Between all-day meetings and an elevator ride up to her hotel room in Jerusalem, Nancy Falchuk found 15 minutes to sandwich in a phone interview.
“I think there’s no way any Hadassah president comes to Israel without being busy,” she half-joked.
Falchuk is in Israel touring schools, research centers, hospitals and health clinics — seeing the many ways Hadassah’s volunteer work and fundraising has blossomed in Israel.
“Who would think that a bunch of women who were only known by their husbands’ names and without access to email or faxes would become an organization of 300,000 volunteers? That we’d be the second largest employer in Jerusalem?” she said.
On the heels of this most recent Israel trip, Falchuk arrives in the Bay Area next week for the Central Pacific Coast Region’s “Hats Off to Hadassah!” The luncheon takes place March 30 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.
Falchuk will discuss Hadassah’s international social and political impact.
A native of Long Island, Falchuk became active in Boston’s Hadassah chapter when she worked as a nurse. She is the co-founder of the Hadassah National Center for Nurses’ Councils, the first and still only national professional organization for Jewish nurses.
Many Bay Area members of Hadassah will be honored at the luncheon, including Susy Segre-Politi, Penina Klein and Tzipor Ulman of the Sequoia chapter; Rosalyn Rappoport of Santa Cruz; Jane Jacobson of Sharone; Evelyn Sloan of Monterey Peninsula/Salinas; Merri Blum of the Tri-City chapter (Newark, Fremont and Union City); and Eve Gordon-Ramek of the Oakland chapter.
Tickets are $200 ($50 per person as a non-tax-deductible couvert for the luncheon plus a tax-deductible contribution of $150). For more information or to request an invitation, please contact event chair Susan Yanowsky at (831) 687-0801 or [email protected].