Sunday, May 21, 2006
"No matter how someone describes it, you'll never, ever understand even a thousandth of what it's like. My life changed forever that day. I just want to get some part of it back."
Lying in the hospital bed she has been confined to for more than a month, 50-year-old Hilla Fuchs speaks with determination. She was standing a few feet away from the suicide bomber who detonated in Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station April 17 and she suffered electric shock, a punctured lung, damaged intestines and shrapnel-type wounds to her entire body. A steel girder penetrated her left leg, rendering it paralyzed.
Even with her injuries, Fuchs must raise three daughters while her husband serves out a jail term. She lives in a crime-infested section of South Tel Aviv. Since April 17, she has been unable to work at her office-cleaning job. And although both her employer and the Israeli government are responsible under law for providing her family with severance pay, her boss is refusing on the grounds that victims of terror are the government's responsibility.
Fortunately, Rabbi Menachem Kutner has stepped in on her behalf. The director of Chabad Israel's Victims of Terror Project, Kutner oversees a network of more than 1,000 volunteers who spring into action after a suicide bombing. Aiding wounded, traumatized victims and family members, the volunteers "go wherever we're needed. To hospitals, to families' homes -- we do what we have to," Kutner says. In Fuchs' case, Chabad has arranged for a pro-bono attorney to challenge her employer and give her family a living allowance until government aid begins.
With a worldwide network of 4,000 branches, Chabad -- the Victims of Terror Project's umbrella organization -- houses one of Orthodox Judaism's largest sects. An offshoot of Hasidism formed in the 1700s, Chabad emissaries are widely known for their messianic beliefs and their outreach programs aimed at Jews and non-Jews alike. There are more than 500 branches in the United States, including five in San Francisco.
Formed as an outreach unit for widows and orphans after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Victims of Terror Project provides various services to bombing victims and families. Live-in child care and meal preparation are organized for families with both parents languishing in the hospital. Funerals are arranged for family members too numb to do it, and ritual mourning rites are conducted for those unfamiliar with custom or paralyzed by shock and grief. "The message is: 'We're here to help you; you're not alone.' That's really important to families, especially in the first days," Kutner says .
During recent rounds at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, Kutner described aid provided for a Weston, Fla., man injured in the April blast. "He and his son were wounded and the father's wallet was destroyed. He's a tourist so (he) has nothing: no credit card, money or cash. He can't even buy a can of soda. So we arranged some money for him while he's in the hospital until his family gets here from the States." The father, Tuly Wultz, survived but his 16-year-old son, Daniel, died in mid-May, a month after the bombing. His funeral was held Tuesday in Weston.
The 34-year-old Kutner, born and raised in Israel, signed on to his current position after years of working in special education. In an Oxford-cloth sky blue shirt, black dress slacks and donning designer style maroon-tinged frames, he more closely resembles a Financial District businessperson on lunch break than an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
"This job is not 8 to 4. It's all day and all night and there is a lot of hardship and emotion but also a lot of fulfillment," he explains. In order to cope with the impact of the work, professional and psychological training and coursework is mandatory for all volunteers.
"Doing this work you look at things differently; life's proportions change. Every night and morning when I come home to my family I bless the almighty a hundred times for what I have," Kutner says. "Even though as human beings we always want more in life, when you see what I see you feel that what you have makes you the happiest in the world."
Sometimes, however, there are difficult moments. After a 2003 Jerusalem bus bombing, one incident drove Kutner to contemplate quitting.
"I was en route to the hospital to meet with the wounded and a California Chabad emissary who happened to be visiting at the time phoned me up and said: 'Menachem, I'm coming with you.' No problem. We got to the hospital and went to one room of a father who had lost his eye in the bombing. When we started talking with him he told us that he had to leave in a few hours to attend his 2-year-old daughter's funeral.
"I felt the blood drain out of me. My California friend started sobbing and left the room and I was left standing there alone. I had to get out. After a few words I quickly exited. At that moment I felt the work was beyond the call of duty and I couldn't cope. You go into a room expecting to meet a wounded person but discover his core problem is much, much deeper."
A few days later, Kutner returned to the hospital, responding to an "inner need to go back." He developed a special relationship with family members and has maintained contact since.
Kutner's job also ushers in optimism. Upon delivering a custom-designed wheelchair arranged through the project for a bedridden, severely injured 59-year-old victim, the man wept openly. "I'm not crying because I'm in pain. I'm happy and I thank you," he said through tears.
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