Dr. Avraham Yitzhak, a major in  the IDF, talks about his role as a surgeon in Haiti following the recent earthquake, to the Federation's Leadership Development Institute.

As if his own tale of coming to Israel from Ethiopia, and seeking to complete his medical degree though he knew no Hebrew, wasn't compelling enough, Dr. Avraham Yitzhak offered a riveting eye-witness account of being on the ground in Haiti, ministering to those injured during the January earthquake that devastated the island.

He gave his presentation at the last session of the Jewish Federation of Rockland County's Leadership Development Institute in May. Yitzhak, a major and surgeon in the Israel Defense Force, offering it as an example of how Israel -- and Jews -- serve as a "light unto the nations."

"It is a job of Israel, as a symbol of the Jewish people, to reach out and help," said Yitzhak, who mesmerized the class of 15 for most of the two-hour session.
After giving an account of how he became the first Ethiopian to graduate from medical school in Israel, he moved on to talk about the earthquake and the horrors he treated there. While it took the United States two weeks to agree to help and set up in Haiti, Israel was on the ground immediately, setting up an elaborate field hospital that included a two-bed surgery, triage tents, and radiology services, among other services. The Israelis worked with a team of Colombians as well, cooperating as they amputated limbs, treated severely infected wounds, delivered babies and even treated typhoid, a common disease in third world Haiti, but something the thoroughly Western Israelis had not ever seen before.

"We are a tiny country, with few resources," said Yitzhak. "but this is something that we cannot be indifferent about."

He noted that whenever there is a natural disaster, Israel has offered help. After earthquakes in India and Turkey, Israel helped. The country made the offer to both China, following an earthquake in 2008 and to Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami in 2004, both of which refused Israeli aid.

Following Yitzhak's account, which detailed his own personal story of arriving in Israel, where he wished to complete his medical training and the odds he personally overcame, Julie Lipsett-Singer, a lay leader in her own Federation who has served as co-chair for the Jewish Federations of North America National Young Leadership Department, pulled the months of LDI session together - which focused on everything from fund-raising, to running a board meeting, to what makes an issue Jewish -- tying them to Yitzhak's account of what it means to offer aid.

"Your story of your childhood in Adis, becoming a doctor in Israel and going to Haiti, that is what Federation does," said Lipsett-Singer.

She put a fine point on it, explaining that the Federation's overseas partners, the Jewish Agency for Israel, which aids with immigration and absorption of  Jews in Israel, and the American Joint Distribution Committee, which provides "three Rs, rescue, relief and renewal all over the world" aided Yitzhak on the road to Israel and his resettlement there. And it was through these overseas partners that American Jewish aid reached Haiti.
"Our federation system helps in times of crisis, and it's not just Jews," said Lipsett-Singer, noting that "The Joint" is still in Haiti and estimates are that it will remain there according to its own leaderships' accounts for "longer than anyone else."

"It's not just a drop in the bucket what you did," she said, addressing Yitzhak. "It is the work of God."