My Young Friends (AKA the Children of My Friends) – Part 1

One correction from the last posting: Raisa, the women who spoke with us at Attlit, was a prison nurse at the detention center, not a prisoner herself.

And the adventure continues…..that was the mantra that became an integral part of my Israeli excursion. While visiting one of the many “multi media” exhibits: the Chain of Generations in Jerusalem, the voice in the head phone instructed you to move to the next room when you heard the words ”and the adventure continues”. It was such a great phrase to call my own!

A few words about the Chain of Generations, it is a relatively new multi media exhibit tucked in between the Western Wall and the Tunnels. The museum follows the history of humanity and the Jewish people from Adam through the present.

The museum aims to connect the Jewish people of today with the previous generations through exhibits focusing on individuals who lived in generations past. . Through lights, etched glass sculptures, smoke, and music, visitors weave through rooms depicting eras throughout 3500 years of history – from the patriarchs to the Holocaust, “from exile to statehood, from destruction to rebuilding, and from crisis to hope.”


For me, the etched glass is the centerpiece. It took the artist, Jeremy Langford, 5 years to create the exhibit, using 90 tons of glass! Each room is a different era filled with Jewish names from different generations.



One of my favorite quotes is also from this exhibit:
“Each one of us is a link in a long chain of generations – a chain that is anchored in the past and offers us continuity in the future.”

As I said goodbye to my nursing colleagues, I headed to the ”burbs” of Tel Aviv for a weekend with Cara, Asaf, Mia and Yair Kobrovsky. Cara is the daughter of my friend and assistant principal, Jean Nixon. I was warmly welcomed and had the third floor of the house to myself. It was the first time in 4 weeks that I was sleeping alone (no ear plugs)!

My first morning was as good as it gets. Mia (4 years old) and I practiced Hebrew letters in a new book she had –and I did pretty well! There are many advantages in staying with two young children. One is that the washer is always going. It was Great (capital G) to have really clean clothes! The second is the constant entertainment.



We met Asaf’s family for lunch at the beach and had time to play in the sand. Mia was great practicing her English name.




We made a quick tour of Jaffa on the way back. Dating back to ancient times, Jaffa is an old port city that is filled with nooks and crannies of little winding streets and artists’ galleries.

From an open courtyard the narrow alleys, that are named for the 12 astrological signs, form the Artists’ Quarter.



Shabbat dinner was at the other Kobrovsky’s home. Asaf’s parents built the home and it is filled with the Asaf’s mom’s glass art work. Etty is a talented designer and artist. Cara took me on a tour and I had to make an effort to keep my mouth closed. it is a beautiful home. The colors of the glass around the front door are representative of the 10 tribes (hope I got that right).



An outing to the park the next day had us traveling the ”off road” route – that is some variation of over the river and through the woods. The Israeli translation is across the river and through the orange groves!




Our destination was a park east of Tel Aviv. The fortress at Tel Afeq is sometimes called "The Fortress of Antipatros". In my guidebooks, there seems to be some controversy in the naming of the site. The fortress was built by King Herod in honor of his father. This stood on Tel Afeq. The remains that are currently in the park, were apparently built at a later period. Although the site is off the beaten track today, in biblical time, it guarded the headwaters of the Yarkon River (still visible today) and the ancient Via Maris highway (no longer in existence.) There are biblical texts associated with the site. The view from the fortress walls includes the Yarkon springs and the excavations of the Roman city, built by Herod in 9 BC.


We met friends of Cara and Assaf’s and had a fun day playing in the ruins – and of course many Kodak moments.


Getting organized to hit the road, I was in dire need of a haircut. Desperate times require desperate actions and I headed off to see Moshe (who normally cuts Cara’s very long, straight blond hair). Not wanting to impose on my hosts, I thought I could get to the salon by myself. And I did. Still unclear in my own mind, I managed to walk for 30 minutes to a location that was just 3 short blocks away. Mind you, I never panicked, but this was not giving me any reassurances that I could navigate the country as a solo traveler.

For a perfect stranger, Moshe cut my short salt and pepper hair to perfection!



