‘Accountants, plumbers, surveyors – whatever it might be, they’ve all got day jobs. Everyone has got kits in their car, everyone responds from wherever they are,” said Yossi Richman, on life as a trained volunteer paramedic at Hatzola, the ambulance service funded by Jewish giving.
Richman also serves as a governance lead at Hatzola in Golders Green, north London, where four ambulances were attacked by arsonists in the early hours of Monday morning.
The attack has left Jewish communities reeling. But alongside the concerns about community safety amid rising antisemitism, there’s a determination to protect the humanitarian civic principles Hatzola represents.
“It’s not just a Jewish service. If a call comes from within the area, they will come to your aid, whoever you are. There’s no cost to anyone and even on the sabbath, they’ll go to any case,” said Andrew Walters, an Orthodox Jewish councillor in Greater Manchester, which is home to one of the country’s busiest Hatzola services.
Hatzola ambulances were first seen in New York in the 1960s, emerging from the US’s private healthcare culture, Walters said.
In the late 1970s the concept came to north London, after the deaths of Jewish people waiting for ambulances. Private ambulances are legal in the UK, regulated by the Care Quality Commission.
Alongside London and Manchester, there are services in Canvey Island in Essex, Hertfordshire and Gateshead in the north-east of England – the main centres of UK Orthodox Jewish life.
Photograph: Gary Calton/The Guardian
Emergency response teams serve a tight radius – 4.5km (2.8 miles) in Golders Green’s case – which means quick response times, with anyone living in the vicinity able to call their emergency line and get a triaged response.
“The dispatchers are also volunteers – men and women who are at home, cooking supper, whatever they’re doing. The emergency phone in their house will ring, they will take a few details, ask a few questions, and then dispatch the call,” Richman said.
Walters is a liaison between Hatzola and statutory bodies in Greater Manchester.
Through his work and that of other community leaders the parallel charity services, many of which operate 24 hours a day all week, have become welcomed for their role in easing pressure on NHS ambulance services, operating as autonomous regional charities.
In Stamford Hill, London, Rabbi Levi Schapiro, of the Jewish Community Council, said: “If you go on any typical street, you’ll have a synagogue, you’ll have a church, you’ll have a mosque, you’ll have a Polish community centre.
“This is who we are as a community. Our community is based on charity – and one of the most fundamental parts is Hatzola – which means ‘rescue’ in Hebrew.”
Schapiro added: “But if you go on social media now, you’ll see people posting all these different questions, ‘hey, how come the Jewish people have their own ambulance service?’
“This is exactly what [the attackers] wanted the conversation to be. But whoever you are, if you’re having a heart attack and volunteers are nearby, they will save your life. By burning down these ambulances you’ve screwed over everyone who lives in the area.”
The attack was felt just as strongly in Greater Manchester, where Walters said it would be “naive” to think the community’s nerves would not be tested.
“I think it will be exploited by the fearmongers, but our resilience will pull us through,” he added.
Schapiro said: “My phone has been exploding from members of the community asking: ‘What’s the long-term plan? Are we safe? Can we go out? Who is next?’
“The Middle East conflict has contributed to a lot of antisemitism. And it’s Keir Starmer’s poor luck it’s happening while he’s in office. But right now nobody in the community is happy with him.”
Richman’s volunteering takes him across Golders Green and neighbouring areas – Hendon, parts of Finchley and Hampstead Garden Suburb.
“I went to a nine-year-old in cardiac arrest, who wasn’t a member of our community, who collapsed playing on the street with friends,” Richman added, recalling a serious incident he attended.
“He had a heart defect he didn’t know about, had it operated on, and was absolutely fine afterwards. We’ve been to meet him since.”
Alongside blue-lighted ambulances with the latest equipment, the fleet includes fast response cars and volunteers’ personal vehicles. The service receives about 20 calls a day.
“Today, it’s business as usual,” Richman added. “In fact we responded to calls while our ambulances were on fire.
“It gives us an ability to be grateful for everything we have, when other people need help in their time of need, you can drop everything and run. It’s a privilege.”