Ten years later: How an Israeli surgeon saved three lives in on Yom Kippur - opinion

OCTOBER 3, 2026 08:47A decade has passed since that Yom Kippur, 2016. I can’t get it out of my mind.It was the night Ben-Gurion Airport was opened for a matter of life and death.The Grinfeld family, like so many other Israelis, were taking advantage of the Tishrei holidays and the days off from work and school to take a vacation abroad. Noa and Hanoch Grinfeld and their four children – Yiftach, then 11; Ahinoam, 10; Ivri, seven; and Nevo, five – from the town of Ma’aleh Michmas, northeast of Jerusalem, decided on the Republic of Georgia, with its budget-friendly mix of hiking in the Caucasus Mountains, history, and a vibrant Jewish community with synagogues and kosher food for the holidays.It sounded perfect.Travel sites for Georgia highlight Tusheti, a spectacular, high-altitude historic region known for its alpine scenery and pristine beauty.They also mention the Abano Pass, one of the world’s most notoriously dangerous roads.Dangerous mountain road in Tusheti, Georgia. (credit: SHUTTERSTOCK)That’s where the family was touring when visibility turned bad. Hanoch, then 42, was driving the large four-wheel-drive vehicle they had rented. He inched along at 10 km. an hour. Should they try to pull over or continue to their lodgings?Suddenly, the jeep’s tires slid off the narrow road. It tumbled into a ravine 80 meters deep.When the movement stopped, Hanoch at first thought he was dead. It was cold, dark, and silent. Near him, Ahinoam – named in memory of his brother Yehuda, who was killed in Lebanon – was lifeless. So was Nevo.Then Hanoch heard Ivri’s voice.“Abba, Abba!” he called.Yiftach was seriously injured. So was Noa. She couldn’t move her legs.Hanoch crawled up the abyss, pulling himself over a steep wall. He spotted headlights in the distance – his only hope. In desperation, without a common language, he made the Georgians understand what had happened.The treacherous rescue began. Then, for hours, they were driven 220 km. over pitted roads to Tbilisi.The Georgian doctors and nurses were devoted, but Noa and Yiftach needed the more advanced medical care available in Israel, their family in Israel realized. They urgently needed to get home.But how?It was the day before Yom Kippur. Ben-Gurion Airport had shut down as the holiday approached. Even the Israeli rescue services were closed.A resourceful family friend contacted VitalOne, a US medical transport company run by Rabbi Isaac Leider of Monsey, New York. He agreed to undertake the rescue, but warned that they would still have to navigate formidable bureaucratic and diplomatic channels.They would need permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel, the Airports Authority, the Transport Ministry, and the Prime Minister’s Office. They would need two pilots, a medical team, a plane, and 1,000 gallons of fuel. They needed airport staff on Yom Kippur.Ben-Gurion Airport hadn’t been open on Yom Kippur for seven years.Another major obstacle remained. Noa’s cervical spine was detached, and the hospital executives in Georgia were unwilling to let her be transferred, concerned that she would die on the way to the airport.Her family in Israel sought an orthopedist who could confidently do the transfer and who was willing to fly to the rescue on Yom Kippur eve.The orthopedist whom they approached was eating seudat mafseket, the meal before the Yom Kippur fast, with his wife and children in Modi’in when his phone buzzed with WhatsApp images of Noa’s neck.Did he know how to transport such a patient? And would he be willing to fly out if the airport were open and the other bureaucratic hurdles were overcome?Yes and yes, said the doctor. However, he pointed out that Ben-Gurion Airport was still shut. He promised to take his phone to synagogue, to be available should there be any news.KOL NIDRE is traditionally recited three times at the opening of the Yom Kippur evening service. During the second repetition, the surgeon felt his phone vibrate.The flight, he saw, was a go.'What a beautiful sight to see everyone waiting for the patients'He asked a friend to tell his wife, on the other side of the crowded synagogue, that he was leaving. He jogged home to get his car. He needed equipment, particularly a kit to stabilize Noa’s neck. He called his Russian-born department head to ask what might be needed in the former Soviet Union.The highway from Modi’in to Hadassah Medical Center, in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, where he worked, had few cars but was filled with bicyclists.When he finally reached the hospital, he asked for an ambulance to rush him to the airport, where he met the other members of the medical team.The plane took off at 9:58 p.m.They landed in Tbilisi close to midnight. The Israeli Consulate arranged an ambulance to take them to the injured family.Hanoch and Ivri had light injuries. The doctor stabilized Noa’s neck and then asked to see Yiftach, the seriously injured boy. He was across town in a children’s hospital.The Israeli doctor was distressed by the treatment Yiftach was receiving for a complex fracture and insisted it be changed immediately. The Georgian doctor said he was unfamiliar with the proposed treatment and that the Israeli doctor would have to take responsibility.“Isn’t that why I’ve come?” asked the Sabra doctor, who took charge.After five hours on the ground, the team and patients took off.“I was worried that it would be hard to gather the staff on Yom Kippur, “ the doctor said.”Surgery was urgent.”But what he found brought relief and a swelling of Zionist pride.Some of the medical staff had walked to Ein Kerem. Others came by bicycle. Ambulances had worked overtime bringing still others.“What a beautiful sight to see everyone waiting for the patients,” he said.I know all these details because the orthopedic surgeon is my son, Prof. Josh Schroeder, now the head of Hadassah’s Spine Unit.To mark the 10th anniversary, he received a thank-you note from Noa’s family for being among the many good people who took part in this extraordinary rescue. The update included the happy news that Yiftach, who had the complex fracture, had recently married.On that Yom Kippur, they operated all day.When they finished, the final prayers were being chanted in the hospital’s Abbell Synagogue under the Chagall Windows.“Avinu Malkeinu, shlah refuah shleimah l’holei amecha....“Our Father, Our King, send complete recovery to the sick among Your people.”And the last: “Be gracious to us and answer us, though we have no worthy deeds...”I once asked Josh why he had taken part in this mission on Yom Kippur.He said he didn’t understand my question. Would he or any Israeli doctor ever give up the privilege of helping to secure a place for a patient in the Book of Life on Yom Kippur?Chag sameach!■The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers.Follow us on Google