tion. In addition a direct bilateral theological dialogue be-
tween the Catholic Church and the Malankara Syrian
Orthodox Church began in 1989. It issued an agreement on
interchurch marriages in 1993.
LITURGY. The Syriac Orthodox liturgical tradition, often
called West Syrian, drew upon translations of Greek texts
from Jerusalem and Antioch and added Syriac-language ma-
terial from Edessa, largely poetry and hymns. It is one of the
richest ancient Christian liturgical traditions, with about one
hundred Eucharistic prayers, three baptismal liturgies, and
poetic sets of daily offices and festal liturgies now available
in English (few of which are in use). The choir has not re-
placed the congregation in worship, as it has in the Byzantine
tradition. The principal anaphora (Eucharistic prayer) is that
of Saint James, which is rooted in the Jerusalem tradition and
attained its present form at the end of the fourth century CE.
Many of the hymns in use come from Ephraem the Syrian,
the great fourth-century CE ascetic and poet.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atiya, Aziz S. A History of Eastern Christianity. London, 1968.
Brock, Sebastian, and David G. K. Taylor, eds. The Hidden Pearl:
The Syrian Orthodox Church and Its Aramaic Heritage. Rome,
2001.
Chaillot, Christine. The Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and
All the East: A Brief Introduction to Its Life and Spirituality.
Geneva, 1998.
Daniel, David. The Orthodox Church of India. 2d ed. New Delhi,
1986.
McCullough, W. Stewart. A Short History of Syriac Christianity to
the Rise of Islam. Chico, Calif., 1982.
Moffett, Samuel H. A History of Christianity in Asia, vol. 1: Begin-
nings to 1500. New York, 1992.
Paulos Gregorios. The Orthodox Church in India: An Overview.
Delhi and Kottayam, India, 1982.
Paulos Gregorios. “Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.” In The
Encyclopedia of Religion, 1st ed., edited by Mircea Eliade, vol.
14, pp. 227–230. New York, 1987.
Sélis, Claude. Les Syriens orthodoxes et catholiques. Turnhout, Bel-
gium, 1988.
Trimingham, J. Spencer. Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-
Islamic Times. New York, 1979.
RONALD G. ROBERSON (2005)
SZOLD, HENRIETTA (1860–1945), was a Zionist
leader and a founding president of Hadassah, the leading
women’s Zionist organization in the United States. Born in
Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest child of Benjamin Szold and
Sophia (Schaar) Szold, she was educated by her father, a
rabbi, and in local schools, graduating first in her high school
class. She subsequently taught, wrote articles in the Jewish
press, and organized night classes for east European Jewish
immigrants in Baltimore before leaving for Philadelphia in
1893 to work for the Jewish Publication Society of America
(founded 1888). There, she edited and translated important
volumes of Judaica, indexed Heinrich Graetz’s History of the
Jews, and for a time compiled the American Jewish Year Book.
In 1903 she attended classes at Jewish Theological Seminary
of America in New York. In 1909, after her first love, Louis
Ginzberg, professor at the seminary, married another
woman, she traveled to Palestine, where her Zionist commit-
ments were renewed. In 1910, she became secretary of the
Federation of American Zionists, and two years later joined
with other women to found Hadassah on a nationwide basis.
After 1916, she devoted her full attention to the organization
and spent considerable time in Palestine involved in its medi-
cal and educational endeavors as well as broader Zionist af-
fairs. She spent her last years directing the efforts of Youth
Aliyah, the movement established to save Jewish youngsters
in Nazi-occupied Europe by bringing them to Palestine.
Henrietta Szold espoused a Jewish way of life that was
at once deeply religious, strongly ethical, and broadly toler-
ant. Her religious practices and outlook were shaped by Con-
servative Judaism, but she followed an independent course,
evinced considerable interest in Jewish religious writings by
women, and insisted on her right to recite the Qaddish
prayer in memory of her mother, as well as to fulfill other
Jewish religious obligations traditionally restricted to men.
Impelled by her religious values as well as her lifelong paci-
fism, she associated during her last years with Jewish thinkers
in Palestine who sought Arab-Jewish rapprochement and ad-
vocated a binational state. Her example of Jewish social activ-
ism coupled with her fostering of traditional Jewish ideals has
inspired Jewish women throughout the world, particularly
those associated with Hadassah.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henrietta Szold’s writings and letters remain scattered; for a small
selection, see Marvin Lowenthal’s Henrietta Szold: Life and
Letters (New York, 1942). A brief but penetrating overview
of Szold’s life and career by Arthur Hertzberg appears in No-
table American Women, edited by Edward T. James et al.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1971). Full-length studies include Alex-
andra Lee Levin’s The Szolds of Lombard Street: A Baltimore
Family, 1859–1909 (Philadelphia, 1960), which covers her
early life, and two critical biographies: Irving Fineman’s
Woman of Valor: The Life of Henrietta Szold, 1860–1945
(New York, 1961) and Joan Dash’s Summoned to Jerusalem:
The Life of Henrietta Szold (New York, 1979).
New Sources
Gidal, Nachum Tim. Henrietta Szold: A Documentation in Photos
and Text. Jerusalem, 1997.
JONATHAN D. SARNA (1987)
Revised BibliographySZOLD, HENRIETTA 8941