Cancer Support Tributes

What Is It?

“What is Ezer Mizion? Is it the Jewish Bone Marrow Registry?”

“I think it’s an organization that helps cancer patients. When my sister lived in Israel, her son was in the hospital off and on for months with leukemia. Ezer Mizion couldn’t do enough for the family. Meals at the hospital, rides, a beautiful apartment for the family to live so they wouldn’t have to travel for treatments. And let me tell you, that apartment was housed in a gan eden (garden of eden) for kids with everything a child could want including a petting zoo. You know, they even took all the kids on a chol hamoed trip

“I always thought Ezer Mizion was an organization for special children. When my cousin moved to Israel , she was so excited to see all the programs available for her autistic child.”

“A few years ago, we were visiting Israel and I noticed they were having an inauguration of a mental health building. So many g’dolim (sages) came. Isn’t it an organization for mental health?”

A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

Dear Sir, Madam,
It has been nearly a year since
our repatriation to Israel.
Sadly, the joy of our reuniting
with the Motherland has been tragically
damaged by the dramatic diagnosis –
we are both ill with the stage 4 cancer,
currently desperately fighting for our lives.
Our treatments are taking place at the oncological
centre “Davidoff” in Petah Tikva led by the amazing doctor
(or better to say-magician) Victoria Neiman.
It will be very hard to express by words all that valuable help
and support that we are receiving here in Israel, not only from the government
but also from kind and very responsive people, like the staff at Ezer Mizion, who care about the life tragedies of the others.
It was so hard not to cry when we received your Rosh Hashanah presents!
We have never seen so much care and attention before.
The fact that people who have never met us before were able to be so kind
touched us enormously. Your kind deeds give powers to those
who are having to fight the horrible illness. By offering your help
you don’t just provide the presents, for which we are so thankful.
But more importantly, you give us hope to live and feeling that we are not alone,
that we became part of the Jewish Nation that our real Home is here.
Let your kindness and generosity come back to you in multiple numbers,
let your business grow successfully and let your friends and family be happy.
We wish you all the best, health and lots of warmth and light on your ways!
With many-many thanks,
Best regards
Tatyana and Iryna

A Letter for You, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

15 Tamuz 5778

To the blessed Ezer Mizion, who surely deserve to be praised,

Their name sung and extolled, and their banner ever raised.

The ones who have set as their mission and their supreme goal

To help the ill and the needy, to comfort, aid, and console,

To nurture and offer assistance – in short, to foster the art

Of bringing joy and solace to every broken heart

To express our heartfelt gratitude, this page will not suffice,

For the dedicated work you do in this tremendous enterprise.

How you sincerely cared for Tzvi, our beloved son,

And arranged a limudei kodesh tutor, to teach him one-on-one.

Bringing us more nachat ruach, with every passing day,

Horseback riding and other therapy, to build him up in every way.

Then giving Michal your attention and generous, flowing aid –

All that’s left is for us to say “thank you”; our gratitude will never fade.

Continue to enjoy success, in all the great things you do,

From us, appreciative parents, who will never ever forget you.

Naftali and Tova W.,

Haifa

(Parents of Michal, who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma and has baruch Hashem concluded treatments.)

A Journey We Didn’t Plan from Nechama Spielman’s Diary

diary Nechama Spielman — Our Journey through Planet Cancer

I remember exactly where I was sitting.

I remember the curious sun ray that peeked inside to see our new house, slid gracefully across the table, jumped down, gave the floor a luster, and flashed me a warm smile. Maybe it was trying to stroke my cheek, even before we ourselves knew that, just a few moments later, we would be needing just such a comforting embrace. Continue reading A Journey We Didn’t Plan from Nechama Spielman’s Diary

A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Freinds and Supporters

Dear Bracha and all the people at Ezer Mizion,

I wanted to thank you for helping us get adjusted.

Even before we had gotten to the hospital, you opened up your hearts and the doors of Ezer Mizion – Oranit and showered us with warmth and love. Continue reading A Letter Meant for You, Our Dear Freinds and Supporters

A Letter that Belongs to You, Our Friends and Supporters

Dear Ezer Mizion:

Shalom u’verachah!

I want to express my profound gratitude to the important chessed organization, Ezer Mizion.

Two and a half years ago, my mother was stricken with cancer. She battled the illness for two years, until she passed on. Continue reading A Letter that Belongs to You, Our Friends and Supporters

A Letter Meant for Your, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

Dear Tamar,

I consider it my privilege to express to you some of the enormous gratitude I have towards Ezer Mizion, and in particular, to Ophira Taylor and the entire staff of the chareidi Cancer Patient Support Division, headed by Blumi Willner. After already having lent your support to my family during my husband’s illness, you went on to help me personally by funding emotional therapy. Over the last few months, I underwent two series of therapy based on the “Journey” approach with Ayala Garbi, as arranged by the trusty intervention of Ezer Mizion’s Donald Berman Rehabilitation Center.

The offer to receive therapy in itself, after my husband finished his course of chemotherapy and reached a “hiatus,” moved and heartened me very much. Continue reading A Letter Meant for Your, Our Dear Friends and Supporters

Of Tantrums and Rabbits

Things are ok now but nightmares are something that you never really get over. Hadas recalls those months of terror in the hospital with Maoz, her tiny son. “Ima, what are they doing to me?” he would ask. The chemo bag was marked ‘Danger’ and its contents were dripping into his little veins. Maoz looked like a tiny, helpless laboratory mouse. It began with nausea and continued on to non-stop vomiting. She tried to be upbeat for his sake, “Pretend that you’re superman and the ‘chemo juice’ will kill those bad cancer germs inside you and make you super-strong.” But her too-mature-for-his-years son answered, “Mommy, superman is a fairy tale. And this, this is real!” Continue reading Of Tantrums and Rabbits

Panic…Computer Glitch!

Mistakes happen. Even computers have been known to slip up. But how the glitch is handled—that’s what ‘separates the men from the boys’.

A Chinese auction held in Israel was a case in point. There were over 100,000 entries, each one bar-coded and entered into the auction. Except one. It received its bar code but did not become an auction entry. The program- perfect in every way-botched this one entry. It was only discovered after the auction took place. Now what? True, the vast majority of entries did not win a prize but this one never had a chance to win. We can’t simply keep the donation, said the organizers. And so, with trepidation, the call was made.

Ezer Mizion: Hello, good evening. I’m calling from Ezer Mizion about an unpleasant incident and I apologize in advance…

Donor: What happened…? Continue reading Panic…Computer Glitch!

Pre-Pesach Musings

The following message came to Ezer Mizion’s Cancer Patient Support Services staff. The message was sent by Racheli E., a young widow who lost her husband Eliav z”l recently. She wrote it to staff after her children returned from an Ezer Mizion trip for a group of youngsters who had lost a parent to cancer.

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Dear Batsheva,

Sorry for the late hour. I want to thank you so much for today. The children really had a great time… You gave my kids what I don’t have the emotional strength to give them now. A day of fun. A day of letting loose. A day of opening up the black curtain and letting the sunshine in. Please pass on my regards and my thanks to everyone. I am sending you something I wrote – a bit long, but nice. Please share it with everyone else at Ezer Mizion. All of you have been with me during this journey. It is to you at Ezer Mizion that I can confide my deepest feelings. I know you understand. You have all been my ‘best friend’ holding my hand throughout and I wanted to share this with you.

Like everyone who starts sniffing Pesach on the horizon, the tension at my home leaped to heights.

But this year, that the black hole pervaded every inch of my home. Even if I paint it in all the cheerful colors in the world, something will always bring the black back to the forefront. Continue reading Pre-Pesach Musings