Apart from an eminent profile on the Jerusalem skyline, Hadassah is also a fixture of Israeli and Jewish collective imagination. We have a name that stands for healing and education, for organization and leadership, for women’s empowerment and—by virtue of our Chagall Windows in the Abbell Synagogue at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem—even for art.

And we also have a space project.

As the conflict with Iran has reminded us, knowing the true nature of something requires not only looking beneath the surface but actually going there. In this case, “there” means safe space. The Hadassah Medical Organization’s two main campuses—Ein Kerem and Mount Scopus—have ample fortified facilities underground, secure from aerial attack. In Ein Kerem in particular, subterranean operating rooms and intensive-care units were part of the original architectural design. Beyond the permanent underground levels, in recent weeks, we have added and opened emergency spaces on both campuses with expeditious conversions of parking garages. And there are more underway, thanks to so many generous supporters.

Some of our built-in underground levels are in everyday use, but during an emergency the mobilization involved in moving large numbers of patients, equipment and furnishings on a moment’s notice is extraordinary. So, too, was the quick transformation of the parking lots. I’d like to describe it, but I can’t do better Yolande Bloomstein Weiss. She was at Hadassah Ein Kerem accompanying her husband, Rabbi Abner Weiss, who was being treated for sepsis, when the war with Iran began.

“As war broke out and sirens began to wail, our private medical crisis collided with a national one,” Weiss, who made aliyah with her husband in 2023, wrote in The Jewish Standard. “Without warning, the hospital shifted into emergency mode. Patients, families and medical teams were moved into an empty space on a subterranean level that, within hours, became a fully functioning fortified hospital.

Weiss went on to describe a microcosm of Israeli solidarity: “Family members quickly stopped being bystanders…. We made beds, transported belongings, fetched supplies, soothed anxious patients, and helped with whatever was needed. We were daughters and sons, husbands and wives—and suddenly we were aides and orderlies too. What formed beneath the ground was something unexpected: a village. Half the workers were Arabs. Half were Jews. Down there, those distinctions felt irrelevant.”

After 11 days in the space she helped organize, Weiss and her husband returned home.

It’s not only underground that our medical professionals save lives. In fact, our profile sometimes rises well above the skyline. In February, veteran Hadassah nurse Avivit Eliyahu sprang into action to save a passenger during a flight home from Ethiopia, where she had gone with friends for a 12-day jeep tour. Midway through the flight, an elderly man in the row in front of her appeared to faint. She found him slumped over.

“I connected the dots very quickly,” she said. “It was right after the meal, and he was unresponsive. I realized he had likely suffered partial choking, and food had entered his airway. I asked the two young passengers sitting next to him to help lay him down on as firm a surface as possible. I began clearing secretions from his mouth, checking his pulse and assessing his condition. It was truly a field situation.”

She began chest compressions to dislodge the blockage. After a few minutes, the man began to breathe normally and eventually stabilized. Nurse Eliyahu stayed with him until the plane landed.

Our instinct is to heal in every space we occupy, and to create new spaces when necessary. Learning from experience helps us avoid being caught unprepared. Digging deep saves lives. So, too, staying alert at high altitudes.

This is what we do. This is where our training and experience lead us. This is what our dedicated members and donors enable. This is the meaning of Hadassah.