Donation made in memory of his beloved wife and in honor of their children and grandchildren.
Not a day goes by when the heroic rescues of United Hatzalah of Israel aren’t lauded in the media within Israel and internationally. Whether reviving a drowning infant or rescuing hundreds of besieged Jews of Moldavia, United Hatzalah of Israel is on the scene through its 95 chapters, and 6,200 volunteers. United Hatzalah answers 1,800 calls per day, utilizing 1,000 ambucycles and 50 ambulances fully equipped to deliver instant medical services within a three-minute response time. Founded in 2006 by American oleh Eli Beer, United Hatzalah can be activated 24/7 by dialing 1221 in Israel. Since its inception, United Hatzalah has treated over 5 million cases around the world.
Jason Katz of Bergenfield, the tri-state regional director of United Hatzalah of Israel, has been with the organization for the past seven-and-a-half years, during which he has been overwhelmed by the generosity of the local communities of Teaneck, Bergenfield, Fair Lawn and Englewood, as well as Tenafly, Closter and Demarest. Katz said that the greatest asset of United Hatzalah of Israel, after its state-of-the-art rescue equipment, is its team of 6,200 volunteers consisting of religious and secular Jews, Arabs and Druze, Bedouins and Christians. These include emergency medical technicians (EMTs), paramedics, and doctors and nurses on call 24/7/365—even on Yom Kippur.
All medics are given a 200-hour training course and 100 hours of training calls to qualify as EMTs. After successfully passing the exams, each medic receives a rescue bag and a phone that connects him/her to the LifeCompass System, a state-of-the-art technology that allows the organization to dispatch the closest volunteer medics to each urgent medical call. In addition, each rescuer is outfitted with the pioneering Bluebird and Rugear Communication Device, a new mobile device that accelerates response time and allows the needed resources to reach the scene on time. From the completion of their training, the medics are always on call, having their rescue bags, phones and modes of transportation with them everywhere they go, whether to offices, schools or home.
The transportation fleet utilized by United Hatzalah consists of a range of vehicles from small to large, even including a rescue ATV and rescue boat. The Emergency Response Ambucycle is particularly effective as due to its compact size it is not held up by traffic jams and narrow streets, unlike cars and ambulances. Each of the 1,000 ambucycles currently in use by United Hatzalah is equipped with a first-aid case designed to hold all the necessary medical equipment. These unique motorcycles used in conjunction with the Lifecompass Technology have reduced the response time of a medic to three minutes out of the city and 90 seconds within the city. The cost of a single ambucycle is $36,000.
In June 2022, Dr. Reuben Gross, long-time resident of Teaneck, donated four ambucycles to United Hatzalah with the assistance of Katz. At the time of his generous donation, several of Dr. Gross’ grandchildren were studying in Israel during their gap year, which added even greater meaning to the dedication of the rescue vehicles.
Dr. Gross shared the meaningful and inspiring backstory of this impressive, life-saving donation to United Hatzalah:
“In response to your questions, Ms. Markovitz, I am happy [to discuss the donation and its backstory],” he began.
“Our family moved to Teaneck in 1972 when we became the 65th member family of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun,” he said. “Shortly after moving to the community, I opened a practice on Teaneck Road, where I remained until March 2020 when COVID hit. As a dually licensed psychologist and marriage counselor, my interest at the time was to help marriage-minded singles, well before the ‘shidduch crisis.’ I also wrote a weekly column for The Jewish Standard entitled ‘Let’s Talk Tachlis.’
“I expanded my professional services to include marriage counseling and created the website www.MarriageCounselorNJ.com, through which I disseminated 20 of my articles geared to helping couples improve their marriage. I created six carefully worded questionnaires that I send out to couples, which saved many hours of interviews. My techniques helped many couples develop harmony and happiness in their marriages.
“My love for Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael began at an early age during my yeshiva days in Borough Park. As I studied the history of the Jewish people, I learned of the catastrophic tragedies that we suffered going back to the destruction of Judea in 70 CE and the miracle of our rebirth in 1948 after an exile of 1,900 years. My love for the renewed State of Israel inspired me to write a lengthy dissertation entitled ‘Israel: The Third Jewish State’ for my master’s degree from the University of the Philippines, where I was stationed by the U.S. Air Force. My heightened reverence for and gratitude to Hashem for our beloved Israel was reinforced by remembering our tumultuous history going back 3,000 years.
“My support for Israel was reinforced by the love of my beloved wife, Donna Leah, a”h for the Jewish State, which we had several opportunities to visit. During one memorable visit, we were shown the remains of a house burned by the Romans 1,900 years earlier. During our married lives, Donna and I donated to many Israel-based charities. Fortunately our values about Israel have been passed down to our children and grandchildren.
“My motivation for the recent donation of four ambucycles to United Hatzalah of Israel is the current terrorist activity on the ground and spate of missiles aimed at Israeli cities by surrounding hostile Arab enclaves. … We must help protect our Israeli brethren!
“In addition to this physical need, I was also motivated by a very critical social need in Israel today—that of the unfortunate schism between secular and religious Jews.
“Although [most] Orthodox young men willingly serve in the army and are proud of their participation to defend Israel, virtually all of the ultra-Orthodox make yeshiva learning a lifelong commitment and refuse to serve in the IDF. Although many of their wives work, the others live on the welfare stipends of the government. I do not have statistics, but am confident in assuming that this state of affairs creates resentment on the part of secular Jews who do not interact on any level with the isolated communities of the ultra-Orthodox. This creates a lack of unity between these two groups.
“I find this lack of unity, and all other divisions between groups of Jews in Israel, to be a crisis which must be addressed. The Gemara states that a lack of unity to the level of “ baseless hatred” brought about our loss of the second Beit Hamikdash; once again we are engaging in an unfortunate lack of unity.
“I saw my role in addressing this problem through my donation of the ambucycles. Since I was invited to add an inscription to each ambucycle, in each inscription I mention Hashem and other key words that make it clear that the ambucycle was donated by a religious Jew to help save the lives of all Jews.
“My hope is that if, ‘chas v’ chalila,’ any of our brethren needs the emergency medical services provided by one of my donated vehicles, they and their families will realize that their lives were saved by the goodwill of an Orthodox Jew,” Dr. Gross concluded. “Hopefully, this message will help in the mission of uniting our people. I pray that their need is minimal. Kein Yehi Ratzon!”
To learn more about the life-saving services of United Hatzalah of Israel visit www.israelrescue.org, To donate go to https://israelrescue.org/donate.php or call 646-833-7108 in the USA and 972-2-500-2020 in Israel.
By Pearl Markovitz
