Stern, Ilse

Ilse Nannette Stern was born on 22.2.1916 in Karlsruhe, Germany and died in Israel (year unknown). Ilse was the daughter of Auguste and Hermann Stern, who was a merchant. Ilse wanted to study medicine but was unable to finish school due to anti-Semitic discrimination. Instead, she completed a course as a nurse in Karlsruhe at the private clinic of a Jewish physician, Dr. Paul Hirsch. The Guggenheim family from Berlin hired her to serve as a baby nurse in Palestine for their daughter’s newborn child, and Ilse worked for the family in Palestine from November 1936 through April 1937. After her return to Germany, she attended a seminar in 1938 in Frankfurt to train as a household management teacher and manager. She was then employed as a nurse and as the assistant to the manager in the nursing home of the Frankfurt Jewish community. She quickly resigned from this position because of internal political problems. She immigrated to Palestine via Italy, reaching Palestine on September 22, 1938. After her arrival in Palestine, she worked for approximately eight months as an intern at the Agricultural School in Nahalal. She subsequently held a variety of positions as a diet cook, a maid and a nurse. She served with the British military for four and a half years from 1942. Following this service, she worked very briefly with U.N.R.R.A. and as a house mother at a home for dismissed female soldiers. She also worked as a social worker in Cyprus with the Jewish Joint Distribution Society and worked with the Preparatory Commission for International Refugees Organization. At the Jewish Agency, where she worked between 1948 and 1952, she served as a main supervisor for new immigrants in the Department of Immigration Absorption. Because Ilse had a particular interest in medical fields such as psychiatry, psychology, hygiene, public health, she decided to continue her education. From 1952 through 1953 she attended the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work in Versaille, France. At the end of 1953, she was hired as a lecturer by the Tel Aviv municipal School of Social Work. She continued her education, studying at the School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland from 1955 through 1957. She also attended a summer course in the field of social work in 1956 at Smith College in Massachusetts. In March 1957 she returned to Israel and continued her work at the School of Social Work, which was taken over by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1958. In order to continue working there, she now had to earn a doctorate. She apparently sought to do a doctorate in Cleveland, although it is not clear whether she was indeed awarded one. During the 1970s, Ilse headed the governmental demography center.