I checked the train schedule and Cara dropped me at the train station. It was easy enough to purchase the ticket, however, the platform was empty except for a young Israeli man. We struck up a conversation and I found out that I missed a train AND would need to change trains in Tel Aviv for Be’er Sheva. Eli, my new best friend, carried my bags off the train in Tel Aviv, and made sure I was waiting on the right platform. He gave me his uncle’s name and number in Jerusalem, in case I had time to look him up, and we said shalom.

And the adventure continues….

JJ Packer Sar El volunteer transition to Joanne Packer RN MSN – Finale

As we head northwest from Jerusalem, we settle in for a “road trip” in earnest. The back of the bus was the place to be - lots of laughs and good tunes. Ami, our guide, provides service with a smile!










We are enroute to the Hadassah Youth Village in Neurim. A Youth Village (Kfar No’ar) was first developed in the 1930’s. Henrietta Szold used this model to provide a home for the children fleeing the Nazis. Called Youth Aliyah, they were a cross between a European boarding school and a kibbutz.

The Youth Village in Neurim is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, between Tel Aviv and Netanya. It screams: location, location, location with a beautiful sandy beach shoreline. This happens to be one of the largest villages in the country with about 200 boarding students and 250 day students in the 15 – 18 age range. The nurse at the village has a practice similar to that of a school nurse. The major difference is that she lives at the village and the children are knocking at her door 24/7!

Most of the children have behavioral and economic problems. More recently there has been an influx of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants. They need three basic things: food, shelter, and attention, with an emphasis on the latter.

Mendi Rabinovitz, the principal, is a dynamo administrator. Since many of the children come with skill and knowledge gaps, there is an obligatory curriculum with a focus on getting a diploma. Hadassah also funds many enrichment programs. Getting a diploma is a means to break the glass ceiling. Instilling confidence and developing emotional and social skills is an integral part of the academic program.



Mendi personally interviews each of the children and he always asks, ”What is your dream?” He describes the program at Neurim as having 3 major components: the first is dream trainers (set a goal); the second is life plan builder (for future based thinking) and the third is a planner of sexual behavior (when to say “no”). The success of this program in part is the teachers; he recruits the best! Every child must have a dream and life plan when they leave, as there is no safety net. Mandatory military service is a great equalizer for these young adults.

Although formal success is measured with matriculation to the university, Mendi looks at it through a different lens. Success is demonstrating good behavior, serving the country, having a passion to learn and making something of themselves.


Last year, Marlene Post, the former Hadassah president donated a new track to the village. With the influx of Ethiopian immigrants, the Village is currently training an Olympic hopeful in field and track. Stay tuned! Oh, yes…remember the group shots?

This Hadassah Mission is well planned! After leaving the village, we pull into what looked like an ordinary gas station, only to find that this is our lunch spot! The food was fabulous, but we really liked “nanna” – mint tea. Garnished with almost a plant of mint, it was another Kodak moment!








A former detention camp prisoner spoke with us at Attlit. This charming octogenarian woman recounted the experience at the camp. There certainly is a consistent theme amongst this age group – their lives were difficult; they overcame amazing losses and hardships; and they are full of spunk and vitality.




Our travels continued through Haifa with a tour of the city and shopping at the gift shops of one of the hotels. I took the opportunity to “take care of business”, as I was soon going to be traveling on my own.



Our final destination was Tsafet. This town's name is spelled so many different ways -- Tzefiya (in the Talmud), Safad, Zefat, Sefad -- it's easy to get confused and think they are entirely different places.

At almost 3000 feet of elevation in the mountains of the Upper Galilee, Tzfat is the highest town in the country and its proximity to the heavens may be a correlation to its being considered the center of Kabbalah. Its reputation as the center of mysticism shouldn’t discount that it is considered one of the holiest cities in Israel, along with Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hebron.

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Initially settled by the Crusaders, the thriving Jewish settlement grew, declined and then survived Ottoman rule. The Ottomans made Tzfat their capital through the 16th century. Jews began to come in large numbers after they were expelled from Spain in 1492 (while Columbus was sailing the ocean blue). Safed did not become an important center of Jewish life until the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It is not mentioned in the Torah and was apparently not settled until Roman times. Among them were respected rabbis, spiritual leaders, and poets who gravitated to the center of revived Kabbalah study. It is most closely associated with Jewish mysticism, the kabbalah, whose foremost exponent, Rabbi Isaac Luria, lived and taught there.

