Please join the greater community for a chesed event for Laniado Hospital, located in Netanya, Israel. The guest speaker will be a former resident of Teaneck, Dr. Arye Simmonds, who is a dedicated physician at the hospital.

Laniado Hospital’s beginning is a most inspiring and intriguing story. The first Klausenberger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, who lost 11 children, his wife and whole family during the Holocaust, was on a death march on which he was shot and wounded in the arm. The Rebbe internalized that experience and made a commitment to “never leave a Jew untreated.” This motto has guided him throughout his efforts to found a hospital in Israel to care for his fellow Jews. The rebbe finally realized his goal with the opening of the hospital in 1975. The Laniado Hospital is run according to Jewish law and is known as the only hospital in Israel that has never closed due to a strike.

Today, the hospital is thriving, in the heart of Netanya, and shares a contiguous boundary fence with the Emunah Beit Elazraki school. The hospital services the medical needs of the community and is a critical asset in helping to save lives and tend to the sick and wounded.

Laniado Hospital, also known as the Sanz Medical Center, is a not-for-profit hospital in Kiryat Sanz, serving a regional population of over 450,000 in Netanya and the Sharon plain.

Laniado served a critical role during more than 20 Netanya-area suicide bombings and terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada. The worst of these was the 2002 Passover massacre at the Park Hotel, located three minutes from the hospital. Laniado also treated wounded soldiers from the First and Second Lebanon War. Hospital personnel have developed an emergency preparedness protocol that regularly updates surgeons, trauma specialists, cardiologists and pediatricians on their roles during an emergency.

Come learn more about this worthwhile cause on Wednesday, October 31, at 7:30 p.m., at the Kaplan home, 1545 Jefferson Street in Teaneck.

By Ruby Kaplan