Hadassah's national president, Carol Ann Schwartz, shared this October 1, 2024, emergency update on Israel and Hadassah's preparedness to treat patients and keep its youth Aliyah village residents safe.
As of this writing, Israel is being bombarded by rockets and missiles from Iran. We are watching from the United States with great concern and fear.
This afternoon in Israel, Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem moved its neonatal intensive care unit underground, as Ein Kerem and Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus prepare to transfer patients to safe areas, some of them also underground. The attacks follow warnings earlier today from the IDF Homefront Command and the US that an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel may be imminent.
Thankfully, our Hadassah family is currently safe. And because of your support, our Meir Shfeyah and Hadassah Neurim youth villages have upgraded and properly outfitted bomb shelters to protect students and staff.
As has been true since 1948, when the State of Israel was proclaimed, Israel is in a fight for its very survival.
Now is the time! Help Hadassah protect and heal the people of Israel.
At this unprecedented moment, you can help us meet the most urgent needs of this crisis:
- Critical Expansion and War-ready Facilities: Help us add six underground operating theaters to the existing 13 at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, which can function without interruption even during an attack, and complete the hospital’s new ICU, both significantly enhancing the capacity of the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) to treat soldiers and mass civilian casualties.
- Comprehensive Rehabilitative Care: Help us ensure HMO can open the remaining five floors of the Gandel Rehabilitation Center, already partially open on the Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus campus, and fully equip this cutting-edge facility to treat and transform the lives of large numbers of wounded soldiers and civilians who will need long-term rehabilitation.
- Addressing Trauma: Help HMO maintain and expand its mental health response to the war in the form of essential psychological services for traumatized soldiers and civilians of all ages, including young children.
- Youth Aliyah: Help us continue to support our youth villages, Meir Shfeyah and Hadassah Neurim, enabling them to provide critical psychological services to, and shelter for, students and faculty, and to take in students from the North should they be called on to do so.
We continue to pray for the safety of our Hadassah family and everyone in our beloved Israel; for the immediate, safe return of the hostages; and for all who have been displaced to be able to return to their homes.
Most of all, we pray for peace.
If there has ever been a time to support the people of Israel, it is now!
Together We Will Heal. B’Yachad Nerapeh.