ANT KATZ

There will be a mass handover of the new ambulances in November, which will be attended by families of those who lost their lives.

As always, donated ambulances will carry the name of the donor country. But these 64 ‘special’ ambulances will also each have on their doors the name of one of the fallen.

As a result of SA Jewry’s disproportionately high contribution through MDA-SA, the SA-donated ambulance will have the honour of carrying the name of the first IDF soldier who fell, 20 year old Staff Sergeant Eitan Barak.

To date, MDA-SA’s special “Protective Edge Fund” has raised R528,000 – with almost 15 percent of that having been donated by SAJR 80-odd SAJR readers. By Tuesday night Report readers’ contributions had surpassed a whopping R75,000 through our oh-so-easy-to-use SAJR/MDA CLICK-ATHON campaign. The special fund was set up to assist MDA in meeting the additional cost it has borne up to R2-mil a day during Protective Edge.

“We could never have achieved this success in collecting so much for the special fund without the donations and awareness that Jewish Report has given us,” said MDA-SA chairman Mark Hyman Tuesday.

The ambulance collections are also a special fund, says Hyman. MDA friend societies had agreed Tuesday morning that these donations would be channelled through another ‘special’ fund, and not from their normal collection budgets or their Protective Edge budgets.

“This means we need to raise an additional R850,000 for the ambulance,” Hyman told Jewish Report. He had, however, already raised R100,000 by the time he spoke to SAJR.

MDA have saved many, many lives over the past few weeks – both civilian and military. Yoni Yagodovsky, director for international relations at MDA Israel, told Jewish Report that “Donations from SA are immediately connected to a patient currently receiving treatment in Israel – meaning that the donor becomes an active person who is now involved in treating patients and victims – no matter the size the size of the donation,” said Yoni.

Read “GENEROSITY OF SAJR USERS AMAZING” – Mark Hyman, left 

“I grew up and live in Jerusalem where the MDA station was built by our friends and donors from SA in 1968 and maintained by MDA-South Africa for many years,” said Yoni. “We continue to receive significant support from Jewish and Christian donors in SA – extremely meaningful support,” he said.

Pick your cause

Report readers are able to continue to support MDA-SA’s Protective Edge campaign with a single click from any page on the website SAJR.CO.ZA! MDA-SA is thrilled with the “overwhelming response” from readers. “We have made appeals through the media before,” says Hyman. But it has never worked for them before. “Now, it just takes one click and that’s it! Donations from as little as R18 can be made via a secure credit card facility,” says Hyman

For readers who want to donate towards the SA ambulance, contact Beulah Hyman, MDA-SA executive secretary, at all hours (except on Shabbos) on the SPECIAL SAJR/MDA HOTLINE AT 079 718-2471 about donations for their special ambulance fund.