Biography of Katherine Merage

Katherine Merage stands as one of our great Hadassah women of vision, and as the Haifa Group of Beverly Hills’ first Founder and first President of Persian descent. Katherine, her husband Andre and their youngest daughter left their native Iran 35 years ago to come to the United States to be with their other four children who were studying in the states.

Katherine joined Hadassah over 27 years ago and brought a new perspective to the organization. Hadassah’s Iranian membership has increased significantly and there are now over 4,000 members all over the country. Katherine believes she knows most of them and is proud of their accomplishments. She believes her membership has been a journey of love and so many great friends have helped her along the way. She recently said “I am happy I discovered Hadassah because I wanted to help the people of Israel and be part of Medical Research benefiting the world.”

This energetic mother of five children and grandmother of 10 is passionate about young people and their future. Her vision became reality in

November 1992, when she founded the Healing Spirit group of

Hadassah Southern California with the help of Molly Novak and coordination of Soraya M. Nazarian. The group originated as a way for Persian Young Jews to meet, marry or establish business connections. She says “I have a tendency to start youth groups. I want young people to know each other and to build friendships. When some of them marry and have children, I feel like I have more grandchildren.”

Katherine lived in Denver from 1994-2003 and during this time she established yet another Jewish organization, The Blue Sky. At the Hadassah International Conference 2002 in Geneva, Switzerland, she also founded the Young Hadassah Geneva.

Proud to be a Guardian of Tomorrow, Katherine and her late husband, Andre, [z”l – different font], have also generously supported the Hadassah Medical Organization and Hadassah College Jerusalem.

Through their own family foundation, she and her family Founded the Operation Queen Esther Foundation, which provided olim with vocational and language training, job training, child care and psychological support and other programs supporting the people of Israel. Andre Merage died in 2001. “He was very supportive of me and my activities.”