{"id":2509,"date":"2014-07-31T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=2509"},"modified":"2014-07-31T16:00:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T20:00:31","slug":"the-oldest-volunteer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/the-oldest-volunteer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oldest Volunteer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yarok Ba\u2019Kefar
\nBy: Tomer Keren
\nBinyamin\u2019s Mission
\n91-year old Binyamin Zusman, a man with personal charm and a lust for life \u2013 an Ezer Mizion hospital volunteer in the dialysis and oncology wards
\nIf you had occa\"prsion to visit the dialysis and oncology wards at Meir Hospital in Kefar Saba sometime in the last ten years, chances are that you\u2019ve met Binyamin Zusman.
\nYou would not have passed him by without noticing. Binyamin, with all his charisma, is not someone who goes unnoticed. He lives in Kefar Saba, is a native of Jerusalem, and is the sixth generation of his family in Israel.
\nThis gentleman is not a doctor on the ward, nor is he connected at all to the medical staff. But according to the patients, he alleviates their illness no less than they do.
\nBinyamin, aged 91, is a volunteer at the hospital under the auspices of Ezer Mizion. His humanitarian work has recently been recognized by the Director of the Hospital who has presented him with a well-deserved honor certificate.
\n\u201cFor 32 years, my late wife, Miriam Zusman, distributed Shabbat candles in the hospital wards,\u201d says Binyamin. \u201cIn recent years, I stepped into her shoes. I have my own \u2018bag of medicine\u2019 to make patients feel good.\u201d
\nBinyamin performs and sings for the patients in any language they ask for: Farsi, Arabic, Yiddish, Yemenite, or Spanish. He does so much more than sing. The air is electric as he approaches. The patients\u2019 faces light up at the first smile. They sense his understanding, his caring, the trademark of an Ezer Mizion volunteer carried to the ultimate.
\n\u201cI love to sing the classics to them. Recently I composed a new song that I created just for people undergoing illness. \u201d
\nHow do the patients respond?
\n\u201cThey want to smother me with love. It must be because they feel the love I have for them that they want to respond in kind.\u201d
\nWhy is it so important to you to come to the Oncology Ward?
\n\u201cMy wife was a patient in the Oncology Ward, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s especially important to me to come to this ward. I feel like I\u2019m doing it for her. There are patients here in very serious condition. They can\u2019t help falling into a deep despair, not knowing the outcome of their disease. When I come, their mood changes. My visit really helps. I\u2019m not sure exactly why. Maybe it\u2019s the deep connection I feel for them. The staff, and even the patients themselves, tell me that I give them hope. And hope is a very powerful medication.
\nBinyamin is an essential part of the hospital. The staff worries that this man, with his great personal charm and lust for life, may decide to retire.
\nUntil when do you plan on volunteering in the hospital?
\n\u201cI don\u2019t plan to ever retire. I\u2019ll continue as long as G-d lets me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Yarok Ba\u2019Kefar By: Tomer Keren Binyamin\u2019s Mission 91-year old Binyamin Zusman, a man with personal charm and a lust for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,166],"tags":[14,25],"class_list":["post-2509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ezer-mizion","category-volunteer-2","tag-hospital","tag-volunteer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2526,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}