“Duty is joy.”
This quote, from a poem by Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore, hung on the modest office wall of the woman affectionately known as Schwester Selma—“Nurse Selma” in German. To Selma Mayer, it wasn’t just a saying. It perfectly reflected her philosophy of life and the way she saw her work and her responsibility.
For 68 years, Shaare Zedek Hospital was both her home and her mission, from the day she arrived in Jerusalem in 1916 until her death at age 100 in 1984.
Born into a poor Jewish family in Hanover, Germany, Selma lost her mother at the age of five due to complications during childbirth that were not properly treated. Growing up without a mother’s guiding hand—and haunted by the consequences of that medical failure—Selma found her purpose early on. In her Hebrew memoir, My Life at Shaare Zedek, (Chayai BeSha’arei Tzedek) she later wrote:
“I lost my mother at the dawn of my life, and so my youth was rather difficult. That experience stirred in me a deep need to give others what I myself had lacked: a mother’s love and a love for all human beings. That is why I chose to become a nurse.”
In her early twenties, she began working at the Jewish hospital in Hamburg named for Salomon Heine. There, she received a comprehensive medical education, training in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics. Seven years later, in 1913, she and another nurse became the first Jewish women officially certified as nurses by the German government.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Dr. Moshe Wallach had founded Shaare Zedek Hospital in 1902. For years, the hospital operated with a tiny, untrained nursing staff. Eventually, Dr. Wallach began searching for a qualified head nurse—and reached out to Selma Mayer.
She accepted the offer, knowing it meant leaving behind everything familiar.
She had been recruited by a man she deeply respected. As she recalled:
“In 1916, in the midst of World War I, I left the hospital and set out for Palestine. I arrived in December of that year. What led me to this decision was the following: Dr. Wallach had come to Europe on an urgent mission to find a head nurse for his hospital. He was born in Cologne and had come to Palestine at the end of the 19th century. His decision to immigrate was driven by religious values and idealism.”
Dr. Wallach had initially traveled to Germany and the Netherlands to raise funds for constructing a new hospital building. Though Shaare Zedek was founded as a Jewish institution, its patients were not limited to Jews—it treated Muslims, Christians, and people of all nationalities.
While fundraising was successful, finding trained nurses willing to stay was nearly impossible. One Dutch nurse agreed to join—but returned home soon after arriving, unable to tolerate the harsh conditions. As Mayer would later recall:
“Given the difficult conditions in the hospital, and Dr. Wallach’s strict expectations, whenever someone suitable came and stayed, it felt like we had won the lottery.”
It was at this critical moment that 32-year-old Selma Mayer arrived—and brought the light with her.
The journey to Palestine was far from simple. First, Selma had to obtain an exit permit from the German authorities. Then came four grueling weeks of travel, including a delay of several days in Damascus. On the evening she finally arrived in Jerusalem, exhausted from the road, she asked for just one thing: a cup of coffee. She was placed in a modest room, and on her very first night, she was introduced to the local bedbugs.
What she found at the hospital was chaos. For weeks, she walked around with a notebook, documenting everything that, in her view, needed fixing. That was how she began implementing new methods and reorganizing the departments according to the professional standards she had learned in Germany. One of her first changes was the German-style bed-making protocol, which she introduced for every patient.
The nursing staff at her disposal consisted mostly of untrained women. Selma took it upon herself to teach them. During World War I, epidemics broke out—typhus, meningitis, and more. Though the hospital had 150 beds, nearly twice its intended capacity, the nursing staff was largely unqualified. Selma was the only certified nurse. According to legend, during the hours when she would receive patients, the line stretched all the way to the Mahane Yehuda market.
Determined to raise the standard of care, she introduced strict regulations previously unknown in Jerusalem. Under her guidance, nurses weren’t just caregivers—they were held to rigorous hygiene standards. They wore special uniforms and caps to prevent infections; patients were required to bathe and shave before admission. Hospital staff wore white uniforms, patients received daily changes of clothes and linens, and every patient had to bathe daily.
Working at Shaare Zedek was anything but easy. The building lacked essential infrastructure: no electricity, no plumbing, no central heating. Surgeries were lit by flickering paraffin lamps, and bath water was heated over kerosene stoves. Under these conditions, recruiting and retaining staff was a constant challenge.
But Selma Mayer refused to lower her standards. She worked around the clock—no less than 18 hours a day—and demanded that others meet the same level of discipline and dedication. The nurses knew there were no shortcuts. She expected from them the same care and commitment she gave herself.
