title: Pioneering Jewish women doctors in Eretz Israel (Ottoman Palestine) 1900-1918.
abstract: The first female Jewish doctors in Eretz Israel at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries were partners in laying the foundations of its health system in Eretz Israel. They were young doctors in their late twenties or even mid-thirties, graduates of European medical schools. Educated, independent women, with high motivation and belief in the future of medicine in the country, they worked unceasingly, with devotion and determination and invested most of their efforts and knowledge in creating medical institutions there, in order that a new generation, sound in mind and body, might flourish. These doctors came with a sense of vocation, viewing medicine as a national, Zionist mission and not merely a source of income. Despite the contribution these first doctors made to the creation of the health system in this country, they remained largely anonymous, while their medical and social involvement has been largely ignored in the historical literature. This paper focuses on twenty-two women who successfully completed their medical studies in European institutions, followed by emigration to Eretz Israel between 1900 and 1918. While the secondary literature mentions these women individually they are not considered as a group.
authors.forename: Zipora
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shehory-Rubin
mesh_terms: D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D007585:Jews / Q000266:history*; D057214:Ottoman Empire; D010822:Physicians, Women / Q000266:history*