All for the sake of Heaven? • History of Hatzala organizations

Two Jews walked the streets of New York in the late '60s, the two belonged to the ultra-orthodox Hasidic community in Williamsburg, where there were many Jews who came after the Holocaust to rebuild the debris and establish a new life.

During the walk, one of them felt ill and collapsed in the street. "Call an ambulance!" Shouted his friend with a loud voice in Yiddish, which made the residents of the street peer through their windows, and understand that this is an emergency that requires calling the switchboard, because 911 (the emergency number for the police, fire and ambulance center) started just a short while before and was still uncommon, or possibly it was even before it was announced. The role of the operator was to connect the caller with the regional ambulance center, so that they would launch a vehicle - one which became commonly used only a decade earlier.

But the effectiveness of the ambulance was very low, for several reasons, originally it was intended as a sort of taxi by the hospital, to which the patient would be brought, but there was still no treatment given on the scene. The drivers also received very little pay and did not feel too much responsibility, so for example Ryan Covert Bell relates that in 1935, drivers still only received $50 per month, the same salary received by their grandfathers seventy years earlier.

So stood our friend R' Hershel Weber on the street, watching helplessly as his friend was hovering between life and death, and finally returning his soul to its Creator in the 40 minutes it took the ambulance to arrive; he later learned that if he had just a simple oxygen tank, the case could have ended very differently .

Highly motivated, along with the sense of loss, he decided to stand up and lead a process that will change the face of history. He first began equipping homes in each neighborhood with basic medical equipment, a sort of small Gemachim in homes, the most famous of which was the well known oxygen tank, contributed by local donors. In between, he worked in training volunteers who would know what to do with the equipment. When private cars became common, the idea started to become more institutionalized, the vehicles were equipped, the telephone number of the center was published (a different local number for each city), and to induce express arrival, the new volunteers started placing flashing lights on the roof of their car, which was illegal at the time, and many volunteers of that time can tell of the harassment by the police, and reports they received - and paid for! All for the sake of saving lives.

It took many years before "Chevra Hatzala" received official recognition. A decade ago, at the Twin Towers disaster, they did not even receive the warning by the municipal 911, however, due to their activity they received much appreciation by mayors Rudolph Giuliani and by his successor Michael Bloomberg.

As mentioned above, any city abroad has a Hatzala system of its own, but they are usually antagonists, that I learned when I saw a ball game by Hatzala Boro Park with Hatzala Flatbush, when each side had fans cheering for their team, something which is not so here in Israel, one will never see different Hatzala groups on each side of the court, rather in pictures they are always viewed side by side on different incidents saving lives, with only 'one who saves one soul of a Jew' before their eyes. Despite the fact that the speed of response of MDA Israel never lasts for 40 minutes as in the story of R' Herschel, a few Tzadikim have made sure to set up different rescue organizations in the country, all without payment to cover expenses - almost like their counterparts abroad, all for the sake of Heaven ! Ashreichem Yisrael!

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!