Hadassah 2025: Highlights From a Year of Impact

For Hadassah, another year wrapped up means another year of lifechanging impact. From pioneering lifesaving medical procedures and standing up to antisemitism to advocating for women’s health and building bridges to peace, we have much to be proud of.

Take a look back at highlights from 2025.

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Celebrating Excellence

• The Hadassah Medical Organization ranked as one of Newsweek’s “World’s Best Hospitals” for the first time — and was again recognized for cardiology, oncology and smart technology — and earned top marks from Israel’s Ministry of Health’s 2025 Quality Index Report.
• At the inauguration of the cutting-edge Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus, Israeli President Herzog described the center as "granting an essential gift to every human being it helps.”
• Said actress Gal Gadot on receiving Hadassah’s Power of Dreams Award: “I love my country, and I’m proud to be a part of it and to make our voices heard…. A huge thank-you for the award to Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, which plays a vital role in the development of medicine in Israel."

• Forbes included Hadassah on its list of “100 Top Charities,” and Candid honored Hadassah with its Gold Seal of Transparency.
• Hadassah Offices in Israel stalwarts Barbara “BG” Goldstein and Barbara Sofer were presented with Hadassah-Israel’s highest award, Bonei Yerushalayim (Builders of Jerusalem).
• Hadassah Magazine won 13 Simon Rockower Awards, the annual prizes for excellence in Jewish journalism handed out by the American Jewish Press Association.
• Hadassah’s Marketing & Communications Division received the 62nd GDUSA Design Award for the creative and digital design of Hadassah’s 2024 Impact Report: Unwavering.

Future Forward: The Hadassah Medical Organization Highlights at a Glance

• At Hadassah’s 2025 National Conference, members and supporters pledged $23 million to support the groundbreaking work at Hadassah hospitals, as well as programs in Israel and the United States.
• In 2025, Hadassah hospitals are the first in Israel to:
  • perform a total artificial heart transplant.
  • perform a revolutionary epilepsy surgery.
  • perform cardiac bypass surgery immediately followed by a liver transplant
  • acquire the VECTRA WB360 3D, a noninvasive whole-body imaging system that allows doctors to examine the skin on a patient’s entire body in just two minutes.
• • Groundbreaking studies and research collaborations show:
    • childhood trauma and certain hormones can contribute to adolescent suicide risk.
    • positive effects of an innovative autologous stem cell therapy for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
    • potential to significantly improve diabetes management.
    • hypnosis as a potential alternative to weight-loss surgery.
    • IDF veterans face an increased risk of ALS (first-of-its-kind study).
  • Doctors helped a paralyzed patient walk again by performing a complex, two-stage procedure using the Mazor Robotics system to detach a rare tumor from his spinal cord and then remove it.  
  • A newly opened Breast Health Center of Excellence at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem offers patients integrated breast cancer care in one location.
  • A patient living with cystic fibrosis, long considered a grave pediatric lung disease, celebrated his 80th birthday.
  • “Honoring the cream of the crop today, in a challenging time period for our country, was an important moment and a great source of pride for all of Hadassah,” said Suzie Patt Benvenisti, then-executive director of the Hadassah Offices in Israel, at the annual Nurses Above and Beyond ceremony.

Building Bridges in the US, Israel and Beyond

• Hadassah trauma and psychology experts immediately responded to the terror attack in Australia during Hanukkah, providing crisis-intervention training to Australian physicians and mental health professionals.
• Hadassah partnered with the American Muslim and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council in Washington, DC, for the inaugural National Conference of Women Changemakers. “We are much stronger when we stand together rather than standing apart,” said Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz.
• Rely Alon, deputy director of the Hadassah Medical Organization’s (HMO) Division of Nursing and Health Professions, and Orit Meridan, patient and family experience manager, presented on how Hadassah hospitals maintained professionalism among their ethnically and religiously diverse staff during wartime at a Transcultural Nursing Society conference in Maine.
• Responding to Hurricane Melissa, a pediatric emergency team joined a delegation to Jamaica organized by Israel’s Ministry of Health.
• Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem welcomed a US delegation of top medical professionals who visited as part of a medical mission to Israel.
• Burns Unit Director Dr. Stav Sarna Kahn and senior anesthesiologist Dr. Yuval Meroz were part of a crisis response delegation organized by the Israeli Ministry of Health to provide medical assistance to burn victims in North Macedonia.
• Hadassah’s 32-person delegation, including leaders and Young Judaeans, had a strong presence at the 39th World Zionist Congress (WZC) in Jerusalem, helping shape the direction and leadership of Zionism. Earlier in the year, Hadassah launched the campaign Vote Your Values, encouraging Jewish Americans to vote in WZC elections.
• Nearly 500 women and men came Together Under the Sun for Hadassah’s 2025 National Conference to learn, share and strategize about advancing Hadassah hope and healing.

