Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, raised $20 million in 2010 toward completion of its new Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower in Jerusalem, National President Nancy Falchuk announced today. The year-end total far exceeds the $12.6 million goal announced at the beginning of 2010.

Last year’s total brings to $240 million the amount Hadassah has raised thus far for the tower. This figure does not include additional funding from the Israeli government.

The total cost of the 14-story tower on Hadassah’s Ein Kerem campus will be $363 million. The tower is scheduled to begin treating patients in March 2012; the official dedication will take place in October 2012, as part of Hadassah’s Centennial Convention in Jerusalem.

Hadassah has also announced that its tower fundraising goal for 2011 is $20 million. When the goal was unveiled at the organization’s Midwinter board meeting last week, board members pledged more than $130,000 to HMO during a half-hour period of spontaneous donations.

Upon completion, the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower will be a state-of-the-art medical facility and the anchor of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. It is Hadassah’s biggest building project in the past 50 years and one of the largest infrastructure projects currently underway in Israel.