The "bible" of the kabbalists, the Zohar, was written by the second-century talmudist Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who believed each word and line of the Torah had a higher meaning.


A Kabbalah rabbi gave us the basics: it is about reading between, behind, and all around the lines! Each letter and accent of every word in the holy books has a numerical value with special significance, which offers added meaning to the literal word.
















The town is a maze of cobblestone streets that lead to ancient synagogues. The doors of Tsafet present many Kodak moments! . Many of the doors of buildings in the city are painted blue to remind people of heaven.

In addition to the kabbalist, Safad also attracted numerous other Jewish scholars and spiritualists including Rabbi Yosef Caro. There is a very charming old synagogue, dating back to 1535 named after him. He authored the Shulchan Aruch, the code of law that remains the foundation of Jewish religious interpretation today. The synagogue was once Caro’s study hall. It was rebuilt in the mid-19thcentury after being destroyed in the earthquake of 1837. The Ark contains a Torah scroll that is at least 400 years old. The turquoise paint here, considered the ”color of heaven”, is believed to keep away the evil eye.





The next morning we toured the Chule Valley. I must say it was a refreshing departure from the hospital and historical sites. Driving around in golf carts, we were able to cover a lot of ground at the Agmon Hahula. This Nature Reserve contains the last vestige of wetlands preserved after the rest was drained in the 1950’s to create arable land. Over time, people realized that in addition to affecting the water quality in the Sea of Galilee, the project had destroyed the habitat for millions of birds migrating across the Hula Valley between Europe and Asia.





Pelicans, wild geese, storks, cranes, plovers, and raptors once again have a sanctuary. The attraction for them is the swampy waters that abound with carp, catfish, and perch. Our total count of bird sightings was twenty! In addition, there is a large reed habitat dense with thickets of papyrus.




Nearby is a reconstructed farmhouse-like-museum that was once owned by Russian immigrants who converted from Christianity to Judaism. As the story goes, in 1904 the Dubrovins came to the swamps of the Hula valley, persevered through many hardships, and began farming the land. This property was eventually donated to the Jewish National Fund and was first open to the public in 1986. The food was fabulous….I am still thinking about the smoked and grilled chicken and these little chocolate molten cakes whose centers were oozing halvah!......yummmmm

Rosh Pinah, for all of its small size and out of the way location, has played an important part in the resettlement of the Jewish people in Israel. This includes contesting the city of Petah Tikvah for the distinction of being the first settlement in modern Jewish history. The name Rosh Pinah means "cornerstone," which comes from Psalm 118: "The stone that the builder has rejected has become the headstone of the corner." Today it is a picturesque village that reflects late 19th and early 20th century Israel.



On our last day on the mission, we find our heroines, the nurses, investing in the economy in the galleries and shops of Tsafet – true Zionists are we! The road trip continued through one Jewish National Fund's forests on a very scenic narrow road. I actually thought that I might be able to find the trees that I planted during my days in Hebrew school (how silly was that idea?) We are heading west toward Nazareth for a stop at Tsipori.


The excavations at ancient Tsipori/Zippori/Sepphoris (multiple spellings are the norm) have proven to be one of the most exciting archaeological sites in the Galilee today. The modern dig, launched in the mid-1980s, has revealed the remains of a moderately sized city that served as the regional capital during Roman rule. Climbing to the summit of the acropolis, it is not hard to understand the strategic location of the city, overlooking the sweeping valley of Bet Netofa. In fact, it has been suggested that the town's name - Zippori - comes from the Hebrew word 'tsipor' (bird), because the spectacular view from the hill, which gives one the feeling of flying.



Much of what has been uncovered in the excavations attests to the very pluralistic quality of Zippori over the centuries, including a Roman theater, a Jewish residential quarter, ritual baths, churches and many, many mosaics.



The most celebrated find on the site was the mosaic floor of the roman villa thought to be the governor’s residence. Depicting a series of drinking scenes. The most stunning detail is the exquisite face of a woman, by far the “finest mosaic” ever found which has been dubbed “the Mona Lisa of the Galilee”.

