United Hatzalah arrives to treat survivors

JANE KAUFMAN | STAFF REPORTER jkaufman@cjn.org | @jkaufmancjn

PITTSBURGH – Four Israelis specially trained in handling the immediate after-effects of psychological trauma have arrived and will work for at least four days and possibly as long as a week.

Miriam Ballin, a psychotherapist and founder and director of the psychotrauma and crisis response unit of United Hatzalah, said she had returned home to Israel from a speaking tour in the United States when she learned about the Pittsburgh shootings on Oct. 27. She said she tries not to leave the country often because she has five children under the age of 9.

She credited Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, with deploying the team of four to Pittsburgh.

They arrived at 10 p.m. Oct. 28, one day after a gunman shot and killed 11 people worshipping at the Tree of Life Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Six people were injured, including four police officers.

United Hatzalah is an Israeli organization that deploys volunteer emergency medical technicians wherever there is trauma.

Ballin said a motorcycle accident sensitized her to the needs of those who suffer from trauma.

“It’s a normal reaction to an abnormal situation,” she said.

The team, trained by the World Health Organization and in the methods of Israeli Dr. Moshe Farchi, employs several outcome-based strategies to help people reset their systems after witnessing a trauma, depending on the needs of the person.

Among them are bilateral stimulation, using touch, a gentle and soothing modality rather than modalities such as visual or audio tones that might trigger traumatic memory. In addition, they offer ideas to help people who may feel helpless ways to spring into action.

“You get somebody to do rather than just be,” she said. “Helplessness is the killer for people who are experiencing trauma.”

In addition to Ballin, the team includes Rabbi Avi Tenenbaum of Jerusalem, who grew up in Chicago prior to going to Israel; Einat Kaufman, a psychologist who lives in Rishon Lezion; and Hadas Rubim, who lives in Kedumim and is a hospital social worker. Ballin said this week the entire team of volunteers will expand from about 400 to nearly 500 due to graduations of 90 people who will have completed a two-month training. The corps of medics numbers 5,000. Kaufman was studying for her finals to be a medic when she learned of the Pittsburgh shootings. Rubim was bathing her children. Tenenbaum, a psychotherapist who is in charge of the treatment protocols for the group and is a dispatcher for it, learned about the shootings through a text network that includes on-the-ground troops of the Israel Defense Forces.

They all rearranged their lives to go to Pittsburgh.

Cari Immerman, regional development director of United Hatzalah, who lives in Shaker Heights and belongs to Congregation Shaarey Tikvah in Beachwood, accompanied the team to its first deployment at Shady Side Elementary School to meet with children.

“We help with grief, we help with trauma, we help with bereavement,” Immerman said. “Most importantly, we help people think about what it is they’ll need to be able to deal with the situation.”

The team said they felt the impact of the shootings upon learning the news.

“Even in Israel, this would be surprising,” Tenenbaum said.