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Helena Kagan

Helena S. Kagan
Helena Kagan.jpg
Dr. Helena S. Kagan (right) and her sister-in-law, Rachel (Cohen) Kagan (left)
Born (1889-09-25)September 25, 1889
Tashkent
Died August 22, 1978(1978-08-22) (aged 88)
Jerusalem
Nationality Israeli
Other names Helena Hauser
Occupation physician
Known for Israel Prize

Helena Kagan (Hebrew: הלנה כגן‎‎; September 25, 1889, Tashkent, Uzbekistan - August 22, 1978, Jerusalem) was a physician, an Israeli pioneer in pediatrics, active in Jerusalem. She was responsible for the expansion of health care in Israel. Working under the auspices of the Hadassah organization, she gave treatment to generations of local children regardless of their parents' religious affiliation.

Helena Kagan was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to Moshe and Miriam Kagan, a Jewish couple from Riga. They also had one son named Noach. When her father, an engineer, refused to convert to Christianity he lost his job. However, her parents managed to pay the school tuition for Helena and her older brother, and they graduated in 1905.

Kagan studied piano at the Musikschule Konservatorium Bern and Medicine at the University of Bern, graduating in 1910, and specializing in Bern as a paediatrician.

In 1936, Kagan married Emil Hauser, a violinist who was a member of the Budapest String Quartet and founded the Palestine Conservatory of Music in Jerusalem. Kagan died childless on August 22, 1978.

In the spring of 1914, Kagan, moved to Jerusalem. Unable to obtain a license to practice medicine, decided to open a clinic at her home, teaching young Arab and Jewish women to become nurses and midwives.

In 1916, after the last two male physicians were expelled from the city by the Ottoman authorities, and playing a decisive role in containing a cholera epidemic, Kagan was granted an honorary license and started to work at a small children's hospital, becoming the first pediatrician in the country and the only female physician in the Ottoman Empire, running the hospital as the head of its pediatrics wing until 1925. After this, she started working in 1925 at the Infants Home for Arab Children in the Old City of Jerusalem, where she served as medical director until 1948. Also, she was one of the founders of the Histadrut Nashim Ivriot (Hebrew Women's Organization), which became the local chapter of WIZO.


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