Jessie Sampter was born on March 22, 1883, in New York to attorney Rudolph Sampter and Virginia Kohlberg Sampter, well-off second-generation German-American Jews. Although both her parents were raised Jewish, Jessie and her older sister Elvie grew up in an Ethical Culture household, which included Christmas trees, Jewish and Christian visitors, and books from a variety of religious traditions.

Sampter’s parents valued education, so when they deemed her to be a frail and sickly child, they hired tutors to come to the house. Later, she audited courses at Columbia University. Throughout her life, she was an ardent student, including learning Hebrew as an adult.

When Rudolph died of tuberculosis in 1895 at age 44, Sampter was crushed. He had nurtured her love of reading, offered her help with her poetry, and encouraged her philosophical curiosity. As Sampter later wrote in an autobiographical novel, she “loved him just a little bit more, because he understood” (quoted in Badt-Strauss). A year later, Sampter contracted polio, which left her hands and back “deformed,” as she wrote, and caused her continued pain and exhaustion for the rest of her life.

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Sampter fell ill and was hospitalized upon her arrival in Jerusalem. Yet she did not see herself as a drain on the Zionist cause. Rather, her essays framed her experience as a celebration of Zionism for her English-speaking audiences: “To me it was almost worth the discomfort of a serious illness that I might spend several weeks as a patient, in the ranks of patients, in our own Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem—the Rothschild Hospital” (“Bed Number Six”). Sampter did not always speak glowingly about all Zionist endeavors in the Yishuv, but she committed her time and limited energy to writing that she hoped would help create a Jewish society that made space for people beyond able-bodied Ashkenazi men.

Sampter spent the rest of her life in Palestine, apart from two trips back to the United States. Soon after her arrival, Sampter met Leah Berlin, a Russian Zionist, and the two decided to live together in Jerusalem. They lived apart for several years after Berlin’s family came to Palestine. During that time, Sampter adopted three-year-old Tamar, a Yemenite Jewish toddler, with whom she had developed a relationship during her visits to a Jerusalem orphanage. It was uncommon for single women to adopt children to whom they were not related, but Sampter’s interest in education meant she had long been around children. Jessie and Tamar moved into a house in Rehovot, but Sampter and Berlin always remained in very close contact.

During these years, Sampter continued to write for Hadassah, the ZOA, and other English-language periodicals. In 1927, she published The Emek, a collection of poems about the Jezreel Valley. She also began publishing in Hebrew, including poetry that appeared in the newspaper Davar.

Unlike many other American Zionists, Sampter explicitly discussed the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. She yearned for “brotherhood” between the two groups, and she blamed the British for stirring up animosity between them. In a very unusual move, Sampter applied and received her Palestinian passport in 1926 and she gave up her US citizenship. She wanted to make her commitment clear: this was her society, and she was invested in it.

In 1934, Sampter and Leah Berlin decided to become members of Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Members initially expressed ambivalence about them moving there, referring to the two women as “old” and wondering what use a disabled woman could be, apart from the money she would bring. Part of the issue was also that Sampter wanted the kibbutz to use some of her funds to build a vegetarian rest home where workers could recuperate, but individual members declaring how their money should be used went against its communal ethos of finances. After deliberation, the kibbutz members agreed, and the two women and Tamar joined. Sampter would write the kibbutz newsletter.

Sampter died on November 11, 1938, likely from complications from malaria. Szold presided over her funeral. The kibbutz renamed the rest home Bet Yesha in her honor.

Around the Year in Rhymes for the Jewish Child. New York: Bloch Publishing, 1920.

“Bed Number Six.” Bnai Israel Bulletin [Pittsburgh] (1922): 12-13.

Coming of Peace. New York: Publishers Printing Company, 1919.

A Course in Zionism. New York: Federation of American Zionists, 1915.

The Emek. New York: Bloch, 1927.

Far Over the Sea: Poems and Jingles for Children. Cincinnati: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1939.

Great Adventurer. New York: Kerr Press, 1909.

Seekers. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1910.

Sefer ha-Goyim [Book of Nations]. New York: EP Dutton and Company, 1917.

 “Speaking Heart” unpublished manuscript, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.