The real significance for Jewish tradition were the rabbis who gave learned responses to real-life questions of civil and religious law, basing their judgments on the dos, don’ts, and between the lines principles of the of the torah. These rabbinic opinions were transmitted orally from generation to generation and like court decisions, became legal precedents and the heart of Jewish jurisprudence. Rabbi Yehuda summoned the greatest rabbis to Tsipori to pool their experiences and codify the so-called oral law. The result was the encyclopedic work called the Mishnah. Further commentary was added in later centuries to produce the Talmud, the primary guide to orthodox practice today.

Last stop before the airport is Tel Aviv. We encountered very heavy traffic as we wound our way to Menachim Begin Square. The streets were closed for a celebration that would culminate with the lights being turned off in a moment of energy conservation. A brief memorial service at the site of Menachim Begin’s death was a teary moment. A street musician played a mournful version of Hatikvah as we lit a candle and said a prayer.

Last stop was dinner at the Lelitt Restaurant. Another fabulous meal with lovely red wine and a nice story behind the scenes. The restaurant cooperates with the Elem Association for youth in difficulty. The teens work side by side with the staff and part of the proceeds are donated to the organization.
During dinner, the restaurant did turn off the lights and we finished eating by candlelight – a lovely ending to a great mission.

As the bus headed to the airport with my colleagues who were returning to the states, I hailed a cab for the next chapter in my great adventure….

JJ Packer Sar El volunteer transition to Joanne Packer RN MSN – Part 2

Before I introduce you Henrietta Szold, I want to mention another dynamic Hadassah woman. Last fall during the early planning stages for my sabbatical, I read an article in one of the freebie nursing magazines about Nancy Falchuk. She was the newly elected president of Hadassah International and she is a nurse. The article, which portrayed her as a dynamic leader, was in my sabbatical folder since then.

I love it when the stars align and good things happen. Just before leaving the country I received an email that we would be having High Tea with Nancy and the former president, Marlene Post (also a nurse). Needless to say, the article came with me to Israel.


Nancy Falchuk was as warm, charming, and a “people person” as one might expect of someone in her position. She was thrilled with the article, as she had never seen it in print! She spoke with us about Israel’s nursing shortage that is expected to worsen in the next decade. The first clinical master’s program has been established at Hadassah School of Nursing. There is only one nurse practitioner in the country; advanced practice nurses do not have the support of/or partnerships with their medical colleagues. Complicating the outlook to remedy this shortage are the Ministries of Health and Finance. These two cabinet posts set the “caps” on admissions to the school of nursing. Since they are not on the same page re: the dire prediction of the workforce, the limits have remained unchanged. Currently 1200 nurses graduate each year; 2000 nurses are needed. Nancy closed her comments by issuing a call to action to get involved and be proactive in facilitating change.

Henrietta Szold was, in many respects, a forerunner of Jewish women's liberation. When her mother died in 1916, she graciously refused the offer of a close male friend to say the Mourner’s Kaddish for her. She believed that women could and should perform the duty as the laws and customs never intended them not to considered as valuable or valid as when performed by the male sex!

Her most outstanding lifetime contribution was creating Hadassah Women, the largest Jewish organization in American history. Although a Zionist organization, Hadassah was involved in meeting the health care needs of both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Today, the renowned Hadassah Hospitals: Ein Kerem and Mt Scopus, continue in that tradition providing care to all. The Arab leadership initially (and unfortunately) rejected the early spirit of volunteerism and non-discrimination, as they feared that it would lessen the hatred between the Jews and the Arabs. In early 1948, just before the State of Israel was declared, Arab troops ambushed and murdered seventy-eight Jewish doctors and nurses from Hadassah Hospital.

During the 1930’s, Henrietta involved Hadassah in a program to rescue Jewish youth from Germany; she later expanded the program to Jewish children throughout Europe. The Youth Aliyah program is believed to have saved 22,000 children from the concentration camps. Henrietta was the “ima” (mother) to all of them; she never married and regretted never having a child of her own.

To this day Henrietta Szold is regarded as one of the genuine heroic figures of American-Jewish history. A scholarly woman and a passionately committed Jew, she was a tireless worker on behalf of her adopted country.



