Despite the magnitude of the threat, the Israeli government has neglected the most obvious steps to increase the Jewish population in the Jewish State. Each year, an estimated 50,000 potential Jewish lives are aborted—that is nearly 1,000 each week!
To add tragedy to horror, most of these abortions are unnecessary and avoidable. Women, faced with dire financial distress, and feeling that they cannot cope with the responsibility of another mouth to feed, see no other choice. They opt for the grim path of abortion, with many of them having no idea, and being given no information whatsoever about the consequences. They do not know, until it is too late, that there is a heavy price to pay emotionally, physically and psychologically, sometimes for years to come.
The EFRAT Organization was founded by Mr. H. Feigenbaum A”H, a Holocaust survivor. After surviving the hellfire and immigrating to Israel, Mr. Feigenbaum was determined to increase the birthrate in Israel, to restore and rebuild what was lost. EFRAT was established with one goal in mind: no Jewish life should be lost due to lack of money.
EFRAT oversees a network of 3,000 trained volunteers who provide one-on-one counseling and emotional support to all who need their aid. EFRAT also provides financial assistance in the form of baby supplies including cribs, strollers, baby baths, layettes and monthly packages of food and diapers for a full year to those who are struggling with economic difficulties.
The most important word for EFRAT and for those who walk through its doors is “choice.” The women standing at the crossroads are being given information on options, possibilities and alternatives, so that they can make an informed decision.
I chose a career in medicine because of my commitment to saving lives. Since I made aliya from Argentina in 1964, I served as a senior surgeon in Shaarei Zedek and Hadassah Medical Centers in Jerusalem.
An amazing story convinced me of the dire necessity of containing the plague of abortions in Israel. In 1977, a woman accompanied by her eight-year-old son, who had been involved in an accident and needed stitches, entered my office. As I began preparing the necessary implements, the women turned to me and said. “You probably don’t remember me (she was right), but it is only because of you that my child is alive today.”
She then recounted that she had spoken to me about nine years earlier. Not knowing she was in the earliest stages of pregnancy, she had undergone a series of diagnostic x-rays. When she realized that she was, indeed, pregnant, she immediately contacted her doctors about the possible effects of these x-rays on her unborn child. She consulted several doctors. They strongly urged her to consider an abortion and stated that the child had no hope of being born with full mental and physical capabilities.
She remembered that I explained to her that the latest research contradicted these doctors; accordingly, x-rays do not affect the unborn child. I told her that she had every chance of giving birth to a perfectly healthy child.
“I listened to you, and gave birth to a healthy beautiful child and he has been bringing me joy from the very first day,” she said.
Her story changed my life. I studied medicine in order to save lives. Unknowingly, with a simple bit of medical advice, I was able to save this boy’s life and all his future generations.
I understood then that the plague of abortion was bleeding the Jewish nation of its children. I realized that I could save many lives by preventing unnecessary abortions. I decided to devote my life voluntarily to save the lives of unborn children
In the 31 years since its inception, EFRAT has saved over 28,000 lives of Jewish children. In all these years, I have never, not even once, heard a woman express regret that she brought her child into the world.
Just $1,200 gives the EFRAT Organization the ability to provide assistance and thus save a Jewish child and all of his generations.
Is it any wonder that EFRAT is known as the “world’s greatest lifesaving organization?”
For more information please call (732) 725-1270 or visit www.efrat.org.il.
You can mail your tax-deductible donation to EFRAT-C.R.I.B., The Committee for the Rescue of Israel’s Babies, 1612 57th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11204.
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Dr. Eli J. Schussheim is president of EFRAT.
