Who will care for Jamila now?
By Barbara Sofer

(February 15) I was standing among the thousands of friends, 
colleagues, students and patients who had gathered before 
Hadassah University Hospital to pay final respects to 
Dr. Shmuel Gillis. There was time to reflect. 

A particular photograph in the museum in Hebron kept coming 
to mind. The grisliest scene of the 1929 massacre in Hebron 
took place in the Hadassah clinic, a place where more Arabs 
than Jews received medical care. 

Then I recalled the commemorative walk my synagogue congregation 
took last Memorial Day. On foot, we followed the doleful trail 
of the destroyed Hadassah convoy. On April 13, 1948, 78 men and 
women, among them doctors and nurses - were slaughtered on their 
way to Mount Scopus, while the Mandate power watched. 

Standing in the winter sunshine, I wondered at the special 
affinity Jews seem to have for medicine. Our high regard for 
doctors reflects our deep respect for those who act in the 
image of the divine Healer. 

I thought also of the pride with which I always show off to 
foreign colleagues those hospital rooms with Jews and Arabs 
bed to bed, islands of sanity no matter what is happening 
outside. 

The commitment to heal without discrimination is at the core 
of our Israeli identity. It's the finest part of us, something 
that belies every despicable stereotype our enemies have 
hurled at us. 

Hence, our enemies work hard to deny the reality within 
Israeli hospitals. Just recently, after applying to volunteer 
its experience in the United Nations Economic and Social 
Council, Hadassah, the women's Zionist organization, had to 
overcome the objections of the Arab bloc to having a Zionist 
organization aboard. High in their demands was that Hadassah 
bring written proof of every Arab patient who had been treated 
in its medical centers. (The organization refused to supply 
the tens of thousands of names.) 

Back in 1948, those who attacked the convoy later claimed, 
unconvincingly, that they hadn't known doctors were on those 
buses. 

That denial resonated with what hospital spokesperson Yael 
Bossem-Levy told me about the night Shmuel Gillis was killed: 
Foreign correspondents kept calling to make double sure he 
hadn't been killed in "just" a car accident, as the Palestinian 
sources were reporting. 

On the evening of February 1, 2001, after a long day at the 
hospital, Dr. Shmuel Gillis drove home to Karmei Tzur in 
Gush Etzion. A car pulled up beside him and he was killed in 
cold blood. The doctor who had dedicated his life to healing 
sicknesses of the blood. Jewish blood. Arab blood. 

Ruthi Gillis wanted her husband's funeral cortege to begin at 
the medical center where he went to school, taught and lovingly 
cared for the sick. 

The crowd of thousands at the hospital parted like the Red Sea 
before Ruthi and their five children, ages 3-13, his elderly 
parents who had long ago brought their children to grow up in 
Israel from England, and his two younger brothers, doctors like 
him. 

"And the child Shmuel grew, and was in favor both with the 
Lord and also with man." Hadassah's new director-general 
Professor Shlomo Mor Yosef, himself a member of what Israelis 
call "the family of the bereaved," eulogized his 
student-turned-colleague. "You died because you were a Jew. 
Your merits didn't keep the evil forces from you." 

Former head of the Binyamin Command Gal Hirsch had served 
with Shmuel Gillis in the elite Shaldag unit. "It was one of 
those foggy nights, somewhere 'out there,' " said Hirsch. 
"Shmuel was carrying weapons, and also medical equipment. 
We had taken prisoners. 'They're cold,' Shmuel reminded us. 
And he took care of them, as a doctor and as a man." 

Professor Dina Ben-Yehudah, chairperson of Hematology, mourned 
her able colleague, whose intelligence and optimism drove the 
department. "I was worried about him traveling home every night, 
and suggested he stay over in the hospital. 'At the end of a 
day's work, a man goes home to his family,' he told me. I wished 
him a safe journey, and he wished me one - I who live in 
Mevasseret." 

Ruthi described her beloved husband, who spent his free days 
hiking with his family, studying Torah with his children and 
serving his community. 

"You worked with death every day, and knew life was short, 
so you used every moment," Ruthi said. "I have told our 
children that not only we are in mourning today. All of Daddy's 
patients who no longer have him to take care of them are 
bereaved along with us." 

One of those patients is an advisor to Yasser Arafat. Ironically, 
Arafat reportedly expressed regrets that Shmuel was killed. 

Yasser Arafat, the man who has missed every opportunity for 
peace, is responsible for Shmuel Gillis's death, and that of 
the other Israelis and Palestinians in his so-called intifada 
al-aksa. In blood and fire he has vowed to get what he could not 
gain at the tables of reason. When will his people tire of the 
bloodshed and rid themselves of their demonic leader? 

Dr. Shmuel Gillis's specialty was blood clotting. Too little or 
too much, too soon or too late, puts us in mortal danger. 
The hereditary diseases that affect blood clotting are more 
common among Arabs than Jews. 

For 12 years, Dr. Gillis took care of Jamila, an Arab patient 
with a severe blood disease. Dr. Gillis helped keep her alive, 
helped her maintain a pregnancy and give birth. 

"Who will take care of Jamila?" wondered one of his colleagues. 

Who indeed?