The Message, Volume 38, Number 4, October 2002 Page: 2 of 8
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Is Anything Better than Saving a Life?
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THE MESSAGE of Congregation Beth Yeshurun (USPS 968-500) is published semi-monthly Sept. - May,
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(Please make your check pay-
able to Congregation Beth Yeshu-
run, and write the word “Micro-
scope ” on the check.)
in the chaos that follows each suicide bombing, the people
we met were accurately diagnosed and very luckily sent to
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
It was Hadassah Hospital’s unique and grim expertise in
terrorism that prevented many of these young people from
losing a limb, if not their lives.
And seeing what I saw, I resolved to return home and
once again find a way for the people of Beth Yeshurun to re-
enlist in the battle to save Jewish lives. Last year, Beth
Yeshurun alone raised enough money to buy an ambulance.
With the help of our friends at the Jewish Federation, however,
we were able to send something even more precious: an
extraordinary ambulance/mobile medical center.
Once again, I called on the Jewish Federation to see if it
would partner with us on yet another life-saving gift to the
people of Israel. I knew I would not be disappointed. Without
hesitation, our friends at Federation said they would match
Beth Yeshurun dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000.
Together we explored Israel’s needs, and together we
agreed that Hadassah Hospital’s request for a microscope
navigational system would be perfect.
Suicide bombers long ago discovered that their bombs
can be made even more deadly if packed not only with
explosives but also with hundreds of nails, screws and bolts.
These exceptionally-small pieces of metal become imbedded
in vital organs and are, unfortunately, extremely difficult for
existing equipment to detect. The new microscope system
that Hadassah seeks will bring a new level of sensitivity and
accuracy to this grisly task.
The net effect is very simple: Lives will be saved. Can
there be any greater gift than that?
And so I ask your help. Please
help us reach our goal, and remem-
ber that the Jewish Federation will
in effect double every dollar you
give. Together let us once again
send Israel not only our best wishes
and our prayers.
Let us send once again a gift of
life!
I thank you from the bottom of
my heart. And so will the men,
women and children of Israel.
A A •
, monthly June & August by
Congregation Beth Yeshurun, 4525 Beechnut, Houston, Harris County, TX 77096. Periodical Postage Paid at Houston, Texas. POSTMASTER
send address changes to Congregation Beth Yeshurun, 4525 Beechnut, Houston, TX 77096.
t)i, '/'a-
t With Rabbi Rosen
[ ]
L J
ince returning from Jerusalem, I have been asked by
^^^many people if I found it difficult going to Hadassah
k—xHospital’s Emergency Trauma Unit on Mount Scopus.
The truth is, anticipating that visit caused my stomach to be
tied up in knots for not days but weeks. I go into Houston-
area hospitals regularly and, yes, I see many difficult things.
But the people I visit here are almost always hospitalized
because they are sick, not because they have survived a
terrorist bombing. There is a difference!
Arriving in Jerusalem, I knew that I had never seen
anything like what I was going to see inside Hadassah Hospital.
Frankly, I was nervous about going.
At first, I felt very unsure of myself, but then, as we
began moving through the unit and talking with the patients,
I realized that a patient is a patient, regardless the
circumstances. Regardless the reason you are confined to a
bed or subjected to numerous tests and other procedures, it
doesn’t matter whether you are asking yourself the question,
“Why did I get this illness” or “Why was I caught in a terrorist
assault.” The answer to both questions is unknowable and
mysterious. What’s involved in both cases is a process of
healing, both physical and emotional, and that’s what bikkur
holim, Judaism’s emphasis on comforting the sick and
suffering, compels us to do.
What is different (or so it seemed to me while walking
through Hadassah Hospital) is that terrorism’s victims appear
to be so young. An Israeli newspaper article confirmed this,
and offered as explanation the fact that it is the young who
are, in disproportionately higher numbers, out in the streets,
dining at sidewalk cafes, waiting to get into discotheques,
and riding buses to school and work. Some of the most
infamous attacks on Israelis have
been directed at the young—the
bombings at the Moment Cafe, on
Ben Yehuda Street on Saturday
nights, and at the Dolphinarium in
Tel Aviv come quickly to mind.
Most of the grievously woun-
ded that Marcie and I saw in Ha-
dassah’s trauma unit were under 30
years old, and that was what added
to the pain we felt hearing their
stories and seeing them so phy-
sically and emotionally scarred.
Speaking with each one of them, we
marveled that each had survived his
or her personal brush with death.
Clearly, they were still alive because,
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Congregation Beth Yeshurun (Houston, Tex.). The Message, Volume 38, Number 4, October 2002, periodical, October 4, 2002; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1298893/m1/2/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.