An Israeli hospital which has treated thousands of Syrian refugees is to receive a six-figure grant as part of a project set up by the Genesis Prize – the award regarded as the “Jewish Nobel”.
Doctors at the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed, on the border with Syria, will use the funding to treat children who have lost their hearing as a result of injuries suffered during bombardments in the civil war.
While the exact sum in US dollars has not been announced, it is understood the funding was triggered by Sir Anish Kapoor’s decision to give the $1 million prize money he was awarded when he won this year’s Genesis Prize to campaigns working to help Syrian refugees.
Stan Polovets, chairman and co-founder of the Genesis Prize Foundation, said: “We Jews have for centuries suffered as refugees. Now it’s time to help others.”
Morris Kahn, the Israeli billionaire and main philanthropist behind the Safed project, said that move had been “an amazing humanitarian gesture”.
Mr Kahn added: “This can only be a lesson, for us as Israelis, and for us as Jews. We as a people have suffered. We know what it is to have our lives destroyed, we know what it is to try and survive. In my mind, it’s a humanitarian imperative and a privilege to be able to do this.”
The grant will serve as part of the Genesis Prize Foundation’s global initiative to help refugee causes and to encourage other Jewish groups to do more to assist humanitarian campaigns in Syria.
Over the past four years the Ziv centre has treated more than 1,000 wounded Syrians, including many children – of whom one in three show signs of hearing loss when receiving medical assistance in Safed.
Specialised hearing tests have been developed by the centre for the children, alongside clinical treatment, surgery and rehabilitation.
Mr Polovets added: “The brutal civil war in Syria has created nearly five million refugees, many of them children. The Genesis Prize Foundation invites other donors, Jews and people of other faiths, to support the great work being done by the Ziv Medical Centre and other organisations that aim to alleviate the suffering of the wounded, especially children.”
Natan Sharansky, Jewish Agency chairman and a member of the Genesis Prize selection committee added: “The Genesis Prize works to instil and develop the sense of pride in being Jewish. There is no doubt that helping Syrian refugees, helping wounded children and women, is something extremely important in this context.
“Amidst the horrors of this war, an Israeli hospital provides a safe place where wounded Syrians, women and children, can come and receive medical treatment like no other place in the world. This is a very Jewish thing to do.”
