Ruth Popkin, who emerged from a secular background to lead two major Jewish organizations, Hadassah and the Jewish National Fund, in work that benefited Israelis and refugees in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Jan. 2 at her home in Manhattan. She was 101.

Her son, Michael, confirmed her death.

Ms. Popkin became involved with Hadassah, or the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, after a friend invited her to a meeting in the 1940s.

“I had been raised in a secular environment, and it was almost like an introduction to Judaism,” she told The New York Times in 1987. “I stayed with it, and within a year I was president of my group.”

Founded in 1912, Hadassah initially worked to provide modern medical care to Palestine. After Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933, it began relocating Jewish children from Europe to Palestine.