The history lesson is over for now. The Nurses’ Mission continued at the proverbial crack of dawn with a post–breakfast presentation by Judy Seigel Itzkovich, a columnist from the Jerusalem Post. Much to our surprise, she was a dynamic early morning speaker. At a point in her career at the Post, the editor decided to shake-up the staff and each of the writers had to pick a new topic to cover. Judith became the Science and Health writer (with no science background other than being 8 months pregnant). She has learned a lot about healthcare, science, and politics; ultimately proving her credibility as an ally to health care providers and an intrepid journalist. She re-iterated the “politics” of the nursing shortage in the hospitals with similar dire projections. She did tell me that school nurse positions were eliminated due to budget cuts and the services were now being provided through private contracts. The issue of school health services was in the news recently. An outbreak of measles necessitated immunizing a group of young children at school. Unfortunately, the children received the wrong dosing (nothing harmful), but the trauma of the injections was enough to make headlines.








On our way to the hospital, we stopped at the Mount of Olives to pay our respects to Henrietta. Greeting us was Abbed Sayad, the Arab caretaker. Abbed knew Henrietta, and for the past 63 years since her death, has cared for her plot according to her wishes. We each received a sprig of rosemary during the short graveside memorial service.



This was the day of dynamic speakers. At Hadassah Hospital – Mt Scopus, Anna Woloski-Wruble, a “nurse doctor” spoke with us about her faculty practice at Hadassah. Her specialty is sexual healthcare, focusing on quality of life and life satisfaction issues. She is an observant Jew, married to a rabbi, with a practical sensibility and a sense of humor. This is the perfect equation for her success in counseling/caring for the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox woman whom she sees in her sexuality clinic.



There are many group pix along the way; I won’t bore you with too many! (but a couple in case Pennie, one of our leaders is reading the blog.)









We toured the new outpatient Center for Genetic and Chronic Diseases. It is a beautiful facility run by a physician director and nurse manager, who are the poster health care professionals for “teamwork”. They have rooms for cardiac testing, pulmonary testing, metabolic testing, and day treatments.






Barbara Sofer, also a columnist for the Post, brought Henrietta “to life” in her library at the hospital. We each had the opportunity to sit in Henrietta’s chair for a photo op. As far as I was concerned, they were HUGE shoes to jump into!

In our travels, we stopped at the memorial for the 78 doctors and nurses who died in the ambush by the Arabs. We said a prayer, read all of their names, and left a wreath from Hadassah.


Well after sunset, we found our nurse heroines touring the tunnels at the Western Wall and leaving prayers tucked in the cracks at the Wall. It was a very different experience being at the Wall at night, as I had previously been there in the heat of the noontime sun. The moonlit sky was lovely and the cool breeze was great.

Enough of this…..tomorrow we pack our bags and head north!

JJ Packer Sar El volunteer transition to Joanne Packer RN MSN – Part 1

The volunteer stint at Matzrap ended on a high note, with thank you cards from our bosses and many Kodak moments. The last evening was one of those: how well do you really know each other. I managed to stump the stars with my fundraising endeavors for the MS Society. We packed our bags; we cleaned the compound; we waited for the inspection; and we boarded the bus in record time! (I’d say less than 10 minutes)

Had a last night out with friends - great wine, food and lots of laughs! By noon the next day, I was at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, awaiting the arrival of the bus with the nurses from the Hadassah Nurses’ Council Mission. Our tour guide at Independence Hall was a delightful Albanian woman who was informative and funny. Of course I was thinking about my friend Sue’s Albanian family. It never occurred to me that Jews would have emigrated from Albania to Israel.

Independence Hall was once the home of the first mayor: Meir Dizengoff. (Say that fast Mayor Meir Dizengoff!) It is also the place where Ben Gurion declared the independence of Israel on May 14, 1948. The museum’s Hall of Declaration remains unchanged today. The original microphones are on the tables as well as a portrait of Herzl, the Zionist leader. A visit to this museum will make you want to sing Hatikvah, which we did!

It all seemed like a great start with 23 perfect strangers; unfortunately, I was ill prepared for the pace we would keep going forward for the next 8 days!
Our welcome Shabbat night dinner was an inauspicious beginning for what ultimately was a fabulous mission. The speaker, who will go unnamed, droned on and on and on….I excused myself at 9:30pm - dessert and coffee had yet to be served. (For the last 3 weeks, supper was a dairy meal that lasted 45 minutes at the most!) I had a light bulb moment that I hadn’t planned for a necessary transition and it was unfolding before my very eyes! (The positive oy sign is never good and I was invoking it regularly.)

