Patients with serious illness can overcome political, religious and ethnic barriers and benefit from emotional and spiritual support
• By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
A new approach to life
Patients with serious illness can overcome political,
religious and ethnic barriers and benefit from emotional
and spiritual support. Judy Siegel-Itzkovich reports
Could it be that the path toward
peace in the Middle East is
quietly being paved by cancer
patients? Imagine ultra-Orthodox,
modern-Orthodox and secular
Jewish women and Muslim and Christian
Israeli-Arab and Palestinian women who
had never met before leaving their political
and sectorial views at the door and hugging
and dancing with each other.
That actually happened, during a twoday
retreat in the Daniel Hotel at Ein Bokek
on the Dead Sea, organized last month by
Life’s Door (www.lifesdoor.org.il), a voluntary
organization that helps families cope
with illness and the end of life. With roots
in the US and its primary activity now in
Israel, it has reached over 20,000 patients,
family members and professionals who are
grappling with these issues in their personal
and professional lives.
It was founded in Jerusalem 11 years ago
by oncology Prof. Ben Corn of Tel Aviv University’s
Sackler School of Medicine, chairman
of the radiology institute at Tel Aviv
Sourasky Medical Center, and his wife Dvora
Corn, an occupational, family and marital
therapist specializing in working with
patients and families facing life-threatening
illness.
“Our vision,” they said, “is that every person
will have an understanding of and internalize
his or her mortality and finitude so
they can live more meaningfully.”
The Brooklyn-born professor was only
11 years old when his father died of prostate
cancer, and had been told his father
was “away on business trips” to explain his
absence from home.
“That’s the way it was in American society.
Despite the best of intentions, people simply
did not have the tools to deal with such tragedies.
Kids weren’t even taken to funerals,”
he said.
Near the end of Passover, an emergency
phone call informed his mother and two
siblings that his father was gone.
“There was no preparation, no goodbye,
only shame and grief,” said Corn, who a few
years ago was presented with the President’s
Volunteer Prize.
Corn was pretty much the only male at the
Ein Bokek retreat and mostly kept behind
the scenes. Each cancer patient came along
with her mother, sister, daughter or female
friend. He lectured at the event on medical
issues, while Dvora was involved in sessions
dealing with personal issues. The event was
held in Hebrew and English with simultaneous
translation into Arabic.
The retreat for 42 women was the gift of
Sonja Dinner, president of the DEAR Foundation
in Switzerland. Some of the events
were filmed to make a documentary spotlighting
women with breast and gynecological
cancers to educate and dispel shame or
secrecy among women in the poorest countries,
regardless of religion, nationality, color
or race. Previous retreats did not include
such a wide variety of participants.
Dinner told the participants she hoped the
retreat would “empower women and enable
them to prevent, screen for and advocate
better care for such cancers.”
AHAVA EMUNAH Lange, an Orthodox
mother of five and Beit Shemesh resident,
has been battling ovarian cancer, which she
contracted at the age of 36. Accompanied at
the retreat by her mother, Lange said: “Every
individual has an opinion, whether based
on personal reasons, religious beliefs, social
pressure or even political and religious brainwashing.
As I see it, there are two alternatives
for achieving peace: the political/governmental
one, which the individual rarely has
influence on, and the personal/individual
one, to which each one of us has access.”
“A vacation at a Dead Sea hotel and “a
chance to meet and interact with women
from different backgrounds was something
I knew I would enjoy… Our first meeting
was in a large circle. As I looked around the
room, it became clear that my mom and I
were in the minority as Orthodox Jewish
women. We were interspersed with a few
other religious Jewish women, secular Jewish
Israelis and many women wearing hijabs
and speaking in Arabic. Communication
was made possible by two translators who
carefully translated every word into either
Hebrew or Arabic.”
As they shared and discussed their individual
journeys, Lange told The Jerusalem Post
in a post-retreat interview, “I felt our exterior
appearances fading into the background.
The flow of emotions mixed in with our similar
paths created a feeling of unity, and our
group breathed life into an almost palpable
energy. Each woman told her story, and we
shared very similar fears, hopes and responses.
The more each woman committed to
sharing, the more our exteriors melted away
and allowed us to draw closer.”
After hearing a lecture on the benefits
of massage therapy, Lange asked an Arab
woman to partner with her to practice with.
“S. wasn’t ready for me to massage her, but
she volunteered to try what we’d just learned
on me. I closed my eyes and felt her hands
working on the knots in my shoulders and
my neck. After we finished the workshop, S.
asked to take a photo together, and that was
a poignant and sentimental moment for me.
It was the smile, the physical contact, and
the acknowledgment of making a connection
and friendship.”
Lange recognized at the retreat an
English-speaking Christian Arab patient
from Bethlehem whom she had encountered
previously at Shaare Zedek Medical
Center’s oncology department. With the
video cameras banished from the room,
Lange and J. learned and practiced the art
of belly dancing, accompanied by Arabic
music. The women, recalled Lange, “seemed
to let go… and the movement of our bodies
and our incessant laughter was our common
language.”
In talking sessions, women patients felt an
emotional release and shed tears.
“It was the first time since my diagnosis
that I truly mourned the loss of my womanhood
when my ovaries were removed,
and it came out while listening to one of the
women share her own story. It was a unique
opportunity,” said Lange. “It took so little for
the ice to melt.”
