $25 million is needed to complete the center’s construction and outfitting.
The Gandel center is filling a huge gap, exacerbated by the war, in rehabilitation services throughout Israel but more acute in several areas, including Greater Jerusalem. When completed, the center will serve 10,000 patients annually in four in-patient units with a total of 140 beds – a 250 percent increase for the Hadassah Medical Organization – and an outpatient clinic able to see 250 patients a day.