Shaare Zedek dedicates a new wing of outpatient clinics in memory of a soldier who fell in Operation Protective Edge.
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICHShearei Tzedek Hospital(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A 21-year-old soldier from Jerusalem, who volunteered as a medic in his free time and was killed in last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, was memorialized on Tuesday by a wing of gynecological clinics on the ninth floor of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s upcoming Next Generation Building.The donation by an anonymous donor was made to the hospital via the Adar Foundation, and Sgt. Barkai Yishai Shor – who had always dreamed of being a physician – was chosen among the 65 officers and soldiers killed in the 50-day operation.He is buried 500 meters away from Shaare Zedek in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl.Over 100 members of the Shor family, hospital staffers and friends were out in force on Tuesday, along with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Shaare Zedek director-general Prof. Jonathan Halevy, Jerusalem Magen David Adom director Shlomo Petrover and others for the ceremony to perpetuate the memory of Barkai, whose first name was given because he was born at the first gleam of the sun at dawn. He was a fourth-generation Jerusalemite on the side of his father, Yaron, and a third-generation Holocaust survivor on the side of his mother, Rivka, who cut the ribbon leading to the entrance of the colorful and calming clinics.Whenever Barkai had free time from the IDF, he rushed to the MDA ambulance where he volunteered from age 15, sometimes even doing double shifts. On just one day, Yaron recalled, Barkai studied Gemara with a friend in his modern-Orthodox yeshiva, carried out a successful resuscitation and then delivered a baby.He volunteered to wrap food packages for the poor, and was active in the Bnei Akiva youth movement and a group to bring religious and secular Jews together.The young sergeant fell on July 28, 2014, when terrorists infiltrated Israel via a tunnel from Gaza near the pillbox of Nahal Oz and attempted to execute an attack.The gynecological outpatient clinics – which will treat women and girls in a wide variety of fields from high-risk pregnancy and congenital defects to gestational diabetes and eating disorders – covers a large area with beautiful views of Jerusalem from two large balconies, said the clinics’ chief nurse, Tami Weizman.The mayor said that while Barkai’s death was a terrible tragedy, the fact that his memory is perpetuated by such a facility is a “giant victory.”He briefly disclosed that a world center for fertility and genetics – performing treatments for infertile couples in Israel and as medical tourism from abroad, along with research – will be established in the capital.Barkat said that two months ago, he, Halevy and others went to Harvard’s business school to discuss with experts their plan for the fertility center, which will be carried out jointly by Shaare Zedek, Hadassah University Medical Centers and, for research, by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s life sciences department.Israel has more in-vitro fertilization units per capita – one in nearly every general hospital – than any other country in the world due to the desire of couples to have babies. Thus Israeli physicians and technicians have more expertise in fertility and genetic diagnosis than almost anywhere in the world.In fact, Shaare Zedek apparently delivers more infants – 22,000 a year – than any other hospital in the world, a significant percentage of them for infertile couples who undergo IVF and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to ensure that the baby will not be born with serious defects.The municipality will, on Jerusalem Day (May 17), release an organized statement on the fertility center, and only then could city officials be interviewed about it, the mayor’s spokesman’s office said.
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