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| Helena Kagan |
Helena Kagan,the first paediatrician in Israel
1889 – 1978
Helena
Kagan, a pioneer of pediatric medicine in pre-State Palestine, is known to this
day as the children’s doctor of Jerusalem, the city where she settled following
her aliyah in 1914. Kagan tended to generations of children—Jews, Muslims and
Christians—saving many of them from sickness and death. She devoted her life to
improving welfare services and living conditions. In her memoirs, she wrote:
“Throughout my career, I tried to uphold my two great loves: the love of
children and the love of Jerusalem. I sought to instill in the Arab residents
the sense that we—the Jews returning to our homeland—are sincerely interested
in peace and friendly relations with all
Kagan
was born on September 25, 1889 in Tashkent, capital of Turkestan (later
Uzbekistan) in Russia. Her family consisted of her mother Miriam, a native of
Riga; her father Moshe (d. 1912), from Latvia; and a brother, Noah (b.
1885). Kagan’s father, a descendant of the famed Vilna Gason,s tudied in
yeshiva in Warsaw and at the Institute of Technology in St. Petersburg. As a
chemical engineer, he was sent to establish and supervise the construction of
glass-manufacturing plants in Tashkent; there, Kagan was born, grew up, and
completed her studies. In early 1905, Noah left Russia to study medicine in
Breslau, Germany, while Kagan traveled to Switzerland to study piano at the
Bern Conservatory. At the same time, she commenced premedical studies as an
external student, but it was only two years later that she received permission
to be examined on the course material. Her success in the examinations paved
the way for her to enter the medical school as a regular student.
In
1910, she completed her basic medical studies, going on to specialize in
pediatrics. Upon completing her studies, Kagan accepted an offer to join the
research staff of the Medical Faculty’s Department of Physiology, but first she
traveled to Russia to see her family. Her father, who lay on his deathbed,
implored his children to go to Palestine, so that they might see with their own
eyes “the land the Jewish people lost but have never forgotten.”
Kagan
carried out her father’s dying wish, and on April 29, 1914, she and her mother
set foot “on the soil of the Holy Land.” After a brief stay in Tel Aviv, Kagan
moved to Jerusalem, where she was henceforth to live and work. She moved into a
stone house near the Meah She’arim neighborhood, set up a clinic and laboratory
in one of its rooms, and waited for patients. To her disappointment, they were
slow in coming: since she was only twenty-five, no one took seriously “this
young woman who claimed to be a doctor.”
In
the interim, World War I had broken out, and the Ottoman regime did not permit
her to work in her profession. In order to manage financially, she rented out
rooms in her home and from 1914 to 1916 worked as a nurse at the municipal
hospital. In addition, Kagan trained Arab and Jewish girls aged fifteen to
sixteen to serve as hospital nurses, and worked in tandem with two public
health nurses sent by Hadassah in America to institute a regional visiting
nurse program for mother and child care.
With
the outbreak of the war the two Hadassah nurses left Palestine and Kagan
continued to provide medical assistance from her home. To overcome the high
rate of infant mortality resulting from malnutrition, she purchased a cow and
preserved its milk in bottles placed in clay containers filled with water; this
milk would be given to sick children who visited her clinic. Slowly but surely,
Kagan’s work at the municipal hospital garnered respect, and she earned the
trust of the Jewish and Arab communities alike despite the fact that she was a
young, inexperienced female physician. The loving names bestowed on
her—“savior-doctor,” “angel of salvation” and “wonder doctor”—testify to the
deep admiration in which she was held.
In 1924 Kagan set up a children’s home in the Sha’arei Hessed
neighborhood of Jerusalem for orphaned and abandoned children and infants from
impoverished neighborhoods, where they could receive shelter and devoted care.
Kagan served as the institution’s medical director, guided by the belief that
it is the infancy and preschool years that determine the future physical and
emotional development of the child. In keeping with this approach, she began
working in 1925 at the Infants Home for Arab Children in the Old City of
Jerusalem, where she served as medical director until 1948, when Jews were
barred from that section of the city. Throughout she was an active member of
WIZO. In 1936 she established Bikur Holim Hospital’s pediatrics department,
which she headed until 1975. Kagan also established a special rheumatic fever
division, combining it with her pediatrics department. She later served as
chairwoman of the Israel Medical Association’s medical advisory committee on
rheumatic fever. In July 1965 she founded a residential facility for asthmatic
children in conjunction with the WIZO Baby Home in Jerusalem.
During
Israel’s War of Independence, when Jerusalem was under siege, Kagan was
appointed director of the medical department of the Jewish community of
Jerusalem, a position which she also filled on the Central Medical Council.
Assigned the task of running all medical and sanitary services in the city, her
work included tending to refugees from the Arab neighborhoods and people
confined to bomb shelters. But the bulk of her energy was devoted to rescuing
infants and she took babies from dangerous areas to stay at the WIZO Baby Home.
Kagan
was involved not only in medical activity but also in community work. In 1920
she was among the founders of the Histadrut Nashim Ivriot (Hebrew Women’s
Organization), which became the local chapter of WIZO. The organization’s
charter meeting was held in her home. She served as a member of World WIZO’s
board of directors from its inception and was a lifetime honorary member of
World WIZO. 1951 and in 1958. She also chaired the Health Ministry’s Advisory
Committee on Child Welfare from 1953 to 1956.
Kagan
became a legend in her own time, receiving numerous awards. In 1958 she was
granted the title of Honorary Citizen of Jerusalem in recognition of her unique
contribution to society and the community in the field of communal activity.
This was followed in 1963 by an award from the La Rabida Hospital for Rheumatic
Diseases of the University of Chicago for her contribution to research on
rheumatic fever and in 1967, at an historic ceremony on Mt. Scopus, by an
honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University, together with then-Chief of
General Staff Yitzhak Rabin and President of Israel Zalman Shazar. In 1975, in
honor of International Women’s Year, she was awarded the Israel Prize for her
service to the community.
In 1936 Kagan married Emil Hauser (1893–1978), a gifted
violinist who in 1933 founded the Palestine Conservatory of Music in Jerusalem,
which he directed for many years and of which Kagan herself served as honorary
secretary from 1938 to 1946. The couple’s home was a center of music and
culture, serving as a gathering place for concerts and meetings with local and
international Zionist leaders.
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