(photo: Boaz Arad/IsraAID)
By Gavin Rabinowitz - September 23, 2015
Originally appeared here in the Times of Israel
LESBOS, Greece (JTA) — As the small rubber dinghy crowded with Syrians and Afghans emerged from the midnight-black sea to land on a desolate pebble beach, the first people to greet the bewildered and frightened refugees were two Israelis.
“Does anyone need a doctor?” Majeda Kardosh, 27, a nurse from Nazareth, shouted repeatedly in Arabic as the asylum seekers scrambled ashore amid cries of celebration and tears of relief at surviving the short but perilous crossing from Turkey to this Greek island.
Her team partner, Tali Shaltiel, 31, a physician from Jerusalem, stood knee deep in the water, helping a shivering 4-year-old girl out of her wet clothes and a pair of inflatable armbands that would have provided little protection had the overloaded boat capsized at sea.
Kardosh and Shaltiel are part of a small advance group of volunteers from IsraAid, an Israeli non-governmental organization that is trying to provide some assistance to the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who are flowing into Europe.
While IsraAID has plenty of experience in disaster relief and assistance in 31 countries — from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa — this mission presents a unique challenge: The beneficiaries come from countries that are traditionally hostile, or even officially still at war, with Israel. Read More