Nine­teen-year-old Hadas­sah Kaplan was a metic­u­lous writer of date­books dur­ing her year abroad. The daugh­ter of Rab­bi Morde­cai Kaplan, the founder of Recon­struc­tion­ist Judaism, Hadas­sah set out to trav­el to Pales­tine in 1932, a jour­ney that also took her to Egypt, Jor­dan, France, and the Unit­ed King­dom. Now her note­books, pho­tographs, and exten­sive cor­re­spon­dence have been com­piled in this inti­mate study by her grand­daugh­ter, Sharon Ann Mush­er, a pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry at Stock­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. Mush­er explores her grandmother’s rea­sons for com­ing to Pales­tine and how her trav­els and the cir­cum­stances she found in the Holy Land, led her to devote her life to Jew­ish phil­an­thropy, Amer­i­can Zion­ism, and women’s issues.

While Mush­er focus­es main­ly on her grand­moth­er, she also tells the sto­ry of a whole gen­er­a­tion of adven­tur­ous, upper-mid­dle-class Amer­i­can Jew­ish women who were drawn to trav­el to Pales­tine for many rea­sons, includ­ing Zion­ism, curios­i­ty, a desire for spir­i­tu­al growth, and to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to Jew­ish life. Addi­tion­al fac­tors were high unem­ploy­ment among Jew­ish female teach­ers in New York and entrenched gen­der norms. 

Mush­er paints a nuanced pic­ture of what trav­el to Man­date Pales­tine meant for young Amer­i­can Jew­ish women, includ­ing transna­tion­al friend­ships. Away from their fam­i­lies, but along­side equal­ly adven­tur­ous friends, acquain­tances, and beaus, as well as watch­ful fam­i­ly friends in Pales­tine, they chal­lenged and nego­ti­at­ed gen­der roles and forged a deep con­nec­tion to the Land of Israel. Their 

expe­ri­ences ulti­mate­ly led many of these women to play impor­tant roles in shap­ing vol­un­teer Jew­ish phil­an­thropic insti­tu­tions, such as Hadassah. 

Beyond Kaplan’s trav­els, Mush­er also pro­vides insights into the per­son­al life of the Kaplan fam­i­ly, such as Rab­bi Kaplan’s wife Lena’s involve­ment in her husband’s mis­sion, their shared rais­ing of their four daugh­ters, and their net­work of fam­i­ly friends and acquain­tances, in both the US and Palestine.

Mush­er draws from a vari­ety of sources, includ­ing Kaplan’s writ­ings, trav­el­ogues, cor­re­spon­dence, and oral his­to­ry inter­views. Writ­ten in an engag­ing and acces­si­ble style, Promised Lands brings Hadas­sah Kaplan’s sto­ry to life through her own words and Musher’s detailed research. Read­ers may wish, at times, for anno­tat­ed maps or more exten­sive excerpts of Kaplan’s writ­ing, but the book is a com­pelling and thought-pro­vok­ing read that sheds light on a remark­able woman and leaves read­ers with much to pon­der about the mean­ing and poten­tial of inquis­i­tive trav­el, then and now.