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Hadassah Changemakers

• “I am so excited to get out and start meeting Hadassah leaders around the country,” said Ellen Finkelstein upon becoming CEO on January 6.
• Our 2025 18 American Zionist Women You Should Know, including an Emmy Award-winning actress, help us lift up Zionism with pride.
• Hadassah Greater Atlanta raised $350,000 to support the completion of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center at Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus during its Myrtle Wreath Awards event.
• Evolve Hadassah: The Next Generation continued to empower Zionist women, including through the Evolve Leadership Fellows tour of Israel.
• A delegation of doctors and Youth Aliyah students helped bring Hadassah’s work in Israel to life during the second Bring Israel to the US tour.
• “My deeper understanding of the work of Hadassah led to greater support for the organization, both financially and timewise,” said Alan Lipschultz, president of the Associates.

United Against Antisemitism

• With Jewish Women International and the National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah honored the Jewish women of the 119th Congress for advocating to strengthen the US-Israel relationship, fight hatred and antisemitism, and champion women’s and public health.
• Mirroring national efforts to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel biases, grassroots Hadassah leaders spoke out at the state level, including in Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and California.
• Hadassah’s professional councils helped educate about antisemitism in their fields. Online programs included the Hadassah Physicians Council’s Antisemitism in Our Personal and Professional Lives and the Hadassah Educators Council’s Antisemitism in Education: Real Stories from the Front Lines, an Interactive Workshop.

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Advancing Women’s Health and Gender Equity in the US

• Hadassah led a letter signed by 27 organizations urging Congress to protect funding for research that helps identify and address the unique health challenges faced by women.
• During Breast Cancer Awareness Month, hundreds of members and supporters across the country participated in events to support Hadassah’s year-round critical work to fight the disease.
• In 2025, the Hadassah Foundation achieved an 80 percent increase in grantmaking over the last three years to advance gender equity in the US and Israel.

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Nurturing Young Hearts & Minds

• Students at Hadassah’s two youth villages, Meir Shfeyah and Hadassah Neurim, provide a guided tour of where they live, study and spend their extracurricular time.
• Meir Shfeyah Youth Aliyah Village dedicated the Albert and Victoria Naggar Dormitory, the village’s first new dormitory since 1989.
• Hadassah and the Hadassah Medical Organization signed a sponsorship agreement with Israeli women’s basketball team Hapoel Lev Jerusalem, which empowers hundreds of women and girls from all sectors of Israeli society.
• Meir Shfeyah students planted a new vineyard to provide hands-on learning for students majoring in vineyard management and winery making.
• Students at Hadassah Neurim challenged themselves as part of a new all-girl cycling team.
• Hadassah Neurim celebrated the 25th anniversary of Hadassah’s Joy of Judaism program.
• About 150 students from Youth Aliyah villages traveled to Poland on a Hadassah-sponsored trip to Poland to learn about Jewish life in the country and the Holocaust.

Israel at War

• Hadassah’s One Heart, One People: A Commemoration of October 7 event brought the Jewish community together to mark the second anniversary of the October 7 terror attacks, and Hadassah Medical Organization doctors were featured on a special broadcast produced by the Jewish Agency for Israel and ILTV, commemorating the anniversary.
• As Iran attacked Israel, Hadassah hospitals quickly shifted operations to underground units, where patients could be treated safely, and Hadassah’s youth villages implemented crisis measures.
• “Today we rejoice that the remaining 20 living hostages have finally been freed and reunited with their families,” Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz said in a statement.
• Thanks to 150,000-plus advocates who spoke out to #EndTheSilence, a new UN report blacklists Hamas by adding the terrorist group to the report’s “annex” as a party credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for sexual violence.

Hadassah Online

• Hadassah launched the Hadassah Magazine Presents podcast, based on the popular Zoom series, featuring Jewish women and writers, including Mayim Bialik and Dara Horn.  
• The Hadassah On Call podcast brought exciting medical news and practical health tips to listeners.
• Our refreshed YouTube page features videos that demonstrate Hadassah’s lifechanging impact.
• Advocates sent 52,000 letters pertaining to our policy priorities to policymakers through the National Action Center.

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