Earlier this month, I attended a medical meeting with my husband in California. On Friday night, we attended a reception organized by Allergists For Israel, a non-profit founded in 1984 to promote ties between allergists/immunologists in the USA and Israel. This is a group event that we try to attend each year.
With the active war raging between Israel and Hamas, the reception to come together and welcome Shabbat with our Jewish and non-Jewish friends was more emotional than usual. Many of us had family members who live in Israel. Additionally, we had three guests at our meeting, the director of Major Gifts/Southwest, for Magen David Adom, and most importantly two Magen David Adom staff who had experienced the horror of October 7.
They were in the United States and Canada for one week. We were fortunate to meet them. Before their presentation, I spoke to them for a short time one on one, which helped my heart as I worry about my daughter and her husband in Israel. But then they gave their presentation, and my heart was no longer soothed.
Remember, it was a Shabbat and a hag, a holiday, when the terror began. These two people were in the mode of celebration and relaxation before being called in to help.
The woman is a paid employee, a dispatcher for Magen David Adom. She spent 13 hours staffing the phones at the dispatch center in Jerusalem during the crisis. Her tales of the phone conversations she had with people, who she could not promise she could help, were heart breaking. Her inability to get help to where it was needed most, was devastating. Many of those she spoke to were murdered by the terrorists.
The man who spoke to us is a volunteer ambulance driver. He entered an armored ambulance and started what would become a 24-hour day driving back and forth to the south to try to save the injured. Along the way he saw destroyed cars and ambulances, homes burning and the bodies of those who could no longer be saved. He admitted that he realized this was not a safe place to be. But he had an important focus, and in this day of terror, he was able to save about 30 lives.
For all of us listening, both Jewish and not Jewish, both doctors and spouses, the emotional of it was almost too much. I know that there were tears flowing from my eyes as he discussed a young Arab boy who watched his father be murdered as he, himself, was shot. His uncle flagged down the ambulance, a bit afraid for himself, as he knew what was happening. The ambulance, driven by the man speaking to use stopped. He told us he felt so badly for the boy. He could not take the uncle to be with the boy; he had to drive and could not be with the boy. He could just stabilize him and get him to a hospital as soon as possible. Amazingly the boy survived.
I think that is an important point to understand. Hamas did not care who they shot and killed and mutilated and terrorized. There were people from many countries who were impacted. There were people of five faiths who were brutalized or killed. The terrorists desire to destroy was unleased and focused on killing everyone in sight and creating chaos and terror wherever they went. While the volunteers from Magen David Adom saved all they could who were injured.
Besides the many who were murdered, even more were injured, some critically. They need medical care and blood. Magen David Adom is helping. I have made my donation to Magen David Adom through our Donor Advised Fund. You can also donate through the American Friends of Magen David Adom. (See Link below.)
In this time of Thanksgiving, we need to be thankful for the Magen David Adom first responders who put their lives at risk to save others. Let us thank them by supporting their important work.
zicharonot 
Very powerful post. Heartbreaking.
Thank you. It was an emotional event in early November.