Lange, who came on aliya from California
in 1991 with her family (who together
became Orthodox), has lived with the specter
of cancer most of her life. Her paternal
grandmother was a carrier of a defective
BRCA1 gene and died of breast cancer at 40.
Her father contracted colon cancer in his
early 50s; fortunately, he underwent major
surgery and has been cancer-free for the
past decade. When Ahava was tested, she
was found positive for BRCA1, which greatly
raises the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
She was diagnosed in the emergency room
of Hadassah University Medical Center with
stage-III ovarian cancer in July 2012.
“My father, an orthodontist, consulted
a friend who is a top breast cancer surgeon
at Soroka University Medical Center in
Beersheba. He recommended the surgery be
performed by Prof. Uzi Beller, head of gynecology
at SZMC. I showed up at his office
without an appointment and begged him to
help me, and he did.”
After the oophorectomy, she went through
chemotherapy. Her oncologist at SZMC is
Prof. Nathan Cherny, who is well known for
his expertise in giving emotional support to
patients and palliative medicine to relieve
pain.
“I owe my life to Prof. Beller and Prof.
Cherny,” Lange said. “I was never angry at
God for my cancer. I was sometimes angry
at myself for not being up to what I should. I
have been blessed with miracles.”
Ten months later, the cancer returned as
a metastasis, stage IV. She was included in
a clinical trial at the Jerusalem hospital and
given PARP inhibitors to fight it. Although
it’s a double-blind study and she doesn’t
know if she is part of the treatment group,
Lange feels better and optimistic.
“I am fortunate that there is so much
expertise in Israel in BRCA, with clinical
trials going on. If not, I would have to go
abroad, but it is all here.”
Her husband David, who works for
a hi-tech company, “is my rock. He goes
with me to every consultation and chemo
treatment. I also have very supportive parents,
brothers and other relatives,” she said,
although her coping with the disease is not
easy on her children, who range in age from
13 to five.
LIFE’S DOOR, which had merged with
Ma’agan (a support center for people living
with cancer, has in the last few weeks
changed its Hebrew name from Tishkofet
(“Perspective”) to Gisha La’Haim (“Approach
to Life”) to make it more understandable to
the public.
It also has a new director-general, Sarit
Oren, who spent much of her career in the
Israel Defense Forces (doing strategic planning)
and, with a master’s degree in running
educational frameworks, worked in voluntary
educational organizations. At one time,
she joined Dov Lautman, the industrialist
who headed Delta Industries and founded
and chaired the Hakol Hinuch movement
to strengthen public education. Although
he was for years almost totally paralyzed by
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), he had a
profound effect on her.
“At first, I saw a man with a tube in his
throat, and I had difficulty looking directly
at him. But we sat together for two hours and
talked about everything – education, social
gaps, disease, death and hope,” said Oren.
“To me, he seemed completely healthy.
When he died, it was very difficult for me.”
When the voluntary organization closed,
it was suggested to her that she meet the
Corns at Life’s Door, which six months ago
was looking for a new director-general. Ironically,
Oren herself had a brush with illness
before last Rosh Hashana, when after
a mammography her family doctor called
her and matter-of-factly told her she had a
tumor in one breast. Furious about the way
she had been informed, Oren understood
the need for tact and sensitivity on the part
of physicians. Fortunately, the tumor was
benign.
Under the new director-general, Life’s
Door will put additional stress on spiritual
advisers for patients with cancer and other
serious diseases.
“Most people die of chronic illness, including
cancer. Elderly people are today a tenth
of the population, and in the years to come,
the figure will triple,” said Oren. “Patients
must be given hope and learn to expand the
borders of life. People used to die by 65 or
before. Now people live into their 80s and
90s and beyond. Our organization offers
the gold opportunity to run the end of your
life.”
She recently bonded with her (healthy)
mother, who is in her 60s and had never
discussed the end of life with her.
“I asked her about the significance of her
life and how I could help her when it ended.
She told me she wanted to be buried in a
casket, which is not common in Israel, and
that she would want everybody at the funeral
to recall something funny that happened
at her. She spoke matter-of-factly, without
tears, and at the end said: ‘Thank you!’”
Life’s Door has trained some 40 “spiritual
advisers” around the country in 800-hour
courses taught by six experts. They can be
rabbis, but they can also be in other professions
with at least a bachelor’s degree in
relevant subjects and they don’t have to be
religiously observant; some may themselves
be cancer survivors who know how to relate
to others, said Oren. Their fees are subsidized
and controlled to be minimal.
“When people are diagnosed with serious
diseases, they go straight to the Internet,
which gives only technical medical information
but no emotional or spiritual support.”
Spiritual counseling began in the US,
where Christian clergy went to hospitals
to provide spiritual support to patients. It
expanded to rabbis of all stripes who had
been busy conducting ceremonies like bar
mitzvas, weddings and funerals but not spiritual
counseling. They learned how, and the
idea was transplanted to Israel.
Looking to the future, Oren would like to
place spiritual trainers in hospitals, geriatric
homes and other institutions and not only
individually, with help for family members
as well as the patient.
“We want in the next three years to change
public dialogue about terminal illness and
death and teach medical staffers to have
more compassion and empathy.”
She hopes that in five years, experts from
Life’s Door will appear in Knesset committees
and other forums and help promote
legislation that would set down at least a
minimum number of required job slots for
counselors in healthcare institutions.
“Every doctor, nurse and social worker
should be trained in how to meet the emotional
and spiritual needs of patients,” Oren
concluded.
