Nima H. Adlerblum, a writer and Zionist activist in New York City, enthusiastically embraced Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan’s philosophy propounding a reconstruction of Judaism. She argued that it was important to “deal with Jewish life as something integral into which we are born.” When Kaplan’s Judaism as a Civilization appeared in 1934, she immediately acquired a copy and took it with her on a trip to Europe. She wanted to spread his vision among women and repeatedly requested that Kaplan agree to speak to women’s groups regarding his philosophy of Jewish life.

Adlerblum founded the national cultural and educational program of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization, and served as its chair from 1922-1935. As a member of the national board of Hadassah, she went on a fact-finding mission to Nazi Germany in 1934, which culminated in a report that she wrote on Jewish conditions there. The following year she made a similar trip to the Soviet Union to evaluate Jewish adjustment and the problems of minority nationalities.

Born in Jerusalem in 1881, the oldest of five sisters, Adlerblum experienced an upbringing in Hebrew as an everyday language, guided by her parents, Rabbi Hayyim Hirschensohn and Eva (ha-Cohen) Hirschensohn. She immigrated to the United States in 1904 and pursued advanced studies at Columbia University, earning a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and a doctorate in Jewish philosophy. She worked closely with Rabbi Leo Jung at the Jewish Center, writing the final chapter in The Jewish Woman on “The Elan Vital of the Jewish Woman.”

In this letter, Adlerblum describes interest in Kaplan’s new book (even from a London customs inspector), her desire to review it and her fear of bringing it with her to Nazi Germany. She ends with her conviction that as an organization of Jewish women, Hadassah is “a powerful medium for the concrete expression of Jewish idealism,” and therefore, worthy of Kaplan’s attention.