Sitting for nine days at the bedside of her 94-year-old father, an oncology patient at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, Shira Goodman witnessed a side of the Jewish people and the State of Israel in ways she had never experienced before. The small acts of kindness extended to her father and the respect and humanity displayed by staff and others despite their differences inspired and moved her. Goodman, of Newton, Mass., is chair of the Board of Directors of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. Her husband, Wesley Gardenswartz, is the senior rabbi of Temple Emanuel in Newton.
Read Goodman’s observations and aspirations here.