American Red Cross in Greater New York’s Francis Englert admires sculpture outside the Jewish Museum in Jerusalem. Francis is one of four members of a Greater New York serving as volunteer ambulance drivers for the Magen David Adom.

Michelle Bowman, ARC/GNY Assistant Director of Training and Logistics, writes about her historic trip to Israel to work as an MDA Ambulance Responder.

Both Sunday and Monday were fairly uneventful days, so instead I will take this time to discuss a few of the things that we do outside of work. I have written quite a bit about our weekend excursions, but during the week we usually leave work by 3:30 or 4:00 pm. This leaves us quite a few hours to entertain ourselves amid the myriad delights of Jerusalem.

Many normal activities have taken on a distinctly Israeli twist. For example, sometimes we are so tired that we just want to come home and collapse in front of the television. We get many channels in our room, but few are English. We have discovered that the only channel that plays the Olympics on a regular basis is in French, and we have been surprised to see Spanish telenovelas dubbed in Russian with Hebrew subtitles. Moreover, any of the live shows that we customarily watch in the United States are on in the middle of the night in Israel. Therefore, Francis bravely woke up at 3am to watch the Superbowl, and I turned on the tail end of the Grammy's when I woke up for work at 5am.

Francis and I also enjoyed the distinctly Israeli experience of going to see a movie. Israel plays mostly American films with Hebrew subtitles in modern movie theaters, so we felt right at home. However, halfway through the film, in the middle of an action sequence, the film abruptly cut short—it was time for the Israeli movie break. Apparently all movies have a short intermission, exactly at the middle of the film, so that people can grab some food, use the restroom, or smoke a cigarette. After my initial surprise, I decided that I enjoyed this custom, although they could try to time the breaks slightly more strategically.

We have also tried some slightly more cultural forms of entertainment. In the last couple of weeks we have had the opportunity to visit Israeli"s two largest museum—the Israel Museum and Yad VaShem, Israel’s largest Holocaust museum. The Israel Museum was impressive. We spent quite awhile learning about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and then we moved on to the rest of the museum only to find that it was enormous. The museum included foreign art, the world’s largest collection of Israeli art, archaeology, Judaica, and some more random exhibits such as "cultures of Peru”. After a few hours we grew exhausted; the museum definitely merits more than one visit.

The Israeli Museum was good, but Yad VaShem was incredible. It was by far the most moving memorial/museum I have ever visited. Nestled in the woods on top of Mt. Hertzl, the museum is a long, narrow triangle-shaped building that leads visitors through the entire history of the Holocaust. The multi-media exhibits included video testimonials from Holocaust survivors, a large pile of shoes from Holocaust victims, and an entire room with files on those killed in the Holocaust. Each victim received one page and the circular room, which was at least 20 feet in diameter, was almost full. It was a profoundly moving and educational experience. Unfortunately, I ran short on time and the museum closed before I was able to see all of the memorials outside the museum. I did have the chance to see a Swedish Red Cross bus that rescued 27,000 prisoners from the concentration camps right before the end of the war. I felt proud to be part of the organization.

We have been trying to see the rest of the sites in Jerusalem, although many of them close early and more often than not we simply end up wandering the streets of the Old City. Finally, we have to feed ourselves every day, and we have enjoyed countless meals at a plethora of different restaurants. Now that the four of us are spending more time apart, mealtime has become our time to come together and share our experiences throughout the day. As we share this new experience, it is quite a relief to be able to debrief with a group of people who truly understand what you’re going through.