Emergency care doctors who have experienced some of the greatest tragedies in American history, from 9/11 to the Sandy Hook shooting, gathered in Los Angeles on Oct. 28 for a symposium organized by the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem (ACSZ).
In March 2011, Hatzolah of Los Angeles, the Orthodox Jewish volunteer emergency response corps, celebrated its 10th anniversary in this city.
Egyptian protesters defied a nighttime curfew in restive towns along the Suez Canal, attacking police stations and ignoring emergency rule imposed by Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to end days of clashes that have killed at least 52 people.
Minutes after the words “fainting in Mamilla Mall” appeared on his pager, paramedic Arie Jaffe was defibrillating the heart of a man lying on the floor of a Jerusalem pedestrian mall.
A plane bound for the United States made an emergency landing at Israel\’s Ben-Gurion Airport after smoke was detected in the rear of the plane.
Howard Parmet, community outreach consultant for the American Red Cross (ARC) of Greater Los Angeles, wants to build bridges to a Jewish community that has largely shunned the organization because of a belief that it is anti-Israeli at best and anti-Semitic at worst. Parmet wants to rehabilitate the organization\’s image, dispel misperceptions and recruit legions of local Jewish volunteers.
After midnight one Sunday last December, Motty Stock found his wife, Freda, unconscious on the bedroom floor. He picked up two phones and simultaneously called 911 and Hatzolah, an all-volunteer emergency first-response service.
It\’s bad enough that Israeli doctors are spending their lives in emergency rooms treating Jewish and Arab victims of suicide bombers. What really makes them heartsick these days, however, is that they also have to fend off mindless attacks from their scientific colleagues, particularly in Europe.
We arrived at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, where some 2,000 victims have been treated during the current intifada, less than 24 hours after a particularly horrific bus bombing in Jerusalem. Hours earlier, teams of Jewish-Arab doctors had done what they\’ve done for the past two years: jumped into action to save the lives of the critically injured.
My husband, Larry, and I had been training, or so I thought, for the Avon Breast Cancer Three-Day, a 60-mile walk in from Santa Barbara to Malibu last October.
But now I realize that we were really training for a grave new world — for when an act of God, or more likely an act of godlessness, blindsides Los Angeles, shutting down our streets and transportation systems.
On top of being in a military state of emergency for over a year, Israel is now in an \”economic state of emergency\” as well, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced last week. He was about the last person in the country to say the words out loud.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.