The first day

Thursday

I went out for a walk early this morning and didn’t get lost. Maybe tomorrow I will try venturing a little farther.


SUNRISE OVER JERUSALEM

The hotel has a huge breakfast buffet—even if you only ate one bite of each thing, it would take all day.

At 11:00 we went to Yad Sarah, which is an organization that provides all kinds of services to elderly and disabled people. (It’s like The ARK times 10 million.) They provide physical therapy, art & music therapy, services for disabled children, vocational training, etc., as well as maintaining a comprehensive medical library so that people can come in after they’ve received a diagnosis, and a volunteer doctor will sit down with them and explain all of the details, what to expect, how it will affect their families, etc. They also have an enormous inventory of assistive medical equipment that they lend or give to disabled people, things like wheelchairs and canes and hospital beds and scooters, as well as adaptive scissors and toothbrushes and sock-pullers. Plus they have a medic-alert system : people can register with Yad sarah, and their information is stored in the computer. They were a medic-alert bracelet that has a button the can push if they need help, and an alarm goes off at Yad Sarah’s office (which is open 24 hours) and a volunteer will answer and then send whatever kind of help is needed. Although they said that 27% of their calls are from disabled or elderly people who live alone and just got frightened or lonely or just wanted someone to talk to. They have about 20 locations all over the country, and 6,000 volunteers, many of the full-time.

We (with the Israeli contingent of the family, we were about 30 people in all) were there for a dedication ceremony for a wheelchair-transport van that Norman’s uncle arranged to donate, with funds that he and his brothers had set aside for Tzedakah in Israel. Yad Sarah will use it to transport people not only to their building, but also to doctors’ appointments, etc., and to deliver meals. After the ceremony they served us lunch in their cafeteria, which serves free meals to all of the clients and volunteers and employees.