On this hot Tuesday morning in central Israel, Elad Wassa sits in his wheelchair, his dark eyes bright with anticipation. One year ago, Wassa, a Falasha (Ethiopian Jew), was working at a vegetable stand in a Netanya market when a bomb exploded as he was bending down to pick up some potatoes, paralyzing him from the chest down.
Today, Wassa, 25, is at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, practicing his speech for actor and activist Christopher Reeve, who visited Israel from July 28 to Aug. 1.
Wassa was instrumental in bringing Reeve to Israel. Last year, Wassa’s family was “adopted” by Rick Fishbein at Stephen S. Wise Temple, through Israel Emergency Solidarity Fund-One Family, which matches up families of terror victims with supportive communities in the Diaspora. Fishbein helped get a letter to Reeve, founder of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.
Smiling buoyantly, Wassa wheels his chair next to Reeve’s and covers Reeve’s hand with his own as he makes his speech.
“Welcome to Israel,” Wassa stammers to Reeve. “You are my hero.”
The actor best known for his Superman role is a real-life hero to many people here in Israel, especially since the Al Aksa Intifada attacks have injured and paralyzed thousands of Israelis. For many Israelis, Reeve represents hope for the future, both emotionally, through his very public determination to walk again, and practically, through the millions of dollars he has raised for scientific research to find a cure for paralysis.
Reeve is one of the only celebrities to visit Israel since the intifada began. Most of the big names in Hollywood — including many famous Jews — have stayed conspicuously silent on the issue of Israel, and few have expressed solidarity with or visited the country. Other celebrities, like Jerry Seinfeld and Elton John, pulled out of planned Israel trips at the last minute.
“Mr. Reeve is an inspirational figure who has a unique story to tell Israel and the world,” said Yuval Rotem, Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, who invited Reeve to visit Israel and convinced the foreign ministry in Jerusalem to follow through.
“From our perspective, it is important to show that beyond the daily headlines, Israel is a country of remarkable scientific and medical advances that benefit all mankind,” Rotem said. (Reeve’s trip was sponsored by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, as well as the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles, private donors Haim Saban of Saban Capital Group, Arnon Milchen of New Regency and Danny Dimbort and Avi Lerner of New Image.)
“Israel is a warm, welcoming, friendly and surprisingly relaxed country,” Reeve told The Journal. “The images you see in the press tend to be about some of the worst things that happen in the country, but what you don’t see is the wonderful color and normalcy of daily life. Certainly, one needs to be thoughtful and take certain precautions, but I feel very welcome and comfortable here.”
Reeve said that one of reasons he came to Israel was to meet Wassa.
“I get letters from all over the world, asking for my advice and personal involvement,” Reeve says in a voice that fades slightly after every few words. “Elad’s story was particularly moving to me because he is a young man and victim of random violence in a country that has seen so much violence.”
“His story touched me, particularly because he is so young, and this kind of severe illness is particularly devastating to young people,” Reeve continues. “It is easier for a young person to be depressed and to want to give up, but Elad did neither of those things. Instead, he took action.”
Reeve was older — 43 — when he became a paraplegic eight years ago, thrown from a horse during in an equestrian event. After his accident, Reeve had only 12 percent sensory ability in his body. Since then, he vigorously set about rehabilitating himself, using aquatic therapy and special bikes that stimulate his nerves with electrodes, which enabled his body to begin making its recovery.
According to some news reports, Reeve spends more than $400,000 a year on his supportive care. Now he has 70 percent sensory ability in his body. Considering that doctors told him he would stay at 12 percent for the rest of his life, his progress is remarkable.
Reeve’s paralysis and activism have helped millions of people around the world with spinal cord injuries. He brought a human — and very famous — face to paralysis. He used his fame to raise more than $45 million to fund researchers all over the globe to find cures and therapies for paralysis. Since 1999, his foundation has awarded more than $2.4 million to nonprofit organizations that help those with spinal cord injuries. He also lobbied the federal government to double financial funding to the National Institutes of Health (from $12 billion in 1998 to $25 billion in 2002); he testified before Senate Appropriations Committees in favor of federally funded stem cell research; got New York to allocate $8.5 million to spinal cord injury research, and he worked with Sens. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) and John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va) to raise lifetime caps on insurance policies from $1 million to $10 million.
