More than 150 people attended a fundraiser Sunday to support Magen David Adom, Israel’s national EMS and blood-services organization. Elie and Esther Katz, who host the now-annual event, welcomed Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Bergen County Sheriff Anthony Cureton.

Teaneck’s deputy mayor Mark Schwartz, who also serves as JLNJ’s co-publisher, was presented with the MDA lifesaving award; Juda Engelmayer received the public safety award for helping found a nonprofit community security agency for Jewish institutions. Yavneh Academy was recognized for its work raising money to fund a life support ambulance for Israel.

Among the speakers at the event were Mohammed Hameeduddin, Teaneck’s mayor, Israel’s former consul general in New York, Ido Aharoni; Magen David Adom’s director of multi-casualty response training, Guy Caspi; and Sarri Singer, a New Jersey native who was gravely injured by a suicide bomber on a bus in Israel in 2003. She founded the organization Strength to Strength.

“Magen David Adom is an EMS organization and makes no distinction between Arabs and Jews when their paramedics are treating people at the scene of a medical emergency,” said David Frankel, CEO of American Friends of Magen David Adom. “Not only does MDA coordinate and train with the Palestinian and Jordanian Red Crescent organizations, they also transport critically ill patients from Gaza to Israel when they require the more advanced level of care available at Israeli hospitals.”

Those still interested in donating for the Bergen County ambulance, please visit Bergendonate.com.

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