February 8, 2010: Jewish community quick to respond to the people of Haiti

By Michael Regenstreif

I don’t usually deal with the same topic two issues in a row. Sometimes, though, the topicality of the subject matter demands follow-up. Such is the case of the crisis in Haiti following the massive earthquake that struck the impoverished Caribbean country on January 12.

Because of the Bulletin production schedule, my January 25 column was written on January 15, just three days after the disaster wrought so much damage and took such a heavy human toll. Much of the world had already begun responding to the emergency there – and the Jewish world, in Israel and in the Diaspora, was in the vanguard of those responding to the emergency.

In that column, I noted that the Jewish Federation of Ottawa had reacted quickly to the situation in Haiti and established a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund so that members of our community could direct their donations to the emergency relief efforts.

Ottawa’s Jewish community began responding immediately. In the first two weeks – this column is being written on January 28 – the fund received more than $37,000 in donations, funds that will be matched by the federal government and allocated to Canada’s relief efforts in Haiti.

The emergency in Haiti will be ongoing for months, indeed years, to come as that country – the poorest in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake – rebuilds from the devastation. Donations to the Federation’s Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund are still welcome and much needed. Visit jewishottawa.com or call 613-798-4696, ext. 232 to make a donation.

The Federation’s fund, like similar funds set up by other Jewish federations in Canada, is being channelled through United Israel Appeal Canada to IsraAID, the highly regarded coordinating body of Israeli and Jewish organizations active in development and relief work around the world. IsraAID has been at the forefront of relief efforts in Haiti over the past several weeks.

Israel, as noted, was among the first countries to respond to the dire situation in Haiti after the earthquake. The Israeli response included an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) emergency field hospital that, according to many media reports, was the most impressive and effective medical facility operating in Haiti in the days after the earthquake.

Interviewed from Haiti on CNN, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, a surgeon who is the chief medical reporter for NBC, said that the emergency treatment being provided by the international aid teams was basic and primitive.

It was only at Israel’s emergency field hospital, she said, that advanced, sophisticated medicine was being practised, and where the most difficult cases were being brought.

For moving accounts of the work done in Haiti by the Israelis, see the story on page 10 that features an interview with Dr. Ofer Merin, the chief of the IDF field hospital, and the journal entries on page 16 written by Arele Klein, a ZAKA paramedic dispatched from Israel to Haiti.

I mentioned in my previous column that one of the Jewish Community Campus employees feared for the life of her sister who was in Haiti and couldn’t be reached in the days after the earthquake.

I can report now that, days later, she was finally able to reach her sister who was safe.