EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Finding Meaning
t is a small, nondescript hospital situated in a lower-
income town in north Israel, far in distance and demo-
graphics from big cities like Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. But
the HaEmek Medical Center, almost in defiance of
Mideast politics, is where Jews and Arabs work together to
improve living standards for all in the Central Galilee,
Michigan Jewry's partner region.
The 74-year-old hospital is in Afula, a growing, culturally
diverse city of 150,000 in the Jezreel Valley. The Christian
Arab city of Nazareth is nearby.
The Jezreel Valley combines with two neighboring Jewish
areas, Nazareth Illit and Migdal HaEmek, to
make up the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit-Jewish Agency for
Israel's Partnership 2000 region. The 10-year-
old partnership strives to inspire business,
learning and cultural exchanges, some of
which are more successful than others.
HaEmek Medical Center is no pretender:
Even soldiers are treated there.
The hospital dispenses care under Dr.
ROBERT A.
Orna Blondheim, the first and only female
SKLAR
director of a major hospital in Israel. She's
Editor
just as likely to observe an Israeli Arab sur-
geon treat a Jew victim-
ized by terror as she is a Jewish ER
physician examine a Palestinian child .
from Jenin, a West Bank terrorist breed-
ing ground.
There's zero tolerance for hate under -
her watch.
"Everyone is treated here equally," she
told Israeli writer Shlomo Stephens, who
sent me his engrossing interview. "People
leave their political views at the door
because our teams of doctors are mixed."
Talk about a striking juxtaposition.
I read about Dr. Blondheim, who Stephens aptly called a
medical pioneer, against the backdrop of the July 11 blast of a
bomb lurking in weeds by Tel Aviv's old central bus station.
Army Sgt. Maayan Naim, 19, of Bat Yam died in the blast
and at least 30 more were hurt as Dan Bus 26 left a stop at 7
a.m. Still a teenager for God's sake, she was en route to her
base at Tel Hashomer.
This first terrorist attack in Israel since March 14 came two
days after the United Nations' International Court of Justice,
with only the U.S. judge dissenting, ruled that Israel's anti-ter-
ror barrier was illegal and a land grab — and a violation of
Palestinian human rights. The nonbinding ruling denounces
the barrier and seeks reparations, but inexplicably neglects
Israel's right to impede West Bank suicide bombers. Yes the
barrier is negotiable, but only if Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat truly wants peace. It's revealing that the
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of his Fatah faction took credit for
the Sunday bombing, hardly coincidental to Friday's ruling.
Rachel Kapen of West Bloomfield rode Bus 26 during a
three-week Israel visit that ended Monday. Palestinian moder-
ates should take heed of what she heard on Israeli TV. Israeli
Arab Sammy Masrawa of Jaffa had just stepped off the bus
when the bomb, reinforced with ball bearings and bolts, was
somehow detonated. Sharpnel tore into a leg, but he managed
to hobble over to Naim and tried to help.
He now backs the barrier.
Masrawa, who advocates coexistence, also survived a 1995
bus bombing in Tel Aviv.
He told the Jerusalem Post, "The Palestinians are stupid for
what they're doing. They're not achieving anything and in the
end, they will only turn us Israeli Arabs against them.
"
Away And Back
Dr. Blondheim honed her medical skills as a pediatrician in
both Israel and America. Stops included Shaare Zedek
Hospital in Jerusalem and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
She and her husband, David, a New York-born cardiologist,
then sought to "practice medicine in the periphery, in places
where we really would be needed," while making Judaism res-
onate for their four kids. So they helped settle Mitzpe Netufa,
a small religious community in the Galilee near Tiberias.
Later, Orna Blondheim worked with newborns at HaEmek
Medical Center, rising to deputy director. In 2002, she reluc-
tantly left for Schneider Children's Hospital near Tel Aviv to
break through the glass ceiling and become the director.
Sadly, gender equality is still the exception in Israel. But that
could change. Almost 50 percent of Israel's medical students
are women, up 40 percent since Dr. Blondheim's student days.
Credit Clalit, the Israeli HMO that owns HaEmek, with
believing in the good doctor so early.
In 2003, Dr. Blondheim returned to HaEmek as director,
succeeding Clalit's new chief executive. She's quick to urge the
government to step up and better HaEmek services. Her
gumption is welcomed in a state that has lost at least 980 lives
to Islamic terrorists over the past 45 months.
"Yes, we have terrific physicians here,"
she told Stephens, but the people of the
region "deserve to have the same access
to specialized medicine as the average
medical center offers to patients in
Jerusalem or Tel Aviv."
She also said that if the government
wants more Jews to settle up north, it
must create jobs, enrich educational
opportunities and begin to meet
HaEmek needs, "such as a radiation
Blondheim
center, which we are lacking just as the
number of cancer cases is on the rise."
Resigned to Israel's dire financial
straits, Dr. Blondheim knows it'll take years to find enough
mega donors to generate up to $100 million to realize her
dream of a modern, fully equipped hospital.
Meanwhile, she tells of three "modest" goals.
"We need to revamp our fertility unit; update our delivery
room, because at the moment it's old and overcrowded; and
we need to seriously upgrade our gastroenterology depart-
ment, which has excellent doctors, but not enough room or
enough new equipment," she told Stephens.
I think back to Sgt. Naim, who was buried Sunday. The
logistics corps officer had gone home to a Tel Aviv suburb for
Shabbat two days before. She arrived in time to sing Lecha
Dodi with her mother, Mazal, and four siblings. Kiddush
came after her father, Chaim, arrived home from minyan.
Sgt. Naim, who so looked forward to traveling and resum-
ing her studies, was a year from being discharged.
"It's impossible to describe how this girl, such a beautiful
flower, leaves home in the morning and does not return to her
family," family friend Liron Aruch told Israeli Army Radio.
Dr. Blondheim didn't know Sgt. Naim.
But their lives intersected in striving for a strong, undeni-
able Jewish state that still touches non-Jewish citizens in pro-
foundly meaningful ways. ❑
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