JNS
Magen David Adom is made up of “selfless, generous, heroic brave people who literally put their lives on the line to save others,” Emily Austin, emcee of an event for supporters in Philadelphia, told JNS.
Hilel Jonathan Jolodenco recalled the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, as one that started out rather normally. He heard alarms at 6:30 a.m. in Sderot, in the south of Israel, where he lives and works as a parademic and the city’s head of ambulance services for Magen David Adom. But he wasn’t ruffled.
“I think I just got used to it—the ‘emergency normality,’” the 34-year-old, originally from Argentina, told JNS. “There’s always an emergency.”
He was referring to his line of work and the fact that Sderot—less than a mile from the border with the Gaza Strip—has been a primary target of rockets launched by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations for more than 20 years.
But then he saw men running by the window of his home firing machine guns. His first thought was, “Who’s shooting a movie on a Saturday morning?”
Jolodenco called dispatch, learned what was happening and was told not to go outside. And so he didn’t for a full two hours. Finally, he left and made it to the nearby MDA station, where three staff members were trying to respond to calls of injuries from Hamas-led terrorists that had overrun Sderot.
General protocol is initial basic care at the station, after which first responders transport the wounded to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, about 20 minutes away. They had about 15 ambulances but only one that was bulletproof (they have since gotten one more). So, Jolodenco said, “we had to improvise.”
This meant that as they managed to reach people and people started to reach them, they had to drive individuals, one at a time, to the hospital in the sole bulletproof vehicle. Additionally, they couldn’t use the direct route because armed terrorists had overtaken the road, so they had to travel the longer route, making the trips 45 minutes each way.
“We weren’t trained for something like this,” he acknowledged. “Triage, yes, but not something like this.”
In total, they treated 20 people, including a 20-year-old shot in the stomach who survived. Over the next week, the approximately 33,000 residents of Sderot were evacuated and didn’t return until the spring of this year.
Jolodenco stayed at the station for the next 60 days, eating, sleeping and working there. At the time, he said, “all I knew about Oct. 7 was what I saw. We had no TV, no phones—we didn’t have anything.”
He said he still hasn’t processed the events of the past year: “I know I did a lot, but I feel like I didn’t do enough. I’m always thinking I could have done more.”
He spent the last week in the United States, speaking and meeting groups affiliated with the American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA). He visited Boston, Philadelphia, New York City and Long Island, N.Y., before flying home on Sunday.
‘Call out hypocrisy’
On Thursday, Jolodenco was in Philadelphia at a fundraiser attended by about 200 people. Social-media influencer and broadcaster Emily Austin, 23, emceed a program that included an address by Gilad Erdan, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations—now global president of MDA—and Lior Raz, an Israeli screenwriter and actor best known for his performance as Doron Kabilio in the hit Netflix series “Fauda.”
Austin was fresh off an appearance at the Jewish National Fund-USA annual conference in Dallas just days beforehand and was headed to the Gulf States this past weekend. While she acknowledged not being so well-versed about the political situation between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza before Oct. 7, she is now.
She told JNS that the most challenging aspect of her Israel advocacy work is to “not get stuck in the echo chamber”—to unapologetically support Israel but also stay engaged with non-Jewish followers she wants to educate about the situation.
“I call out hypocrisy when I see it,” she said.
Like the International Red Cross, she pointed out, which has neither visited nor treated the 101 hostages that have been held by Hamas in Gaza for the past 13 months. In the same breath, she gave a shout-out to MDA, which is made up of “selfless, generous, heroic brave people who literally put their lives on the line to save others.”
The 35,000 paramedics, emergency medical technicians, first responders and first-aid providers—volunteers and staff, Jews, Arabs and Christians—treat the injured and ill throughout Israel. The six-floor underground Marcus National Blood Services Center in Ramla, funded primarily by AFMDA, is built to withstand missile, cyber and other attacks. It can store up to 500,000 units of blood per year, almost double the capacity of its predecessor.
Austin introduced Erdan to the podium, who in a resounding voice spoke of his verbal battles in the United Nations from July 2020 to this past August. He said the world body has been “hijacked.”
Today, Erdan said, “the U.N. has become a stain on humanity.”
“Our enemies cannot defeat us on the conventional battlefield,” he stated. But they have a “secret weapon—the house of lies. It’s a weapon in the terrorist arsenal to help them survive.”
He reminded the audience that the United Nations started in 1945 with 51 founding members. Now, there are 193 member states—56 of them Muslim countries that “automatically support the Palestinians in every war against the Jewish people.”
Erdan said Israel has fewer than 10 million citizens, less than one-tenth of 1% of the world’s population; nevertheless, 70% of condemnations issued by the United Nations are against it—more than that of Syria, Russia, North Korea and Iran combined.
Still, he continued, “in this dark year, an unexpected ray of light emerged … a generation of lions arose in Israel, defending our homeland with unbreakable resolve.” He alluded to those who ran to the south in the wake of the terror attacks to help, to the Israel Defense Forces fighting a multifront war and to the emergency-service personnel he was there to represent.
One couple in the audience—Bruce and Sue Epstein—was so moved that they decided to pledge $125,000 for a new ambulance for MDA.
‘We know how to fight’
Rounding out the evening was Raz, who had his own story to tell. He was in Romania on Oct. 7 but flew back when he heard the news. On Oct. 8, he volunteered to help. He noted the different circumstances when it comes to the Jewish state and other countries during times of war; most citizens attempt to flee, while Israelis everywhere return.
Upon permission from authorities looking for civilians to assist, he took his 4x4 and gun to Sderot to evacuate residents.
He knocked at the door of one house, and a family looked at him with surprise and cried: “Doron is here!” They wanted a selfie, but he replied “later, later” as he shuffled them off to safety.
The actor, who turned 53 on Sunday—the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” as he was presented with candles and a cake—said he was genuinely surprised by the success of “Fauda,” a show that proves art imitates life.
Right now, he said, “we don’t have any other way. We know how to fight.”
And while the scenes were dramatized (“It’s a TV show,” Raz quipped), some parts were factual and almost all of it was emotional.
Fighting is also the theme of his current role in “Gladiator II,” which opened in movie theaters on Nov. 22.
As for season five of “Fauda,” Raz said shooting will begin in April.
With a Doron-like smile, he turned to the audience slightly and said: “I can’t tell you anything. But it’s going to be crazy.”
