With the storm behind him, Rabbi Elimelech Firer is back to what he does best
Photos: Mishpacha archives
ast week in the offices of Ezra LeMarpeh, Rabbi Elimelech Firer was busy as usual with the urgent business of saving lives, turning his back on an aggressive media spotlight that threatened to unhinge this one-man encyclopedia of medical information and referrals. For those readers who might have missed the Israeli hullabaloo, the latest target of the “exclusion of women” protest movement was the man who’s devoted the last 40 years of his life to helping people in medical crisis, regardless of gender or religious affiliation.
In recent years, the Friends of Ezra LeMarpeh group has organized benefit fundraising events geared to the general public. Rabbi Firer, a Belzer chassid, is never directly involved in these events, but he does have one stipulation: that there not be any female singers, in accordance with halachah. It’s not the organization’s first public fundraiser — these events have been going on for years without any hysterics. This year though, as the “exclusion of women” battle cry has reached a fever pitch, some of the entertainers scheduled to appear decided to boycott the event — even though some of those singers have participated in such events in the past. Some of those cancellations generated opposite responses from other artists announcing that they were ready to perform instead of the ones who had canceled, while the ping-ponging was discussed ad nauseum in the media.
And Rabbi Firer, the self-effacing chesed machine who spends 20 hours a day helping people get the best medical treatment possible, who has the most advanced medical techniques at his fingertips and shares them with anyone in need, became a target of hate and derision as being “backward,” “medieval,” “primitive,” and a host of other expletives deriding those who stick to halachic principles.
Of course, Rabbi Firer felt encouraged with the myriad letters of chizuk from such people as former High Court president Aharon Barak, who wrote him a warm missive about his egalitarian work on behalf of Klal Yisrael; Nobel Prize laureate Yisrael Aumann; Professor Mordechai Shani, formerly the director general of the Health Ministry and of Sheba Medical Center, and many others. But Rabbi Firer decided that despite the discomfort he felt with regard to the selfless, dedicated individuals who had organized the event, he had to make a decision:
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