For Nurse Itzhak Brook, witnessing medical teams at Hadassah Hospital fight to save the lives of enemy soldiers set an ethical standard he adhered to when he became a physician.

Dr. Brook, now Professor of Pediatrics at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.), served as an army medic during the 1967 Six-Day War in the battle for Jerusalem and as a battalion physician in the 1973 Yom Kippur War in the Sinai. In both wars, he cared for many wounded prisoners. Among them was an Egyptian fighter pilot. “As I mended his broken leg and bandaged his burns,” recalls Dr. Brook, “he showed me a photo of his family. His two young children were the same ages as my children. I realized that he just wanted to see them again.”

For Dr. Brook, “caring for these enemy prisoners humanized our adversary.” And, he says, “I felt inner satisfaction that I could honor the sanctity of the human life.”
Read more about Dr. Brook’s memories of caring for enemy soldiers in the Atlanta Jewish Times.