"This is the most meaningful public position I can be a part of today,” said Dovrat Weizer, newly appointed chairwoman of Magen David Adom (MDA). After an extensive career in public service in Ramat Hasharon, Weizer was drawn to MDA in the wake of the current war due to the key role it plays in saving lives, both during the conflict and in peacetime.
At the Jerusalem Post Women Leaders Summit held last month, Weizer announced the revitalization and rearrangement of Women of Magen David Adom, whose goal, she explained, is to serve as a supporting arm for MDA and help publicize and promote its projects. “It’s incredibly important to get more people involved and contributing to this organization,” she said.
“We also aim to create partnerships with municipalities, hi-tech companies, and large corporations that can adopt MDA projects, such as purchasing ambulances, supporting the training of paramedics, and keeping the organization in the public eye.”
Women of MDA in Israel, acting under the umbrella of the Israeli Friends of Magen David Adom, will work to harness the power of women to promote MDA. “Our goal is to invite the original members who started the group, as well as new women who’ve reached out to us after seeing us at the conference. It’s a combination of old and new,” Weizer explained.
Given the outsized role that women have played, Weizer and her associates concluded that creating an organization led by women to promote and support Magen David Adom would be appropriate. While Women of MDA will operate within Israel, Weizer said that she eventually hopes to establish branches of the organization in other countries.
Noting the role that women have played since the beginning of the war, both in the IDF and Magen David Adom, she said, “We believe in the power of women, even more after what we’ve seen in the past year and a half – the role women have taken at the forefront, the incredible and heroic women on the front lines in the IDF, serving as combat soldiers, in MDA, and in the broader civilian society that rose to fill a social and national void.” Weizer noted that close to 50% of MDA volunteers are women.
“MDA is an example of an organization that demonstrates true equality, both among its volunteers and its employees.” She suggested that the high percentage of women who work in MDA was due to the passion and talents that women have for engaging in life-saving work.
“There’s something in women’s DNA, I think, that draws them to life-saving roles,” she said.Though like all Israelis, Weizer had previously been aware of MDA’s life-saving activities, the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war brought her into its orbit.
Her two sons are serving in the IDF, and she has supported and provided assistance for soldiers and their families since the beginning of the war, delivering supplies to military units, visiting wounded soldiers, and preparing Shabbat meals for families of reservists.
Weizer said that “supporting the home front and helping the families made a tremendous impression. Along the way, I learned about the incredible work of MDA, during and after the war. That’s when I decided to dedicate my public career to helping our soldiers and the MDA rescue forces.”
In her new role, Weizer is outspoken about the need to support Magen David Adom. While 60% of its budget comes from patient services and blood sales, she said, the remainder depends on public donations. “The organization does not appear in the state budget, and 40% of its budget must come from external fundraising. As an accountant, I find that unacceptable. This creates a structural deficit.”
WHILE WEIZER is familiar with many of the stories of MDA heroism during the war, she considers the story of Amit Man particularly poignant. Amit was a paramedic who was murdered by terrorists while treating the wounded in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7. She was trapped in the kibbutz dental clinic along with the wounded and dead for many hours as the terrorists tried to break into the clinic.
“Amit kept trying to save lives until her very last moments. Soldiers go into Gaza knowing the risks, but a paramedic doesn’t think for a second that she might lose her life while working.” Weizer noted that Amit began her career in 2015 with MDA as a youth volunteer and eventually took an MDA instructor course and trained other volunteers. “Being an MDA worker was a part of who she was from childhood.”
MDA is renowned for its underground Israeli National Blood Services Center in Ramle – one of the world’s most advanced and secure centers of its type. The center also operates the National Human Milk Bank, storing breast milk for premature babies. Approximately 150 liters of milk are regularly provided to the various neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in hospitals around the country every month.
Weizer recounted the story of an F-16 combat navigator who had given birth shortly before the war and was on maternity leave. The pilot was called to the Air Force Reserves, and MDA delivered breast milk to her infant, thus enabling her to respond to her emergency military service call-up. So far during this war, MDA’s Milk Bank has delivered 1.5 tons of breast milk to hospitals and the homes of breastfeeding infants, many of whose mothers were murdered or kidnapped on Oct. 7.
WEIZER POINTED out that MDA must maintain its equipment, train paramedics, and open new branches throughout Israel. It is currently in the initial stages of developing the seven-hectare (17-acre) Magen David Adom Campus in Ramle, adjacent to the Blood Services Center. This massive project will launch MDA’s emergency medical services into a new era and serve as a nationwide strategic hub for knowledge in the field of pre-hospital emergency medicine.
The MDA Campus will include an Emergency Leadership College, offering a variety of training programs in emergency medical professions, ranging from paramedics to senior medics, and will also train key personnel in civil society and local government to become senior community leaders.
It will also house the National Underground Protected Operations Center and MDA Headquarters Units, as well as the National Simulation Center, in addition to student dormitories. It is essential, Weizer noted, that the 35,000 MDA paramedics, EMTs, first responders, and first-aid providers – volunteers and staff – have the training, equipment, and medical supplies they need to treat all wounded and ill people in Israel.
The work of Women of Magen David Adom in Israel is essential in promoting and supporting Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance, and blood bank service. “Magen David Adom is one of the most meaningful organizations in Israel. I don’t know many places where so many women and men volunteer out of a passion for saving lives. It’s extraordinary,” Weizer said.
“MDA is creating a space for powerful, meaningful female leadership – one that is not based on conflict or ego but on service. I invite any woman who sees herself in that mission to join us,” she concluded. “We’d love to have more women as part of our team.”
On Tuesday, May 20, Women of MDA Israel will hold its launch event at the MDA National Blood Services Center in Ramle. For more information, call *5710 or write to contact@ifmda.org.il.
This article was written in cooperation with Women of Magen David Adom Israel.