I’m a resident of Ramat Bet Shemesh and although the war has been going for a week already, we have fortunately not yet had a missile attack. That does not mean that we have not been affected by the crises. Everyone has a family member who has been personally affected by the rockets in some way. Yesterday this was driven home to me.

My newly married daughter is an architect who lives in Beitar and she has to often travel to different parts of the country around the Jerusalem area. Yesterday she needed to go to Psagot. She has no car and has to bus or even take rides to get where she is going, particularly when she goes to the Shomron. Yesterday she was in a dilemma, and my intuitive spouse advised her only to go on the bullet proof bus, even if it would take her longer than usual.

As she was waiting at the bus stop to come home, the air raid siren went off and she ran for cover – she followed everyone to a public shelter but it was locked – they then ran to another one nearby and had to sit it out until 10 minutes after the siren. At least she called us and my wife was not listening to the radio at the time, else she would have been in a panic. Her husband learns in Beitar and he heard the explosion of the missile, it was so loud.

Once on the way back in the bullet proof bus, they were delayed yet again by stone throwing – the bus driver told them to close their window.

My other 18 year old is in seminary in Jerusalem and she and all the classes were forced to take cover more than once yesterday.

This got me thinking, Ramat Bet Shemesh is really not out of reach of the rockets and although we haven’t had an attack yet, we cannot be complacent. I am a volunteer for Hatzala Bet Shemesh. This amazing organization has to be prepared for such an eventuality.

The Hatzala Beit Shemesh management and volunteers are extremely concerned that we will not be able to serve the residents of Bet Shemesh, because we lack the necessary equipment.

All rescue services follow a protocol of safety first, which mean it’s essential to protect the rescue service people as well as possible so they do not become casualties. Any rescue person going to a rocket attack site should have a flak jacket and a helmet. This is standard issue for all medical service personal going into a terrorist attack site, bombing or a rocket attack. The reason is that there are likely to be unexploded ordnance or additional strikes and it’s essential that the rescue personnel are as protected as possible.

Hatzala volunteers are prepared to risk their lives and go out to these calls. Please help protect them. Currently Hatzala Bet Shemesh does not have enough flak jackets and helmets for its members. Please help by donating towards the Hatzala Beit Shemesh “Flak Jacket and Helmet Fund”.

Cost of a Bullet Proof Vest is: 1,825.20 NIS (16,425 NIS for all) OR $462  ($4,158 for all)

Cost of a Helmet is: 1,170.00 NIS (10,530 NIS for all) OR $296 ($2,665 for all)

Costs of one crew’s Bullet Proof Vests and Helmets is: NIS 2,995 NIS OR $758

Costs of all three crew’s  Buller Proof Vests and Helmets are: 26,955 NIS OR $6,823

Please click HERE to make a donation:

Please also help spread this campaign through all your contacts by email, facebook, twitter, etc…:

The Hatzala blog can be found HERE and our website at www.hatzalabeitshemesh.org.

We provide American and Israeli Tax receipts. Please contact us for details on other ways of donating e.g. with cash, check or via transfer to our banking account, in the USA or Israel.

We have other donation programs for other projects we are working on to help improve our medical care, transport and response times.

For more details call:

Moishe Braun (English):  0526.823.033 Int’l +972.526.823.033 Nahal Sorek 17 RBS

Bentzi Novak (Hebrew):  0542.500.560 Int’l +972.542.500.560 Nahal Gilo 4b/11 RBS

Eytan (English, French) USA Tel. (845) 213-4338
Hillel Abrahams (English):  0545.720.391 Int’l +972.545.720.391 Nahal Noam 5/1 RBS