To save a life

Magen David Adom launches ‘Christian Friends’ society.

By JOHN BLACK
To save a life (photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
To save a life
(photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
Israel’s distinguished Magen David Adom (“Red Star of David”) emergency response service may have started small, but its founders had big ambitions – to save lives one person at a time.
Today, it has grown into one of the world’s largest emergency medical services and is sending first responder teams to disaster areas around the globe. Yet with its expanded reach, the medical society is seeking to also enlarge its support base, especially through a new initiative called Christian Friends of Magen David Adom.
In the Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:5 says that “whoever saves a single life is deemed by Scripture as though he had saved a whole world.” This principle framed the core purpose of MDA from its inception eight decades ago.
MDA was founded in 1930 by a group of Jewish workers who saw the need to attend to people in desperate need of medical attention. It started humbly, with just one vehicle – an old truck which they converted into an ambulance and somehow managed to get on the road.
Today, MDA manages 119 emergency medical stations from Metula to Eilat, including 14 stations in Judea/Samaria. MDA’s vast medical teams consist of 14,000 volunteers on standby, operating 900 ambulances that drive 10 million miles in caring for over 600,000 people per year.
MDA blood services collect more than 300,000 units of blood and instruct over 60,000 teenagers, adults and medical teams in lifesaving procedures annually. Most importantly, MDA maintains Israel’s only viable blood bank – the lifeline of the Jewish nation on far too many occasions.
MDA also has over 100 emergency motorbikes for first responders who show up first on the scene of many emergencies. And in 2007, MDA began operating its first intensive care helicopter.
After the ambulances are removed from active duty, which occurs after 7- to-8 years of service, MDA donates them to smaller communities on both sides of the Green Line. Those operating the vehicles are trained and certified by MDA.
Not only have they been Israel’s largest ambulance service for the last 82 years, but they have become the largest ambulance service in the entire world, according to Norman Feingold, Vice President of MDA in the United Kingdom and one of its more renowned fundraisers for the past 60 years.
“We are in ambulance work in all nations,” Feingold recently told The Christian Edition. “We are in Indonesia, Panama, Georgia, Haiti. We are teaching people to be paramedics. We are teaching people how to save lives. We are sending out our people. We are the finest public relations Israel will ever have. We are saving lives. We are in earthquake zones. Of course, we are teaching the world.”
Indeed, MDA has a long and proud history of sending its medical missions abroad. During World War II, for instance, MDA sent an ambulance through Iran to the Soviet Union.
More recently, with South Sudan’s independence looming, MDA trained South Sudanese refugees in Israel on some of their older ambulances and donated them to the new nation as it marked its freedom.
After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, MDA immediately volunteered to send professional humanitarian aid.
MDA paramedics helped staff the IDF’s emergency field hospital, which gained worldwide attention for its advanced hitech capabilities, while other teams of MDA volunteers distributed food, water, survival kits and preventive medicine.
So MDA is still succeeding in its mission of saving lives at home in Israel and also globally. But with the expanded reach of its services, the organization is also now looking to reach out to new communities for support. MDA has cultivated relationships with donors and support associations throughout the world, including “Friends” societies in 19 countries across five continents which host public community events to raise awareness and funds on behalf of MDA.
The donations are used to establish and renovate stations, acquire ambulances and medical equipment, and contribute to the training and refresher courses for MDA staff and volunteers.
Over the decades, most of MDA’s support has come from Jewish Diaspora communities, but there have been an increasing number of donations from Christians and churches. Taking note of this, Feingold conceived of a special outreach to potential Christian supporters. His concept, birthed five years ago, is now formally known as Christian Friends of Magen David Adom.
Feingold has been active in the Society of British Friends of MDA for 60 years now and has raised funds for the organization in other countries as well.
In a well-deserved tribute to his activism, Feingold was awarded a 60- year service pin from Israeli President Shimon Peres, which happened on the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel in 2008.
Feingold was born in 1925 in the Manchester area and endured waves of German bombing sorties over Britain.
He served as a merchant marine and radio officer during WWII, and won awards for his service during the Italian and Pacific campaigns.
After the war, with the horrors of the Holocaust seared into his brain, he says he came to an inescapable conclusion: “I had to work for the Jewish people, work for the State of Israel and dedicate myself to it. And therefore in all those years since 1948, I have dedicated myself to the Jewish people. I’m a volunteer... a volunteer to this very day, and I’ve always been.”
Feingold’s volunteer work has been primarily with MDA, where he has been instrumental in raising funds that have helped save Jewish lives, including by rescuing Jews from Communistcontrolled Europe and bringing them to their ancient homeland in Eretz Israel.
He recounted that in the early 1960s nearly 200 British pounds were needed for one Jewish passport in Romania.
Seeing Jewish lives saved stirred him to continue his appeals for funds from the Jewish community.
“The inner core was the survival of the Jewish people, the return of the Jewish people to this land, God’s promise to be fulfilled in my lifetime,” he insisted.
This goal of seeking to preserve the Jewish people in their patrimonial homeland eventually motivated Feingold to want to reach out to Christians.
“In 2007 I developed the idea that MDA should link up with Christians, our brothers and sisters, together in this great enterprise, and that it is not singularly a Jewish issue. That is our way forward. It is only by making Christians and Jews into a family. We want to create a brotherhood. We want to recognize birthdays, sadness and sorrow,” he explained.
“In helping to save lives globally, we are showing our hand of friendship. But I want that hand of friendship to be a Christian-Jewish hand of friendship.”
The new initiative Christian Friends of Magen David Adom is the result.
Since its inception, Christian Friends of MDA has provided two ambulances and a blood mobile, and more is on the way.
Nathalie Blackham serves today as the chairwoman of Christian Friends of MDA in Israel. She has a deep desire to love the Jewish people by serving them in practical ways.
Born in France, Nathalie has been a Christian since age 18 and was trained as a nurse. She later met her British husband, Martin, while serving in the UK.
At one point in their Christian walk, the couple read the book Exodus II: Let My People Go by Steve Lightle. As they learned about the Bible prophecies related to Israel’s restoration, they found themselves on a new adventure to discover the Jewish roots of their Christian faith.
Becoming more involved in Israelrelated activities, the Blackhams realized the contrast between the media’s portrayal of Israel and the reality of the Jewish state. In response, they started Revelation TV to educate British and European audiences on the realities in Israel.
This eventually brought them to Israel, and in 2010 they met Norman Feingold, who challenged them over a Shabbat meal to consider deeper involvement with MDA-UK.
Today, Nathalie is volunteering her time as Chairwoman of Christian Friends of MDA within Israel, while also training other volunteers in CPR methods, taking blood donations and creating lasting close connections between Christians and the Jewish people.
Along with Feingold, who works out of an office in Tel Aviv, the new CFMDA team hopes to recruit a whole new generation of supporters of Magen David Adom from the Christian world