Revolutionizing Experiences Part III

Letter by Henrietta Szold. Originally published in Generations 2007-2008: Maryland and Israel.

Part III: Epilogue

Miss the beginning? Start here.

Despite Szold’s remark that her trip to Palestine would amount to nothing more than a “stimulating memory without much noticeable result in action,” both she and the letter’s recipient knew that something important had happened to her. Judge Sulzberger, recognizing the letter’s significance, returned it to her for safekeeping. She promptly sent it back to him, with this response, written February 24, 1910 (JMM 1995.206.2).

Dear Judge Sulzberger:

You are right, vanity (or self-consciousness) is next door neighbor to my humility. But I assue you, I did not remember how much emotion I put into the letter I wrote to you – I only remembered that it was the first I wrote about the Holy Land and the longest, and I supposed it to be the fullest of these accounts.

Now that I have seen it and some of those I wrote later on to others, I conclude that if it made itself worthy of a better fate than the waste basket, it must have been due somehow or other to the correspondent I was addressing.

Here is some more pride – outspoken pride. I have felt so complimented by your having kept it, that I am returning it to you in spite of your waiving your rights in it. I have made a copy of it, for I may want to use some of its points in a book, which I am inclined to think, will get itself written.

Yours very truly,

Henrietta Szold

~The End~