Shabbat morning found me back at Kol Haneshama; although Friday evening services were extraordinary, Saturday morning felt familiar. We did a walking tour of the old city: exploring the Christian Quarter, which I previously mentioned. Enroute to the quarter we walked though Mishkenot Sha’ananim. This was the first neighborhood outside the walls of Jerusalem, built by Sir Moses (Moshe) Montefiore in 1860 as a more benign alternative to the wretched conditions of the Jewish quarter at the time.


This was also the neighborhood where we had a picnic lunch on our outing from the army base. Sometimes it takes more than one visit for the history to register. Not so in this case because I was quite enamored with the windmill the first time we were there. I did learn the history of Montefiore’s Windmill.

Sir Moses Montefiore was a prominent financier in the mid-19th century; a rare phenomenon for a Jew at that time. Much of his life was spent financially aiding his fellow Jews in distress. In this endeavor, he visited Palestine, as this neighborhood was formerly known during the Ottoman Empire, seven times. In 1857, this limestone windmill was built to provide a source of income for his planned neighborhood of Mishkenot Sha’ananim. Unfortunately, the prevailing winds were inadequate and the new steam driven rivals prevailed. The restored carriage in which Montefiore traveled is on display nearby.

Our wake-up calls were scheduled for us and we were up and out on the bus at 7:30am for our introduction to the Hadassah Hospital at Ein Karem. This felt like a real nursing conference with speakers talking about the history of Hadassah, current practices and the future of breath health; public health issues of the Arab population, and plans for the future of the hospital (think capital campaign). Many of the faculty from the school of nursing joined us at lunch.
I spent half the day with a pediatric nurse in an intermediate surgical unit. (There are no school nurses in Israel at this time.) Staffing at the hospital was a bit frightening for me with a ratio of 1:8. The parents were certainly involved in the day to day; but it was busy.



I had the opportunity to feed a little Arab baby who was a few days post-op. His mom was not able to visit due to an infection and dad had taken some time off from the bedside. Hannah, the nurse in the unit, recounted that she had one of those wonderful teaching moments with this baby’s father when the other children and their families were at the hospital’s Purim party. It was an opportunity for her to teach him with privacy about caring for his newborn.
The Abbell Synagogue at the hospital is the home of the famous Chagall windows. We were invited to a ceremony honoring a nursing colleague that was held in the chapel.

It was a Kodak moment for Penn Nursing Alum:
Dr Nira Bartel, Dr Orly Rotem and me! The reception may have been a snoozer, but the tour of the windows was a great one. Here’s the story behind them.

Hadassah @ Ein Kerem is one of the leading general hospitals in the Middle East. It is also the teaching hospital for Hebrew University’s medical and dental schools. When the US-based Hadassah women’s organization approached Marc Chagall about designing windows for the new hospital, he was so delighted that he donated his time and work for the project. Inspired by the Bible, he created 12 bright windows in primary colors with Jewish and esoteric symbols and characteristically Chagallian beasts. The techniques of the glassmakers created a very thin pane, which gives an illusion of depth. During the War of Independence, the windows were damaged in a bombing of the hospital. Chagall repaired the windows at no cost; he did replace one of the holes with a small circle of clear glass as a reminder of the battle for independence. During our tour of the windows and synagogue, Claudia, our guide, made reference to Anita Diamant’s book: The Red Tent (which she told me she read in Spanish)!

Our day continued with a tour of the Emergency room and the new Maternal and Child Center.

Group pictures were a frequent request from Pennie Branden, one of our intrepid leaders. The lobby of the Maternal Child Health Center is a unique design.

The colorful neon on every floor is kid friendly, but in time of need, the lobby can be converted into a mass triage center with oxygen and suction apparatus available in the ceiling (with the removal of the panels.)

Our day finished at the home of a nursing faculty member. It was a lovely evening, with great food and wine. Red wine helps! I must admit that I’m still in search of a few good laughs! This group really needed to lighten up!

More to come about my new best friend Henrietta Szold….