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Feb. 22, 2008
Heroism fêted at local launch
Vancouver Magen David Adom fund-raises for ambulance.
PAT JOHNSON
In the closing hours of the Second Lebanon War, the enemy shot down an Israeli CH-53 Sea Stallion Yas'ur helicopter, killing the five Israel Defence Forces personnel on board. In keeping with both Israeli military policy and Jewish traditions of respect for human remains, four of the five bodies were recovered and returned to their families.
By the time the fifth body was discovered, the scene of the crash was a battle zone between IDF fighters and Hezbollah guerrillas. A chopper sent to recover the body and the soldiers who had stayed behind for the search was denied permission to land, given the likelihood of it too being shot down.
Within hours, a ceasefire had been signed, making it no longer possible to send an Israeli air rescue team to collect the body and the soldiers. However, determined to complete the job they had been sent to do, the IDF soldiers, led by Maj. (Res.) Gil Chemke, carried the soldier's body on a stretcher, by foot, for 10 hours – running the last few miles – back across the Israeli border.
The fifth victim, it turned out, was Sgt. Maj. Keren Tendler, Israel's first female helicopter flight mechanic and the first female soldier to die in active duty since the Yom Kippur War.
Chemke told the story of this daring operation at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue in Vancouver Feb. 13. The evening was the opening event for the new Vancouver chapter of Canadian Magen David Adom, a support agency that raises awareness and funds for the Israeli member-organization of the international Red Cross/Red Crescent movements.
Though certainly one of Chemke's more dramatic rescue missions, the retrieval of Tendler's body was all in the line of duty for a soldier whose tasks include searching for lost Israeli hikers in India and travellers in Thailand, Chile, Peru, Mexico and even France. In civilian life, Chemke teaches conservation and the shepherding of natural resources at the Golan/Hermon Field School. But when an Israeli citizen is missing anywhere in the world, it is the reservist major who gets one of the first calls.
In addition to his work for the IDF, Chemke's expertise is often put to work on a volunteer basis for Magen David Adom.
If Chemke's derring-do seems remarkable, he suggests it is a trait shared by many Israelis. Part of the reason he is called to rescue lost hikers, skiers and other adventurers, he said, is because surviving military service can make people feel invincible.
"Somehow Israelis have this feeling they can deal with anything after being in the army," he said.
Chemke, who is commanding officer of the Missing in Action company of the Israeli air force search and rescue division, was the keynote speaker at the MDA Vancouver chapter's launch.
Though until now Vancouver did not have a formal chapter, Canadian Magen David Adom has been active elsewhere, with Canadian support helping the Israeli organization purchase sophisticated ambulances that amount to hospitals on wheels, as well as mobile blood donor vehicles, which ease the ability of MDA to collect the blood so urgently needed during emergencies.
The evening was in honor of Ben Dayson, z"l, a friend of Magen David Adom, who passed away at the age of 100 last October.
"My father was a one-man chapter of Magen David Adom for six years," said Philip Dayson.
Richard Wenner, president of the new chapter, said Vancouver's MDA group would do more than fund-raise, though the immediate goal is to fund the purchase of a new ambulance – at a cost of $92,500 – in time for Israel's 60th birthday. Magen David Adom-trained medics will educate locals about first aid and the Ben Dayson Memorial Lecture is to be an annual event.
For more information, visit www.cmdai.org/vancouver. To donate, call 604-581-4677 or e-mail [email protected].
Pat Johnson is, among other things, director of development and communications for Vancouver Hillel Foundation.
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