Night of Heroes: MDA ambulance fundraiser dedicates Community Hero award to fellow life-saver
Norman Rosenbaum, who helped buy 11 ambulances for Magen David Adom, passed on his award to Kerry Rosenfeld, who raised £7 million to try find a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
On the face of it, the five nominees for the title of Community Hero had little in common.
But in fact the award, sponsored by the city company Investec, brought together five candidates who have saved, or are saving, lives.
Some, like Ashley White, a PE teacher at the cross-denominational school, J-Coss, have demonstrated this in the most tangible way. He saved the life of one of his school students, Noah Baron-Cohen, in 2016, when Noah, then 16, collapsed during a routine school rugby practice.
Ashley’s first-aid training kicked in and he began to perform emergency CPR on the teenager, working on Noah for an exhausting 15 minutes before the paramedics arrived. “It was only after they took over that the emotions began”, Ashley confessed. As for Noah, waking up in hospital and finding out what Ashley White had done for him, made him feel “lucky to be alive”.
Sam and Lee Bladon were nominated for the service they launched late last year in memory of their daughter, Evie. Their little girl was born with severe brain damage, and, though she survived until she was three, the multitude of health issues from which she suffered meant she required considerable overnight care.
No-one knew better than the Bladons how exhausting, physically and emotionally, it could be to deal with a child in these circumstances. Wanting to do something in her name, they worked with Camp Simcha and established Evie’s Night Owls, an at-home overnight respite service designed to help parents. Gina Greenwood, a single mother of three, is one of the beneficiaries of the service. She says the Night Owls’ help with her ill son, Jake, has transformed her life. And for the Bladons, continuing to provide respite for exhausted parents will become “Evie’s legacy”.
George Gabriel, chief executive of the Safe Passage campaign, a UK project to bring child refugees to Britain, is in no doubt about the contribution of Jude Williams to his work. “Jude saved the day”, he says, speaking of huge problems faced in trying to bring children from the so-called Calais “jungle” in northern France.
Working with Nic Schlagman, whose mother came to Britain on the Kindertransport, Jude, whose father was caught up in the Holocaust and came to Britain as a refugee in 1945, raised a staggering £200,000 in just three weeks. “They brought a huge amount of energy and public attention to the issue at the critical moment”, says George Gabriel. Just over 1,000 children arrived with Safe Passage’s help, courtesy of Jude Williams’s hands-on initiative.
And the last two nominees for the Community Hero award crossed paths in a way never envisaged by those who named them as finalists — Norman Rosenbaum and Kerry Rosenfeld.
Norman, a scarcely believable 83 and a retired surgeon, has saved thousands of lives in Israel through his fund-raising for Magen David Adom ambulances.
To date he has raised money for an astonishing 11 ambulances, and, despite fighting his own health problems, is now trying for a 12th MDA vehicle. It was, he said half-jokingly, his wife Eve who had pushed him into starting his fund-raising work. “Don’t just sit there earring salmon sandwiches”, she admonished him. “Do something!”
So Norman Rosenbaum did, and now his whole family is involved.
Meanwhile Kerry Rosenfeld, together with her husband Doron, was a nominee for the launch of the vitally important Duchenne Research Fund, after they heard the heartbreaking news that their son Gavriel Meir had been diagnosed with the condition.
So far they have raised more than £7 million in their bid to find a cure for the otherwise fatal condition.
Each one of these stories was touching in itself but when Norman Rosenbaum was announced as the winner — a hugely popular choice — he stunned the organisers, including presenter and TV host Dermot O’Leary, when he asked if he could present his award to Kerry, in Gavriel’s name.
It was a moment which illustrated, if it were needed, quite why Norman Rosenbaum is a Community Hero and how all the nominees deserved recognition and support.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