At the start of the 20th century, nurses and midwives were trained almost entirely through hands-on experience, without formal theory. Selma Mayer changed that. She personally oversaw the training of the nursing and midwifery staff, teaching everything from how to change sheets to how to diaper newborns. When needed, she filled in for midwives who lived offsite. Over time, she became Dr. Wallach’s right hand, assisting in complex procedures—from circumcisions and curettage to tracheotomies. She accompanied him on house calls and ran the hospital in his absence. Between 1916 and 1930, she also managed supply chains, building maintenance, and the hospital’s kosher kitchen. Only after ten years did she receive an assistant to help with the overwhelming workload.
In 1934, on the former site of the hospital’s dairy barn, she fulfilled one of her greatest dreams: the founding of the Shaare Zedek School of Nursing. Dr. Wallach was initially opposed, fearing that theoretical studies would come at the expense of practical experience. But Selma stood firm. She believed her students deserved both. And she was right—graduates of the program quickly became sought-after professionals across the country.
In those early years, Selma taught all the practical lessons herself. Upon graduation, the students were tested by physicians from the British Hospital—and consistently excelled.
If this description evokes the image of a tough, no-nonsense woman who ruled her staff with strict discipline, that’s only part of the picture. Selma Mayer was, above all, a woman of great compassion. Standing under a meter and a half tall, she was known not only for her professionalism but for her generous heart. In her modest room at the hospital, she happily welcomed staff and patients alike, offering mint tea and warm conversation.
Selma didn’t believe medical care alone was enough—she wanted every patient to receive kind, respectful, and humane treatment. Her warmth and patience became as much her trademark as the high standards she set for her staff. She taught nurses to look beyond the illness, to understand that patients arriving at the hospital were often at their most vulnerable. In her memoir, she wrote: “I repeated again and again: the people who come to us need help. Above all, the girls must remember and never forget to do everything possible to ease the patient’s pain and never spare any effort in caring for them.”
Though she never married, Selma Mayer was never truly alone. Over the years, she adopted three abandoned girls, all left behind at the hospital, and raised them as her own daughters.
One of them, Simcha Calderon, lost her mother and was left orphaned when her father was drafted into the Ottoman army. Another, Bulissa Dana, was left at the hospital by her father, who believed that someone there would care for her. Selma stepped in as a true mother—buying her toys, nurturing her love for music, and teaching her values of kindness and generosity. When Bulissa was killed in the 1948 Ben Yehuda Street bombing, Selma was devastated. She withdrew into her room for a long time, struggling to recover from the loss.
The third girl, Sarina, grew up within the hospital’s walls. She went on to study medicine and began her own career in healthcare—just as Selma had always hoped.
Selma Mayer’s devotion was tested in some of the most difficult moments in the country’s history.
In 1929, during the Hebron Massacre, she was the only nurse on duty in the hospital’s operating room. For 23 straight hours, without pause, she assisted in life-saving surgeries for dozens of wounded survivors.
During the 1947 UN vote to establish a Jewish state, Selma was on vacation in Nahariya. As soon as she heard the news and understood the gravity of the moment, she began working tirelessly for three weeks, contacting everyone she could—from British officials to Jewish underground leaders—in a bid to return to besieged Jerusalem. In the end, she was granted permission to join an armored convoy and made it back to the hospital, where she was needed more than ever.
In the 1950s, during Israel’s polio epidemic, she once again rose to the challenge. Selma led the city’s only isolation ward, training staff to use iron lungs and ensuring the ward functioned with maximum efficiency.
Selma Mayer dedicated her life to the service of medicine and humanity. The warmth she gave, the discipline she upheld, and the vision she brought to life made her an enduring symbol of compassion and excellence. Her legacy is still felt today, in the halls of Shaare Zedek and beyond. Everyone who walks through the hospital’s doors continues along a path she paved—with love, hard work, and unshakable dedication.
In 1974, at the age of 90, she was named a “Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem” by Mayor Teddy Kollek. The following year, she was featured in Time Magazine in a piece about women around the world who had devoted their lives to easing the suffering of others.
Her life reflected humility, order, and service—values rooted in the German nursing tradition. And more than anything, she taught generations of nurses the essence of compassionate care.
Today, a portrait of Schwester Selma hangs in the lobby of Shaare Zedek Hospital, honoring the woman who founded its nursing department and whose spirit continues to inspire.
