The aphorism about truth and lies also applies to the news: Bad news travels halfway around the world before good news can put on its shoes.

We can’t close our eyes and ears to dispiriting reports from Israel, from the diplomatic front or from American college campuses. But positive things are happening, too, and sometimes encouraging developments are generated by the very chaos that keeps us awake at night.

At a recent Hadassah fundraising event for stem-cell research in Baltimore, I was heartened to see hundreds of participants, a sign of resurgence in our ranks. It was the latest example of a trend I’ve encountered at similar events in Philadelphia, Dallas and Denver in the past few months: new engagement from women across the country who want to make a difference and who are opting to act under the Hadassah banner. They are motivated by both troubled times and by the opportunities we offer.

In Washington for meetings on Capitol Hill, I walked through the corridors of congressional office buildings, thrilled by the signs expressing support for Israel posted outside what looked to be a majority of the Congress members’ offices. At the Israeli Embassy celebration for Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog included me in a group of six American Jewish leaders to join him in greeting the congressional leadership. And at the White House observance of American Jewish Heritage Month in May, with more than 500 in attendance, I sensed more people than ever eager to engage with Hadassah; one person I knew just in passing approached me and volunteered his home for a Hadassah event.

The summer brings respite from the widespread pro-Palestinian (and often pro-Hamas) protests on college campuses. The one that received the most coverage was at Columbia University in New York City—America’s media capital and also Hadassah’s home ground. After weeks of demonstrators (many of whom were not students) occupying part of the campus and eventually seizing a building, police arrested the last 112 holdouts. Shortly after, a group of 540 Columbia Jewish students issued an eloquent open letter addressing the antisemitism they witnessed, the demonization many of them experienced and the distortion of Zionism that has become common. Their conclusion: “We are proud to be Jews, and we are proud to be Zionists.”

The surge in antisemitism is very much on Hadassah’s agenda. Our efforts to empower our members to fight anti-Jewish activity encompasses a broad range of education and advocacy initiatives, including supporting legislation, addressing the United Nations, lobbying the International Committee of the Red Cross, issuing statements, organizing panel discussions, circulating petitions and placing op-eds. We also have membership and leadership programming to encourage and support grassroots action.

Hadassah is attracting more notice and support today not only because we are in the fight against antisemitism but because of who we are and what we have done for more than a century. We build and defend Israel by healing and educating, in the physical sense and in the human sense. Our medical center is renowned for world-class treatment and research, but also as an oasis of peace where Jewish, Muslim and Christian patients and families, nurses and doctors, interact in mutual respect on a daily basis. Over the course of Israel’s history we have been a beacon of coexistence. In practice and vision, Hadassah represents the Zionist ideal.

And it’s encouraging to know that we are recognized not only for what we do but for how we do it. Last month, Hadassah received the Gold Seal from Candid—the world’s largest source of information on nonprofit organizations—for transparency, accountability and inclusion. The honor tells donors that Hadassah is a trustworthy steward of their contributions and that every gift goes toward fulfilling our mission. We also have the highest rating—four stars—from the philanthropy assessment organization Charity Navigator.

It wasn’t a perfect world that motivated Hadassah’s founding generation to begin our work, and it’s a perilous landscape that drives us today. Faced with the choice of worrying about today’s bad news or doing something about it, every instinct tells us to keep our shoes on—and take action.