Published: 4 October 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
My friend was badly grazed on the face, knees and hands, and suffering from shock. Fortunately, it was early morning and she was seen by several walkers, who called for assistance.
First on the scene within minutes was Hatzolah, the Jewish ambulance service. My friend is not Jewish and had no idea such a thing even existed. But she was glad of the calm, comfort and expertise its team provided in assessing the extent of her injuries.
Unlike the NSW Ambulance service, Hatzolah vehicles do not provide transport to hospital or home, but are equipped with defibrilators and other medical equipment, including oxygen, obstetric kits, stabilising collars, eye wash and trauma gear to provide relief and attend to wounds from broken limbs to burns.
Last year, they answered 5,000 calls.
This August, the service responded to 84 emergencies, a marked increase on this time last year. “The community is growing and people are living longer, so they need more help,” says CEO and founder Rabbi Mendy Litzman, who first worked as a certified paramedic in his native US.
Since 2006 Hatzolah (its name means ‘rescue’ or ‘relief’ in Hebrew) has provided assistance in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, covering areas that include Maroubra, Bondi and Watsons Bay. It is the only independent ambulance service in Australia, and is part of a global network that started in Brooklyn (where else?) in the 1960s then spread to wherever there was a Jewish community, large or small. Melbourne has had the service since 1995. There are chapters in Canada, Belgium Switzerland and South Africa and five units in the UK.
On September 11, 2001, Hatzolah in New York was not dispatched by the city’s 911 system but volunteers nonetheless responded to calls from members during the collapse of the first tower.
In Israel, attempts to share expertise and resources with a group of Arab volunteers in East Jerusalem collapsed and the relationship between United Hatzalah (both spellings are used) and the country’s national emergency response service, Magen David Adom, is strained. Yet more proof that politics get in the way of good intentions.
In Sydney, the service is entirely free of charge and available to anyone, irrespective of whether they are Jewish or not. Hatzolah costs around $450,000 a year to run and is funded entirely by donations from the community. It receives no state funding. The service acts as an on-the-spot first responder and as a complementary service working closely with the NSW Ambulance service.
As in my friend’s case, it is often first to arrive because of the relatively small area it covers. Along with its three marked vans, volunteers drive their own cars. Unlike state ambos, the vans must observe normal traffic and do not use sirens.
The organisation is currently staffed by 18 volunteers ranging in age from eighteen to seventy, who undergo regular training and have experience in dealing with everything from heart attacks to drug overdoses and depression.
At the moment call-takers are female, but the responders are all male, in keeping with the Orthodox religious organisation’s constitution, but Rabbi Litzman says that he hopes this will change in the future. I can imagine that women would find the presence of another woman especially comforting in times of distress.
Familiar with all Jewish rituals, volunteers are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including over religious holidays, which makes them very helpful if there is a crisis such as a death in the family when they can provide emotional support to relatives and friends. “We do a lot of work with the dying,” says Rabbi Litzman. Cultural sensitivities make the service especially appealing to members of the Orthodox community.
“Say if a child is injured and has to go to the hospital over Shabbat, the hospital will provide kosher food for that child, but not for the parents. We carry little care packages of crackers tuna, juice, to keep them going, as they cannot shop during that time.”
Paramedic Benjamin Gilmour is the author of The Gap, an eye-opening and moving account of his time working for the NSW ambulance service during a particularly difficult summer in 2008 in and around Bondi and Kings Cross. He recalls many incidents of collaboration with Hatzolah.
“I was involved in more than one successful resuscitation where the outcome may not have been so great with their volunteers. Early CPR and delivery of defibrillation is vital to the potential survival of patients in cardiac arrest. They play a life-saving role just as the lifeguards at Bondi Beach do and have made a significant difference to many.”
I feel safer just having their number in my phone.
Hatzolah Sydney 02 9371 2222; Hatzolah Melbourne 03 9527 5111
Illustration: John Kron
