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May the coming year
be filled
with health, happiness
and prosperity
for all our family
and friends.

Claire & Mary Tamaroff

An Israeli volunteer searches a flooded home for bodies.

May the coming year be filled with
health and happiness for all our family and friends.
L'Shanah Tovah!

Dr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Diskin & Family

Sneaky
Assistance

Stealthy Israelis in
New Orleans area to help
those in post-Katrina chaos.

Chanan Tigay
Jewish Telegraphic

Agency

New York

w

May the coming year be filled with

health and happiness for all our family and friends.
L'Shanah Tovah!

Marta Fleischer
Linda & George Fleischer

We wish our family & friends a very
healthy, happy and sweet New Year.

90

ashington may have
rebuffed Israeli offers
of expert assistance in
the days after Hurricane Katrina,
but a team of Israeli rescue per-
sonnel managed to deploy in
some of the worst-hit areas
around New Orleans.
The 18-member team —
which included physicians, men-
tal health professionals, trauma
specialists, logistics experts and
a unit of Israeli police divers —
arrived in St. Bernard Parish and
Plaquemines Parish on Sept. 10
and spent 10 days assisting fire
department search-and-rescue
squads and sitting in on daily
planning meetings that included
local leadership and a comple-
ment of FEMA, police, military
and fire representatives, the
Israeli team's leader said.
The team administered first
aid to survivors, rescued aban-
doned pets and discovered vic-

tims of the storm. Carting equip-
ment ranging from axes and
ropes to electrical generators,
satellite phones and three weeks'
worth of food, the group arrived
in the United States in civilian
garb, waiting until they hit the
decimated areas to don T-shirts
featuring the group's logo and
other identifying garb that would
mark them as uninvited rescue
personnel.
"We had tools like Jack the
Ripper," said Gal Lusky, a diver
who founded Israeli Flying Aid, a
non-governmental organization
that undertook the mission along
with the IsraAID relief group.
Asked about the Israeli per-
sonnel, a spokesman for FEMA
said only that "there were many
volunteer groups from different
countries who came to Louisiana
to help the people and the state.
"FEMA wants to thank them for
the assistance and the hard work
they did."
Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-La., was
grateful for the Israelis' work.
"The work being done by

September 29 2005 J