Archives: Stories
-
Treating The Trauma of Hurricane Ian One Survivor At A Time
My name is Einat Kauffman and I am the Clinical Director of United Hatzalah’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit (PCRU). I am one of seven members of our current relief mission to Fort Myers and Naples in Florida providing emotional stabilization and psychological first aid to evacuees who lost everything due to Hurricane Ian. The Read more
-
Finding Strength After the Storm – Israeli Clinical Psychologist Discusses Aiding Evacuees In Fort Meyers In Wake of Hurricane Ian
– By Dr. Sharon Slater On our first day in Florida, we visited a shelter for people who had lost their houses due to the hurricane. Most of them were elderly, but there were also some young families and a handful of people of different ages. Some of them had actually been at home when Read more
-
Dramatic Erev Yom Kippur Rescue: Holocaust Survivor Rescued From Donestk Ukraine
A few days before Yom Kippur, Naftali Rabinovitch, who serves as United Hatzalah Chief of Operations in Ukraine, received an urgent phone call. The woman on the other end of the phone said that she is the granddaughter of an older woman who lives in the city of Lyman, and that her grandmother was in Read more
-
Helping Hurricane Ian Survivors Choose To Tell A Positive Story – One Social Worker’s First-Hand Account of Treating Survivors in Fort Myers
By Hadas Rucham, Arriving in Fort Myers after a long day of traveling, we met with local authorities to identify communities where our expertise in the field of psychological first aid and emotional stabilization could be of greatest use. We were sent to a shelter for people displaced by the hurricane, where I met with Read more
-
Empowering Communities in The Aftermath of Disaster – Mission Leader Gavy Friedson discusses relief missions in response to both Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian
On September 18th, just after Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico, I received a phone call that would drastically change the next few weeks of my life. I was about to embark on not one, but two, major relief missions on behalf of United Hatzalah in order to provide much-needed aid and assistance to Read more
-
United Hatzalah Sends Relief Mission To Florida In Response To Hurricane Ian
Just over a week after United Hatzalah sent a mission to Puerto Rico to assist with Hurricane Fiona, the organization dispatched a second relief team, this time to assist in Florida following the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian. “This is our fastest turn-around time ever for separate missions,” said Vice President of Operations of United Read more
-
Helping Others Learn How To Help Themselves
By Avishai Levkovitz My name is Avishai Levkovitz and I am a social worker. I have been volunteering with United Hatzalah as part of the Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit (PCRU) for a short time now and I was asked to participate in the organization’s recent relief mission to Puerto Rico following the devastation left Read more
-
The Loss Here Is Real – A Psychologist First Responder In Puerto Rico Speaks About The Devastation Following Hurricane Fiona
By Kamila Forkosh-Lavan My name’s Kamila Forkosh – Lavan, and I’m a practicing psychologist from Jerusalem. I volunteer with United Hatzalah of Israel’s Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit, a unit that provides psychological first aid for people suffering from mental or emotional stress after having been involved in or witnessed a trauma resulting from a Read more
-
Man Helped By His Daf Yomi Study Partner (Havruta) After Suffering A Stroke
One morning a few weeks back, a man suffered a stroke in his home in Petach Tikvah. His worried family members called emergency services for help. Shimon Bach, a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT was at the synagogue for morning prayers when he received the alert regarding the emergency. “As I was putting on my tefillin Read more
-
Laughing Like Old Friends – The story of Isette Haroni and Esther Gavliker
When Tami Neeman, the coordinator for the Ten Kavod program in Yavne, reached out to her friend Isette Hadoni, 48, who works in a kindergarten, to suggest she participate in the program, Isette hesitated a bit. “I didn’t know if it would be too much of a commitment for me to take upon myself, but Read more