Some heart-rending but also heart-warming stories have emerged over he past few days about the really terrible situation in Haiti. So many countries responding in very difficult circumstances.
Israel has taken so much bad press in recent months that it gives me, as a Jew, and a Zionist, an enormous sense of pride to see that whatever the issues are in Israel politically, whatever the attempts to demonize and delegitimize the State, whatever lies and half-truths, double-standards, blind hatred, genocidal rhetoric are used against it, there is still a deep, deep, thread of humanitarianism which lies at the core of the Jewish-ness both secular and religious.
Nowhere is this seen to better affect when disaster strikes anywhere in the world and Jewish and Israeli charities and organisations are mobilized not for propaganda but because it is an essential and abiding element of Jewish belief and consciousness to help our fellow man.
Here are some stories which are a moving tribute to the State of Israel and its people:
A story in the Jerusalem Post Jan 17th 2010 ‘Rescuers describe ‘Shabbat from hell‘. The IDF, that’s the Israeli Army has set up a field hospital in Port au Prince and within a few hours was treating dozens of patients.
Children with severe fractures set only with cardboard arrived at the hospital for treatment. Some young patients had been freed from rubble but had to have limbs amputated due to severe gangrene, he said. Within a few hours, operations were performed….
The Israeli facility, set up in very hot and humid weather, has enough equipment to function for about two weeks. The 121-member team has 40 doctors, including a psychiatrist, 20 nurses, 20 paramedics and medics, 20 lab and X-ray technicians and administrators.
The report tells us that many of the medical team are Orthodox Jews who travelled on the Jewish Sabbath, something which is normally completely against Jewish belief but when evem a single life can be saved then the Sabbath laws can be broken.
The official IDF bulletin tells us:
The field hospital is prepared to receive dozens of ambulances evacuating injured children from the different disaster struck areas. Between Friday night and Saturday, dozens of truckloads of medical and logistical equipment were unloaded and the field hospital set up.
The Israeli delegation landed in the capital of Port-Au-Prince yesterday evening and has located itself in a soccer field near the air port. Upon arrival, C4I teams deployed communications infrastructure in preparations for the hospital’s establishment.
Two teams, comprised of search and rescue personnel and canine operators from the IDF canine unit were sent out on rescue missions. The first team was sent to the Haiti UN headquarters in order to assist in rescuing survivors.
The ZAKA organisation (which was formed to deal with the aftermath of suicide bombings in Israel and other terrorist acts in Israel, but then extended its reach to make itself available throughout the world to help deal with the dead and injured of natural disasters via its Search and Rescue arm) is also an Orthodox Jewish organisation. On this occasion they were prepared to deal with the dead but ended up:
pull(ing) eight students alive from the collapsed university building, after a 38 (hour) operation
Perhaps only a Jew can fully appreciate the extreme emotion that the story of what followed evinces, but I’m sure no-one can fail to be moved by this:
Amid the stench and chaos, the ZAKA delegation took time out to recite Shabbat prayers – a surreal sight of haredi men wrapped in prayer shawls standing on the collapsed buildings. Many locals sat quietly in the rubble, staring at the men as they prayed facing Jerusalem.
At the end of the prayers, they crowded around the delegation and kissed the prayer shawls.
Then today another significant and moving story from the JP:
Overnight Saturday, in what staff described as one of the most fulfilling moments of their work, the Israeli doctors delivered a baby boy, whose mother, Gubilande Jean Michel, promptly declared would be named “Israel.”
How appropriate that the work, compassion and dedication of Israelis will be remembered and recalled throughout this boy’s lifetime in his very name.
IsraAID has headed for the hospital:
Just minutes after landing in the airport in Port-au-prince the IsraAID team was met by David Darg, Operation Blessing Director in the field and his staff and joined with them to unload a planeload of food and medical equipment.
The Israeli medical professionals of IsraAID – F.I.R.S.T. traveled to the main Port-au-prince Hospital to start treating patients, joining local physicians at the site of the collapsed central hospital where thousands of wounded have gathered desperate for help.
“The scenes in the hospital were horrible we saw people everywhere on the floors in the building and outside, people with amputations and bone-deep wounds, hundreds of them, the size of the catastrophe is unbelievable. All of the injured were treated until we came by only one local doctor and we were the first foreign backup team to operate in the hospital.” Said Nurse Sheva Cohen from Kibbutz Ein Yahav in the Negev
When the team arrived at the hospital they found most of the injured outside the building laying in beds in the building’s garden, probably out of fear of aftershocks and further collapse. The IsraAID team set up treatment rooms in four empty rooms, treating 60 patients with IV and administered medicine. While in the hospital, an infant with 60% burns died and bodies that had not yet been removed for burial were piled up in back.
In the meantime, the logistical personnel remain in the airport area to set up camp and assist local NGO partners with logistical support for relief items that were continuing to land.
Currently the teams are working around the clock to provide assistance to the injured. In light of the scale of the disaster, IsraAID is currently focused on expanding the scale of its operation, preparing an additional team that would be sent next week.
At the beginning of his cabinet meeting this week Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said:
I think that this is in the best tradition of the Jewish People; this is the true covenant of the State of Israel and the Jewish People. This follows operations we have carried out in Kenya and Turkey; despite being a small country, we have responded with a big heart. The fact is, I know, that this was an expression of our Jewish heritage and the Jewish ethic of helping one’s fellow. I hope that the team saves lives and that Haiti succeeds in recovering from this awful tragedy.
There is a long, long way to go for the Haitian people but they can count on the Jewish People and Israel to help them in their time of dire need.