Hadassah dedicated the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Rehabilitation Pavilion at its Mount Scopus Hospital yesterday. Among those present were Dr. Howard Rusk, of the Rusk Institute in New York, one of the world’s leading authorities on rehabilitation, and hundreds of members of Hadassah, who came to Jerusalem especially for the occasion.
The pavilion, comprising the entire eastern wing of the hospital, has 60 beds, and is equipped with the latest and most sophisticated equipment needed to rehabilitate those afflicted by war, accident, stroke or other causes. The main donors of the $7 million building are the members of the Guggenheim family of New York, who helped to build the original Mount Scopus Hospital, and 27,954 individual West German citizens, who contributed to a fund organized by Axel Springer, the German newspaper publisher, and the Jerusalem Foundation.
“The pavilion will serve patients, not only from Israel, but from Cyprus, Turkey, Iran and even from Arab countries officially at war with Israel,” said Charlotte Jacobson, Hadassah building and development chairman, who presided at the dedication ceremony. Rusk, head of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University Medical Center, said that his department had always worked closely with the Hadassah department of rehabilitation. At present, four Israeli veterans who lost their arms were at his Institute, being fitted with artificial arms.
Springer, who was unable to attend, said in a message read by Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek that when he arrived in Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he saw the American planes unloading supplies and was ashamed that West Germany had not helped Israel during its hour of need. He said in touring the Sinai battle-fields he saw many Israeli wounded, and was “shaken, impressed and deeply moved.” He told Kollek “that not only I, but many of my fellow countrymen, wanted to help to overcome the misery created by this war. He (Kollek) immediately suggested that we help the rehabilitation center.”
Rose Matzkin, national president of Hadassah, compared the rehabilitation of the Mount Scopus Hospital, which was recovered in the Six-Day War in 1967 and reopened last year, to the rehabilitation of a man, Faye Schenk, national chairman of the Hadassah Medical Organization, introduced Prof. Alexander Magora, head of the Hadassah Rehabilitation Department, who trained under Rusk as a Rusk Fellow.
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