Stop the Bleeding and Repair the World
Photos courtesy of Operating Together, Wolfson Medical Centre, Holon, Israel
Professional Joe Goldblatt
I recently asked my friend Dr Adam Lee Goldstein, Head of Trauma Surgery at Wolfson Medical Centre in Holon, Israel after experiencing hundreds of missles being fired from Palestine into Israel, how does he look across the operating table into the eyes of Palestinian clinicians without feeling anger. I asked him what he was thinking at that moment?
Adam soberly replied “I feel only one thing. We must stop the bleeding.”
A few years ago, prior to the attack by the terrorist organisation Hamas, Adam and a Palestinian colleague founded the charity Operating Together to seek ways for Palestinians and Israelis to work together more effectively and humanely in the operating theatre. This highly respected and acclaimed programme now shares their best practices with war torn nation states all over the world.
According to Adam, his priority, along with those of his colleagues, is to save a human life. In Judaism, life is the most sacred of all values as embodied in the Hebrew phrase when Jews make a toast by saying “L’Chaim” which means “To life” or when greeting a mourner after the death of their loved one by saying “May you have long life.” This value is one reason so many Jewish people seek medicine as a career.
During the past two years, similar to many other Jewish people throughout the world, I have personally struggled with my non negotiable loyalty to the State of Israel government because it has served as a protective homeland for the Jewish people. However, I know from my work as vice chair of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum that in 1938 the Chinese saved 18,000 Jewish holocaust victims when no other country including the UK would open their borders to them. It reminds me of the quote by Israel’s only female prime minister Golde Meir who said “The only real security in Israel we Jews have is that no other country in the world wants us.” I fear the same is true today due to the fears of increased immigration by other nation states.
I am however, also reminded of the phrase by Meir that she stated during the Yom Kippur war of 1973. When asked about atonement which is a Jewish commandment during Yom Kippur (Day of Forgiveness), which is to ask the almighty and our fellow humans for forgiveness she famously replied “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for make us kill their children.”
Very soon on 1 and 2 October the Jewish people will once again experience our Day of Atonement which occurs duing the period known as the Days or Awe or repentance. Perhaps this year is the time when collectively we should remember and further commit to another of the most important values of our faith which is the Hebrew phrase Tikkun Olam or to repair the world. The Jewish people for over 5000 years have seen the world repeatedly broken from war and now starvation in Gaza. According to our faith we are commanded to perform charitable acts to repair this broken world through tzedakah (Hebrew for acts of charity). Surely there can be no more charitable act than feeding the hungry so they may experience good health and long life?
I may have first learned about tzedakah from my parents in the 1960’s when an Iranian boy enrolled at my high school. His family had fled Iran after the 1963 uprising where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeni became a strong vocal critic of the Shah of Iran’s progressive White Revolution because the Ayatollah believed the Shah’s reforms were contrary to Islamic law.
My father, perhaps remembering the challenges his own parents faced in the 1920’s as Jewish refugees, asked me to visit my soon to be new Iranian friend Eddie Tabibian. I drove over to Eddie’s modest home and in sort order Eddie and I bonded over a shared love of the music of the Beatles. I never asked him about his experiences in Iran, however, many times he would tell me how fortunate he was to have found refuge in the USA.
As we listened on my turn table to the Beatles song “Let it Be” I believe we shared a common belief that over time the world would heal and that in the meantime we clung tightly to our close friendship as our own personal refuge during those turbulent times of the Vietnam war.
Let It Be by Paul McCartney of the Beatles
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
It may have seemed strange to have seen two Jewish and Muslim high school students singing along and swaying to a song that mentions the mother of Jesus Christ, however, it served as a strong common bond for me and my friend Eddie that I remember and cherish sixty years later.
Now, as I view with horror the escallating starvation in Gaza and the hestiation by the Government of Israel and their allies to boldly and immediately take action to relieve this suffering I wonder when we shall follow the Jewish value of charity and work together to save lives as the courageous clinicians do through Operating Together? We need an immediate common bond. In Judaism it is believed that this bond is to save one life, as they are doing every day through programmes such as Operating Together, and in doing so to save the entire world. This should be our immediate strong common bond. Now is the time to practice what we preach.
Professor Joe Goldblatt is a member of the Jewish people and co – chair of the Edinburgh Interfaith Association. His views are his own. To learn more about his views please visit www.joegoldblatt.scot