Background
Halprin was born in New York on April 11, 1896 to a Zionist family.
Halprin was born in New York on April 11, 1896 to a Zionist family.
She was taught Hebrew as a child and became fluent in French, German, and Yiddish. She attended the Teachers’ Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and studied at Hunter College and Columbia University.
Halprin assisted Henrietta Szold in rescuing Jewish children from Europe in the 1930s and helping them to reach Palestine and settle there.
She was active in Zionist work, serving twice as president of the Hadassah Women’s Organization, from 1932 to 1934 and from 1947 to 1952. From 1934 she spent five years in Jerusalem, representing American Hadassah during the construction of the hospital complex on Mount Scopus.
In 1942 she became treasurer of the American Zionist Emergency Council and was its vice-president between 1945 and 1947. When Mount Scopus was cut off from west Jerusalem in 1948. Halprin was active in finding temporary accommodation for the hospital and medical school and was involved in its relocation to the new complex in Ein Karem.
Halprin served from 1946 on the Jewish Agency executive for over twenty years, and was a representative of the American section in the 1947 negotiations at the United Nations for the resolution for the establishment of the State of Israel.
From 1949 to 1954, she chaired an interorganizational finance committee which sought to raise funds to help Israel meet its needs during the years of mass immigration. She was acting chairperson of the American Section of the Jewish Agency from 1955 and chairperson between I960 and 1968. She was also co-chairperson of the World Confederation of General Zionists.