The Jewish poet Emma Lazarus wrote the famous refrain hoisted by the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” But it was another Jewish woman, Lillian Wald, who ensured that the huddled masses remained healthy.
Wald, the so-called “Jewish Florence Nightingale,” will be inducted into the Jewish-American Hall of Fame on May 6, the kickoff of National Nurses Week.
Born in 1867, Wald and fellow nurse Mary Brewster visited thousands of impoverished Jewish immigrants in New York, charging negligible fees for their services and often spending nights with sick patients or arranging for surgeons to intervene. The duo created the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service in 1893 and persuaded the city to start its public nursing program.
The Jewish-American Hall of Fame was founded in Berkeley’s Judah L. Magnes Museum in the 1960s and housed there until earlier this decade. To learn more about the hall or to get a medallion like the one pictured here, visit its Web site at www.amuseum.org.