During his five-day visit to Israel, Reeve met with scientists and doctors at the forefront of Israeli stem cell research. He also toured the country, met with injured Israelis like Wassa, and was scheduled to meet with government officials. As part of The Federation portion of his visit, Reeve attended a “Profiles in Courage” dinner, where met with people who survived terror attacks, and also participated in a workshop for young filmmakers from the Los Angeles Tel Aviv Master Class.
At the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department lab, two paraplegics, Tzafrir Chaklai and Asher Machmid, demonstrate to Reeve their progress, resulting from their trials of Proneuron, a company founded by Weizmann scientist Dr. Michal Schwartz.
Schwartz is one of Reeve’s heroes, says the actor’s 23-year-old son, Matthew Reeve, who is shooting a documentary about the visit. “He definitely cites her a lot and he is really enthusiastic about what is going on over here,” the younger Reeve says.
“I met Christopher as someone who was desperate for a therapy,” Schwartz says. “He had looked all over the world. He was interested in visiting Israel because he wanted to see my research not from a distance, and to learn more about what we are doing. The fact that he is here shows the world that there is more to Israel than just intifada or terrorism.”
Reeve met Schwartz when he was first injured, and he heard about her research in using the body’s own immune system to create cells that can be recruited to heal debilitating central nervous system disorders.
“Michal Schwartz came to my house outside New York and told me about a theory that certain cells in the body — macrophages — make an environment for healing and could be used to clean the area damaged right after a spinal chord injury to create an atmosphere for regeneration and recovery,” Reeve says. “A lot of people thought it was a crazy idea, but a lot of the great ideas that succeeded over time were considered to be crazy. I have tracked her progress over the years and her success is exemplary.”
The “crazy idea” produced dramatic results.
Moving slowly and deliberately, Machmid stands up, something he learned to do after the trials. Chaklai told Reeve that after the trial Machmid could move his toe and regained sensation in his leg.
At Tel Hashomer, a large Tel Aviv hospital, dozens of injured and paralyzed people enter the reception room one by one, until the room is full of wheelchairs jostling for space to catch a glimpse of Reeve.
In the front sits Idon Cohen, who went from being a 19-year-old soldier to a double amputee when a bomb exploded near his legs, leaving him with the stumps that now extend only a few inches from the seat of his wheelchair. Next to him sits Yitzchak Hamoy, a middle-aged man from B’nai B’rak who has not walked since he was injured in a tractor accident that gave him the long red scars that run up the length of his left leg. Others in the room display serious levels of spasticity; some struggle to keep their bodies upright in the chairs, others are wheeled in on beds, since they could only lie prone.
Everyone is excited to meet Reeve.
“Superman’s coming. It gives me hope to see someone like that,” Cohen says.
“I think Reeve is a very interesting man,” Hamoy says. “I heard about his accident, and I would like to see him. Maybe I can talk to him and ask him something about how he continues with his paralysis.”
Reeve enters the room accompanied by a gaggle of security personnel and minders, and the patients start asking him questions. Mostly, they want him to help them get better; to know about different treatments and different hospitals. Reeve answers the questions diplomatically. He doesn’t recommend one treatment over another, because his foundation funds many different treatments, but he is outspoken in his praise for Israeli research.
“Israel is one of the leading countries in the world that is most progressive and the most compassionate about people like us,” he tells the crowd.
He also speaks to the crowd about their injuries.
“My level of injury is higher than yours,”
he says to one girl who was in a wheelchair, but could move her arms, who asked about a
certain hospital. “I am a C2 [mid-level motor skills]. I was told that I would never move below my shoulder — and that was in 1995 — but I began to exercise, using electrical stimulation and I began to get back my motor and sensory abilities. No doctor can tell you what the future will be, because no one knows.”
“I would say that it is hard to become motivated, and it is hard to believe in the future, but it is something that I have believed ever since my injury,” Reeve says.
“Now, let me see if I can get this right: hacol efshari — everything is possible.”
To learn more about the Christopher Reeve Paralysis
Foundation, visit www.apacure.com. For more information on the Weizmann
Institute, visit www.weizmann.ac.il .
Tom Tugend contributed to this report.
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