Nostalgia Sunday – Shaare Zedek Hospital’s Schwester Selma

November 1, 2009 - 3:36 PM by Rachel Neiman

I didn’t know Schwester Selma but there is one time when perhaps our paths might have crossed. That would be in 1973, when my sisters and I were rushed to Jerusalem’s old Shaare Zedek hospital after a car accident (we came out with minor cuts, bruises, a few stitches in my sister’s forehead and a lifetime of self-enforced responsible driving ahead of us). Schwester Selma served from 1916 as head nurse and retired in 1973, so who knows?

The country’s first trained nurse, Schwester Selma was one of those legendary Jerusalem institutions from the pre-State era that people of my mother’s generation knew well, their children knew somewhat and their grandchildren know not at all. I encountered Schwester Selma’s biography while looking into the background of a series of photos documenting the old hospital building, which believe you me, was nothing like the new one – I can still remember the patchwork of floor tiles – but thank goodness the hospital was easy to reach and not in the middle of some out-of-the-way forest like some other Jerusalem hospitals I could mention if I cared to.

Here it is on Jaffa Road. The building now houses the Israel Broadcast Authority offices.
Tsadok Bassan - Shaare Zedek exterior

Then, as now, Shaare Zedek prided itself on being the only centrally located hospital in Jerusalem. There were the Misgav LaDach birthing hospital and general hospital Bikur Holim was under construction but Shaare Zedek was pretty much it during the World War I when Selma Meyer arrived to do her wartime service in Palestine (the Turkish Ottoman Empire was allied with Germany during the war).

Shaare Zedek nurse checking patient pulse Her autobiography includes a couple of juicy tidbits about illness and cure back in the so-called Good Old Days: “There were two epidemics right them. We were the only Jewish hospital in the new city. The old Bikur Cholim had also started building in the new city, which, however, could not be continued because of the war. Typhoid, typhus, and meningocael meningitis, all very severe cases, were hospitalized with us. Thousands of typhoid cases were passing through our hospital, probably caused by dirt; there was hardly any water. Additionally the people suffered terribly from hunger; there was hardly anything to eat.” Out of discretion to the reader, I’ve cut out the part about the lice bath.

It must have seemed like heaven for patients to come to a place like Shaare Zedek, which had a European-trained staff and clean sheets. There was no running water, but who had running water in those days?

Tsadok Bassan - Shaare Zedek operating room

After all, Jerusalem was no modern city. “There was still no transportation. The transportation of patients was therefore still very complicated. If somebody had to be brought it would have to be done by stretcher. We did not have enough personnel to send along and therefore the relatives had to help or hire two porters.”

Tsadok Bassan - Shaare Tzedek - back yard with porters

During the global polio epidemic, Schwester Selma ran the country’s only isolation ward. “In those days the isolation department was even more primitive than the main house. The bathtub was made of tin, on wheels. It used to be filled with water that was brought in and then wheeled into the respective room. The toilets had no plumbing. Of course there was no heating system. In spite of all this I can maintain with a good conscience that we ran this department as a real isolation station even if this demanded many many efforts, which were well worth it in every respect.”

Tsadok Bassan - Shaare Zedek isolation ward

Schwester Selma founded the country’s first nursing school in 1934 over the objections of her hospital director who believed that too much theory and not enough practicum was a bad thing in a young nurse. But Selma, together with one father who wanted to make sure his daughter got a good education, prevailed. (Selma seated 2nd row, 3rd from left).

In recognition of her achievements, “Schwester” Selma Meyer was named a Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem (Yakir Yerushalim). She died in 1984 at the age of 100.

More amazing photos of Shaare Tzedek hospital and other Jerusalem landmarks, can be found at Photography in Jerusalem, an online archive sponsored by Hadassah College Jerusalem and educational website Snunit.

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