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The course of professionalization: Jewish nursing in Poland in the interwar period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2019

Rakefet Zalashik  and
Nadav Davidovitch
Rakefet Zalashik
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Nadav Davidovitch*
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Argument

This paper focuses on the Jewish nursing profession in Poland during the interwar period. We argue that the integration of Jewish women in medical activity under the AJDC (American Jewish Distribution Committee) and TOZ (Towarzystwa Ochrony Zdrowia Ludności Żydowskiej [the Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish People]) emerged in Poland less from the adoption of gender equality and more out of necessity. On the one hand, JDC and TOZ needed Jewish nurses and public health nurses to carry out their health campaigns and build a public health infrastructure. On the other hand, a new generation of Jewish women needed job opportunities that would enable them to make a living and be independent. More broadly this case study shows that the implementation of American “reformative” ideals into the local Polish reality, including in the newly emerging public health field, involved adaptation, negotiation, and in some cases, resentment.

Keywords

Nursinggenderminorities healthJewish medical historyOZETOZPolandknowledge transfer
Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 32 , Issue 1: Scientific Medicine and the Politics of Public Health: Minorities in Interwar Eastern Europe , March 2019 , pp. 93 - 109
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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