MAY 19 • 2022 | 13

need, so I was lucky to have been taken
under his wing, and so we went to work.”
Since the beginning of the war, Katz
has been providing relief efforts, funded
by many organizations, including
B’nai B’rith International, to Ukrainian
refugees who have made it to Siret.
Norkin spent his first week in
Romania working with Katz providing
relief to refugees in Siret as they stepped
up efforts to procure medical supplies,
equipment and an ambulance for
Odessa. By the second week, he had
teamed up with the Joint Distribution
Committee in their efforts to transport
a few Jewish Ukrainian Jewish families
who were stranded in the port city of
Mangalia. In his rented van, he was able
to transfer nine refugees to Bucharest,
where they boarded a chartered flight to
Israel.
Norkin said, eventually, Katz recruited
a friend who is an ER physician in
Bucharest who procured a Mercedes
Benz Sprinter ambulance that could be
used in Odessa.
They stocked the ambulance with
medication, including thousands of
dollars of thyroid pills, something that
many Ukrainians need as a lingering
effect of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear
disaster.

LANSING’S JEWISH
COMMUNITY STEPS UP
While overseas, Norkin got a call from
Amy Shapiro, executive director of the
Greater Lansing Jewish Federation,
who told him that the community was
financially backing him by collecting
$7,000 in donations to cover the cost
of the ambulance, as well as additional
$7,000 for medical equipment like dual

patient monitors and defibrillators,
medicine and first aid supplies.
“As soon as I heard about (Ody’s work
in Ukraine), I knew this was something
that community would get behind,”
Shapiro explained. “Ody is well known
and well liked from the years he has
operated Michigan Flyer. He is very
active at his synagogue, Kehilat Israel.
And when I heard about this ambulance
project, I knew that would really inspire
people to donate because they knew
exactly where the money was going.”
Although they had an ambulance in
their possession by the end of March,
Norkin and Katz still had to contend
with red tape from Romanian officials
to transfer the ambulance’s ownership
title to the Jewish community of Odessa.
It took some more connections, plus
a few phone calls from Michigan
Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, to seal
the deal.
On the night of April 7, Norkin
and Katz drove the ambulance from
Bucharest to the Isaccea border, crossed
the Danube by ferry and arrived in
Odessa by early morning. It took 24
hours to drive the 584-km trek between
Bucharest and Odessa — a journey that
in normal times can be done in under
nine hours.

continued on page 14

The second
ambulance for
Dnipro.

Ody Norkin in the back
of the ambulance he’s
delivering to Dnipro