Curing Body and Soul: The Hiroshima Maiden Project and Jewish Doctors

• In Event: Twentieth-Century American Jews as Activists

Abstract

American Jews have been involved and supported various social causes. How should we understand their engagement with communal agenda in relation to the war, in particular, when dealing with the victims caused by American actions?
In May 1955, 25 Japanese women arrived to New York. The purpose of their visit was not for leisure, but to receive medical care, mainly plastic surgery, at Mt. Sinai Hospital for their severe burn deformities as a result of the atomic bomb blast in 1945. They were called the Hiroshima Maidens, and during their stay in America, they received frequent media coverage. While it was never particularly highlighted, not only these women were treated at Mt. Sinai Hospital, once called “the Jews’ Hospital,” Arthur J. Barsky, William M. Hitzig, Sydney Kahn, and Bernard E. Simon, the surgeons volunteered to lead “the Hiroshima Maiden Project,” were of Jewish origin. Norman Cousins, the editor of The Saturday Review and an avid antinuclear advocate, who raised the money to bring these women to America, was also Jewish. The project continued even after the women completed the treatment and returned to Japan as the doctors of Mt. Sinai Hospital were sent to Japan to provide training in plastic surgery, which was still new to Japanese doctors. While the Jewish involvement in the project is inevitable, the reason why Mt. Sinai was chosen for the project is not clear. Further, how did the Jewish doctors came to be involved in the project and why? This little known episode initially reflects American Jewish volunteerism. Bernard E. Simon later claimed that he believed in the necessity of giving back to medicine by volunteering and teaching. These Jewish doctors at the Mt. Sinai Hospital later treated Vietnam War orphans. By presenting various aspects surrounding the Hiroshima maiden project, this paper examines to what extent Jewishness played a role in the doctor’s effort to treat war victims of the opposite side.

Author

• Mina Muraoka, Kanto-gakuin University