(JERUSALEM- November 24, 2014) In an emotion-laden press conference, Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who was shot at point-blank range in an assassination attempt twenty-five days earlier, expressed his grateful appreciation to all those who saved his life leading up to his release from Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center today.
Shaare Zedek Professor Jonathan Halevy described it as a “great day for the Glick family, but also for Shaare Zedek and Magen David Adom who as a result of brilliant decisions and quick and professional thinking were able to save Yehuda’s life.”
With a voice shaking at times but filled with resolve, Rabbi Glick recited the blessing thanking God as, “he who brings back life to the deceased,” clearly referencing his own case where he arrived in the hospital in extremely critical condition.
“The fact that I am sitting here today and speaking with you is a sign of the immense gratitude that I owe to Hashem,” Rabbi Glick said. “Over the past month I was blessed with numerous events that with only slight differences would have led to a very different outcome.”
Glick offered thanks to his medical teams describing the hospital as being infused with a “sense of joy”.
“From the nurses to the medical students and national service workers to the maintenance teams and security officers, my care was always administered with love and joy.”
Speaking in English following his remarks to the Israeli media, he said that he would not address political issues in this forum but said only that immediately before firing the gun his attacker said to Glick that he was doing it in because the rabbi was an enemy of Al-Aqsa. “Anybody who shoots and kills someone in the name of his religion is the first person disgracing his religion,” Glick said to the media gathering. “Those who are giving respect to Islam are those Moslem doctors and nurses who work at this hospital, helping people after they have signed the Hippocratic Oath. These are the people who are bringing respect to God and their religion. Not those who murder in the name of religion.”
Dr. Ofer Merin, Shaare Zedek Deputy Director General and Director of Trauma Medicine spoke directly to Glick saying, “I don’t know if you can appreciate how much emotion we feel that someone who arrived here in such a serious state can leave in such a condition today. This success is largely due to the remarkable cooperation between the teams from the first aid responders to the surgical teams that gave us the ability to come to this day. The decisions in every stage have given us a great deal of satisfaction to be a part of this process.”
Professor Petachia Reisman, Director of Surgery at the hospital said Glick’s case reminded him of why he got into this profession. “Every day over the past two weeks when we walked into his room and witnessed his remarkable progress, I felt enormous professional satisfaction,” Reisman said. “My only hope is that we’ll never see you again here for these reasons.”
