By COLlive reporter
An act of kindness done to a fellow Jew by the Shliach in Moldova resulted in great assistance to his entire community, this week.
An Israeli citizen who was recently traveling in Moldova became infected with Coronavirus, and was helped by the Shliach Rabbi Mendy Axelrod.
“He arrived at the Chabad house last week in order to buy kosher food,” Rabbi Axelrod told COLlive. “We found out shortly afterward that he caught the virus. I was contacted and asked to get an Oxygen concentrator for him. I searched for a rental, which proved to be impossible due to the long lines.”
Axelrod says after much searching, he finally found a company that sells the Oxygen concentrator.
“I purchased and delivered it to him, and his oxygen saturation was low,” Axelrod says.
“After speaking with his doctors in Israel, I understood that he clearly was suffering, and it was a matter of saving his life.”
A short while later Axelrod was contacted again and told that a rescue plane was coming for the man. The plane had been chartered by the patient’s insurance company.
They inquired, did he need anything brought from Israel?
“I grabbed this opportunity and asked them if it is possible to bring shmurah matzos. Due to the experience of last year, I was apprehensive that we would be stuck without Matzos,” he added.
Last year, immediately after Corona broke out, Moldova’s land and air borders closed. The matzos made it to the country with the help of an Israir rescue plane a few days before the holiday.
When the Israir rescue plane that was rented to fly the patient to Israel landed on Sunday, Rabbi Axelrod accompanied the Israeli patient in a special ambulance to the airport, where an Israeli medical crew awaited. “I felt that I helped in rescuing a Jewish soul. It’s a great privilege for me,” he said.
To show their appreciation to the Shliach and the Moldovan Jewish community, which had helped with the bureaucratic procedures, shmurah matzos for the seder were brought to Moldova for all.
Coronavirus has strongly affected Moldova, with 185,000 citizens infected with Corona, and unfortunately 3,949 deaths.
Spread throughout Moldova are 3 active shluchim couples, among them Rabbi Mendy and his wife Chaya Mushka Axelrod. Chaya Mushka is the granddaughter of Rabbi Zalman Abelsky. “We are 3 couples who came with our families to help with the Shlichus that she began over 30 years ago,” she said.
“Every year we would celebrate the Seder night with extravagance and splendor, with the participation of many hundreds of Jews in several cities in the country – but this year we still do not know how we will do this due to the virus and the limitations, which we will, of course, keep to. For Purim, we had our meals split into capsules, in order to stay in the limitation of 20 people under one roof. We read the Megila, delivered Mishloach Manot and celebrated, but of course, the situation affected us in many ways. We hope that by Pessch the situation will calm down and we will be able to celebrate the Seder night as before.”
Rabbi Zushe Abelsky, director of the Chabad community said, “We were concern that this year obtaining Matzos will be laden with stress and uncertainty until the last moment. Due to this flight, however, we merited a miracle to be prepared even earlier than every previous year, with hundreds of kilograms of Kosher L’Mehadrin Matza, which we will give out to as many Jews as possible.”
The situation of the Israeli who was evacuated from Moldova is categorized as serious, and he is currently hospitalized in Tel Hashomer.
Moldova keep the good work.
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To say tehilim!