Sarah Bavly
Dutch-born Sarah Bavly (1900 – 1993) was a pioneer nutritionist in the Yishuv who laid the groundwork for Israel's nutritional infrastructure and educational programming, directing Hadassah's hospital nutrition departments and school lunch programs, and establishing the State's first College of Nutrition.
Institution: Miriam Bavly.
Sarah Bavly earned an M.S. in chemistry from the University of Amsterdam in 1925 and took an extra year to study nutrition and economics before immigrating to Palestine, where she taught nutrition and chemistry. Bavly became chief dietician for Hadassah’s five hospitals as well as its school lunch program in 1929. Over the next several years, she trained the public in proper nutrition, sent food to Haganah outposts and camps for new immigrants, and weathered riots and attacks in Jerusalem. In 1953 she established a College of Nutrition and Home Economics with a rigorous two-year program for teacher training and served as director and dean until her retirement in 1965. She was declared an honorary Citizen of Jerusalem in 1984 for her years of service.
A leading member of a small group of pioneer nutritionists who worked in Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel and in the years following 1948, Sarah Bavly played a major role both in establishing nutritional services and, even more significantly, in developing nutrition education as a recognized and respected academic discipline.
Early Life and Education
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Teaching in Palestine and Studying in America
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Erez Israel’s Dietician
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Continuing Research and Teaching in Retirement
In 1960 Sarah Bavly relinquished her position as head of the Nutrition Department of the Ministry of Education in order to devote herself fully to research and to the College of Nutrition. In 1965 she retired from her position as director and dean of the college, posts which she held since the college was established. She continued with research and publication and taught occasionally in courses for overseas students at the Hebrew University and at the Carmel Institute in Haifa, operated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the course of her long and distinguished career she lectured frequently at international congresses and seminars. She also served as a member of a number of government commissions on various topics, including the poverty level and the teaching of home economics.
In April 1930 Sarah Bavly married Dr. Yehuda Meir Bromberg (b. Kutno, Poland, 1902). Yehuda, who immigrated to Palestine in 1919, conducted research on malaria before going to Naples to study first law and then economics, receiving doctoral degrees in both subjects. Appointed accountant-general of Hadassah in 1929, he later became Assistant Director-General of the Hadassah Medical Organization in Palestine. The couple, who Hebraized their name to Bavly in 1941, had two children—Miriam (b. 1933) and Nathan (b. 1935). Yehuda died in 1943.
After her retirement Sarah Bavly engaged in her hobby of pottery, receiving the qualification of “Designer” from Jerusalem’s House of Design. In 1984 she was designated an honorary Citizen of Jerusalem in recognition of her work in education, training, and research. She died in 1993.
Selected Works
“Family Food Consumption in Palestine.” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1949. Evaluation of Nutrition Education Programmes in Israel. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Nutrition and Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1969.
Food Consumption and Levels of Nutrition of Urban Wage and Salary Earners’ Families in Israel 1956–1957. Central Bureau of Statistics, Jerusalem, 1960.
Food Habits and their Changes in Israel. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1964.
Levels of Nutrition in Israel 1963–1964, Urban Wage and Salary Earners. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Nutrition and Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1962.
Levels of Nutrition in Israel 1968–1969. Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Nutrition and Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1972.
“Nutritional Inquiry.” In Inquiry into Poverty and Malnutrition among the Jews of Jerusalem, by Sarah Bavly, Roberto Bachi, and S.V. Berman. Jerusalem: Hadassah Emergency Committee, 1943.
Nutritional Patterns Among 7 rural Communities in Israel 1963. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1966.
Nutritional Patterns of Rural Yemenite and Kurdish Jews in Israel. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Nutrition and Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1974.
with Cohen, A.M. and Rachel Poznansky. “Change of Diet of Yemenite Jews in Relation to Diabetes and Ischaemic Heart-Disease.” The Lancet 12, no. 2 (1961): 1399.
with Kligler, J., A. Geiger, and D. Gurevich. “An Inquiry into the diets of various sections of the Urban and Rural Population of Palestine.” Bulletin of the Palestine Economic Society 4, no. 4 (1931).
with Mundel, G., K. Gugenheim, and H.S. Halevi, Survey of Food Consumption and Nutritional Status Among the Rural Population in Israel 1959–1960. Ministry of Education and Culture, College of Home Economics. Jerusalem, 1962.
with Poznanski, Rachel and Nathan Kaufmann, Levels of Nutrition in Israel, 1975/76. Jerusalem, Ministry of Education and Culture, 1980.
Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem. File A520.
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