MEDICAL EXCELLENCE

ISRAELI N E W S

SHAARE ZEDEK MEDICAL CENTRE

In 2022, Shaare Zedek Medical Centre celebrates 120 years of delivering medical excellence in Jerusalem.

In honour of this historic anniversary the walls of Jerusalem’s old city and iconic Strings Bridge were lit up with the hospital's logo.

The hospital was established in 1902 with 20 beds and 40 cows providing fresh milk to patients.

It has now grown to a world-leading hospital with 1,000 beds across two campuses, treating nearly one million patients annually.

Shaare Zedek Director General Professor Ofer Merin said it was a tremendous honour to be part of such a remarkable heritage of caring and advanced medicine.

“Even as we look back on this incredible accomplishment, our eyes are always focused on the future.

“Our pledge is to continue to expand and embrace new areas of medicine, science and patient care on behalf of the people of Jerusalem, Israel and the global medical community."

As a centre of both clinical and research excellence, Shaare Zedek employs more than 4,000 medical professionals. The hospital has served the citizens of Jerusalem through war, terror attacks and the many medical challenges that face a thriving city.

Shaare Zedek is one of the busiest maternity hospitals in the western world, with in excess of 20,000 births yearly.

The values of compassion and innovation have always been the hallmarks of the Hospital with a Heart.

The Australian community has supported Shaare Zedek for many decades.

The late Mr Joseph Feiglin worked to raise funds to support the hospital in Jerusalem until his passing in 1988.

Dr Allan Garfield established the Australian Friends of Shaare Zedek in 1991 and has served as Chairman since then.

Now, as a health promotion charity, the AFSZ is focused on supporting the hospital and sharing the best of contemporary medical initiatives between Israel and Australia.

If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is the increased need to promote healthcare initiatives across international boundaries.

Medical excellence

Shaare Zedek Director General Professor Ofer Merin (photo: Arnon Busani)

The walls of Jerusalem’s Old City were lit up in honour of Shaare Zedek Medical Centre’s 120th anniversary (photo: Arnon Busani)

Whoopi, what were you thinking?

BY RABBI BENJAMIN BLECH COURTESY: AISH.COM

In today’s world where just about anyone who has an opinion that somebody disagrees with is immediately shamed and shunned as a racist, Whoopi Goldberg “explains” on The View that “The Holocaust isn’t about race.” Then she went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and actually defended her views, saying, “…Nazis were white people and most of the people they were attacking were white people. So to me, I’m thinking, ‘How can you say it’s about race if you are fighting each other?’”

Somehow those guilty of mass exterminations of Jews manage to escape the horrific label of racist.

Perhaps it may come as a shock to Whoopi Goldberg that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews who are coloured – Yemenites, Ethiopians, Sephardic Jews from many lands, converts of varying degrees of darkness – all of whom, by virtue of their Jewish identity, would have been victims of Nazi ideology. Goldberg’s claim that “the Holocaust is of no concern to persons of colour because it’s all about white people killing other white people” is nonsensical, not only because it ignores the primary racist motivation of Aryan worshiping Germans but seems totally unaware of the racial identity of so many of its victims.

Hitler’s plan to rid the Aryan German population of its Jewish inhabitants – and then to do the same eventually in the rest of the world – was openly and clearly dominated by his racism. The whole point of the Holocaust was to eradicate the Jewish “race” from the earth. Hitler repeatedly said, “The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but they are not human.”

In the Yad Vashem Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust there is an extensive display of the racial categorisation the Nazi regime created. The guides demonstrate “a Nazi pyramid of the races”, with Aryans at the very top and “lesser” racial groups below. The Jews never made it to the pyramid. They didn’t deserve even a bottom rung because, as the Nazis explained, “including a Jew in the pyramid would be like giving cockroaches a seat at your dinner table”. Jews simply were not considered human – just as Louis Farrakhan defended his hatred of Jews with the claim that he was not anti-Semitic, but rather “anti-termite.” After the firestorm erupted, she posted an apology online: “On today’s show, I said the Holocaust ‘is not about race, but about man’s inhumanity to man.’ I should have said it is about both. As Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League shared, ‘The Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race.’ I stand corrected. The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I’m sorry for the hurt I have caused.”

ABC Network suspended her from The View for two weeks. Kim Godwin, ABC News’ president said in a statement, “While Whoopi has apologised, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organisation stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities.” I am gratified by the level of outrage sparked by Whoopi’s insensitivity and ignorance.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, has invited her to visit and learn about the Holocaust. I sincerely hope she takes them up on the offer. Whoopi is not an anti-Semite; she’s ignorant, as is much of the world when it comes to the Holocaust.

There are millions of people who are ethically and morally challenged by what they view as expressions of racism, yet remain silent and apathetic to the very real reappearance of antisemitism, both in America as well as the world at large. It is time for us to respond as vigorously and as forcefully to the dual threats to our democratic system, both of which made the Holocaust possible.