How a Jewish Volunteer Medical Service Saves Lives in New Jersey

Since 2015, United Rescue, an emergency medical-response organization based on Israel’s United Hatzalah—which in turn developed out of volunteer ambulance services in ḥasidic neighborhoods of Brooklyn—has operated in Jersey City in cooperation with the municipal government. As an all-volunteer philanthropy, United Rescue receives payment from neither the city nor its patients. To Brandon Fuller, it has been an unqualified success:

On the afternoon of January 2, Yehonathan “Yoni” Guigue received an alert on his cell phone: there was a person lying on the ground, feeling unwell, a few blocks away. Within 90 seconds of receiving the notification, Yoni was on the scene. He quickly ascertained that the man before him—unconscious, without a pulse, and not breathing—was in cardiac arrest. Yoni enlisted a police officer to help with chest compressions and alerted Jersey City Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to the life-threatening nature of the incident. Using defibrillation, Yoni saved the patient’s life, getting a pulse back just before the paramedics arrived.

Yoni is one of more than 100 volunteers equipped and trained by United Rescue, a pre-ambulance emergency-care service that uses a smartphone app to alert its volunteers when they’re near the scene of a health-related 911 call. . . . With an average response time of two-and-a-half minutes, United Rescue volunteers arrive at least one minute before an ambulance in over 50 percent of calls—a difference, as Yoni’s story suggests, that saves lives. It’s time that Jersey City’s much bigger neighbor across the Hudson take notice. . . .

As New York City works to improve the response times of its emergency medical professionals, it should conduct a borough- or neighborhood-wide pilot of United Rescue’s program—testing whether the service effectively complements EMS, and planning to scale it up if it works. If United Rescue can do for New York what it has done on a smaller scale for Jersey City, it will save lives and promote the volunteerism that can strengthen communities across the city.

Read more at City Journal

More about: American Jewry, Hatzalah, Medicine

 

The Biden Administration’s Incompetent Response to Anti-Semitism

The Biden administration’s apparent abandonment of Israel is matched by the White House’s feckless handling of rising anti-Semitism. Seth Mandel explains:

On Thursday, May 2, Biden made public remarks condemning the campus pro-Hamas protests. The very next day, major Jewish groups pulled out of a White House meeting on anti-Semitism with [the domestic policy adviser Neera] Tanden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The reason? Jewish activists who have spent their careers opposing Israel, attacking the Jewish community, and now supporting the very anti-Semitic demonstrations [the meeting was called to address] were added to the meeting after the mainstream groups had already accepted.

When Joe Biden speaks about anti-Semitism, he usually says the right words. But in charge of his deeds, he has put political incompetents manifestly unqualified for this responsibility. He should fix that immediately, because his speeches won’t much matter without a way to implement the ideas animating them.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Anti-Semitism, Joseph Biden, U.S. Politics