Contributor – Miriam Hirschfeld, DNSc, RN

Late in the year 2012 I am approached by Canadian colleagues requesting my help in their campaign to elect Prof. Judith Shamian, the Canadian Chief Nurse, as President of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). Judith is a friend, I am delighted to try to help, knowing also that she would be a great ICN president. But other news follows: My mentor, Prof. Anne Davis from UCSF had for years toiled together with Madame Lin Ju Ying, the former Chief nurse of the People’s Republic of China, to have The Chinese Nursing Association accepted to ICN. Alas, the Chinese government’s position was that their association could not be in the same organization as Taiwan, a long term ICN member. Finally, ICN, after holding to the moral position of keeping Taiwan, had found a formular to enable this. The Nursing Association of the People’s Republic of China was asking for ICN membership.

More news: The Palestinian Nurses Association was asking for membership. I had been approached by ICN’s secretariate sharing a concern of their Board – each country could only have one association representing it. I explained that Israel and Palestine (meanwhile) shared the same geographic area without an international border, but the two organizations represented completely different nursing populations. I knew that I had to represent the Israeli Nurses’ Association at the CNR, which makes all the political decisions, preceding the Congress. I ask for and receive the signature of my Association’s president with the green light to vote according to our principles and my best judgement.

The Council of National Representatives (CNR), the governing body of ICN, opens with a behind the scenes request of the Iranian delegation, not to be seated next to the Israeli delegation. Alas, ICN protocol is not flexible. Seating is alphabetical. These are the rules. I decide to share my planned interventions with the Iranians, asking them to add or delete from my notes. It works. The nursing professor seated next to me becomes a “sharing neighbor”. Her “official colleague”, a young man, is more restrained.

Before the new member election, I approach the American delegation, telling them that the Israeli Nurses Association shall welcome the Palestinian Association to ICN. I had been concerned that the Americans might follow the political trend to vote with Israel against any Palestinian move to join international organizations. It turns out to be a unanimous vote. The Palestinian Nurses Association is the only body to become accepted to an international organization with the memberships’ full approval.

I asked to speak and welcomed the Palestinian Nurses Association in the name of the Israeli Association, hoping for us to work together to serve both of our peoples and advance their health. I did add an emotional quest to all those countries, and in particular, the Nordic ones, to help us to work together. Their pro-Palestinian ‘taking sides’ might feel morally justified, but alas, we Jews and Arabs, needed to find ways to live together with respect and equity and justice. We needed the support of the international nursing community.

In the break, Suleiman Turkman, the President of the Palestinian Nurses Association, and a friend, and I hugged. There was victory and joy. One of the concrete outcomes years later, was Suleiman Turkman’s request to the Norwegian Nurses Association to sponsor 3 Workshops of Palestinian and Israeli nurses addressing shared health system problems and seeking solutions. These workshops not only created personal links, but addressed common issues, needing shared action, as for instance infection control and nurse reporting.

The Nursing Association of the People’s Republic of China was admitted to ICN as well and Judith Shamian was elected its new president.

Thinking back, I wonder what some of the lessons are for us today, when times are dark with threats of war, fascism, and climate change. There remains the challenge for each of us as individuals, as for our organizations, to educate ourselves and others to what Martha Nussbaum (2006) describes as “ethical democratic citizenship”.

• We need a commitment to be informed, informed not only about our own local area, our country, but informed globally, about the world.
• The readiness to clarify our own values and genuinely confront the meaning, the dangers, and rewards of living up to them.
• The ability to listen to others and learn to understand their reasoning, even if we dislike the messages.
• The commitment to act, alone and with others, in solidarity

Nussbaum, M. C. (2006). Education and Democratic Citizenship: Capabilities and Quality Education. Journal of Human Development, 7(3), 385–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649880600815974

See also on Nursology.net:

• State of the World’s Nursing 2025: Making It Real. Nursology.net, September 30, 2025
• Peace and Power

About Miriam Hirschfeld

from https://www.rozana.org/miriam-hirschfeld

Miriam Hirschfeld graduated from a Diploma program in Vienna, Austria before she immigrated to Israel in 1965. Her B.A. is from Tel-Aviv University and her Master’s of Science and her Doctor of Nursing Science degrees are from the University of California San Francisco. After working as a staff nurse and clinical instructor in cardiac care, neurosurgery, oncology and psychiatry she taught at Tel-Aviv University, where she became the director of the first generic nursing program, while being responsible for the development of geriatric and long-term care for the Clallit Sick Fund. In 1989 she was selected as the Chief Scientist for Nursing of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva and held this position for nine years, when she was nominated (as the first nurse) Director of Human Resources for Health. After becoming Acting Director of Health Systems, she established a new WHO Initiative on Long term care. Upon retirement from WHO, she returned to Israel in 2003, where she joined the faculty of the Emek Yezreel College, as Professor in the Department of Health Systems Management, and in 2007 she established the academic nursing program, which she headed until 2013. Her interests range from long-term care, multi-cultural nursing education and health workforce policy to ethics and human rights, as well as the impact of globalization upon health.

She is a member of the Nurses in the Middle East Steering committee and the Israeli-Palestinian Midwives Group, as well as the Israel Nursing Ethics Bureau Research committee, active in ongoing ethics research. From 2017-2025 she was a board member of the Physicians for Human Rights, Israel. She has a considerable list of publications and held Workshops for Palestinian and Israeli nurses on solving common problems in their daily practice. The University of Nottingham awarded her an honorary medical degree and the Oregon Health Sciences University an honorary doctorate in science. The President of Austria awarded her the highest Award of the Republic for her contribution to nursing development and in 2022 she received the Princess Srinagarindra Award in recognition of a lifelong career in advancement of nursing, ethics and human rights. (from https://www.rozana.org/miriam-hirschfeld)

See also Dr. Hirschfeld’s contribution to Marsha Fowler’s book: Nursing Ethics, 1880s to the Present