Rachel Cowan

...Healing is now understood as a complex process with medical, psychological and spiritual dimensions...

...Atlas suffers from myelodysplasia syndrome, a rare form of leukemia that does not respond to chemotherapy or radiation treatment...

...The purpose of this approach was to facilitate a peaceful resolution through a trade of occupied land for guarantees of peace...

...Maryland 20854...

...Testing centers have been set up in major cities—Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv...

...People would have said prayers for her in synagogue...

...Since tast November, more than 32,000 people have been tested as possible donors, and although no match has been found for Allison, rejected candidates are added to the National Bone Marrow Registry, so that their information will be available for others in need of bone marrow transplants...

...There is another issue, too...

...Her mode of spirituality is not theirs...

...This was a clear departure from the policy of the Carter administration...

...If the occupying power were permitted to introduce significant changes into the existing system, no matter how benevolent those changes might be, this would make the occupying power less inclined to trade territory it had grown attached to and whose institutions and way of life it had molded in exchange for peace...

...If anything, the reference in the recent joint Bush-Gorbachev news conference to Soviet Jewish emigration and the conditions for allowing it to continue unhampered was a further nudge, or squeeze, in this direction...

...at the UN Security Council, the Carter administration, by abstaining, allowed resolutions to pass declaring the settlements to be illegal...

...Furthermore, the Jewish community does not make hospital chaplaincy a priority...

...population to held territory...

...The Adas family asks that anyone who would like to help call toll free 1-80M5&3285 or write to the Atlas family at 2 Rock Falls Court, Rockville...

...They don't organize caring committees to take on this mitzvah...

...And does the Fourth Geneva Convention really apply to instances of prolonged occupation, especially where the ousted sovereign, Jordan, disclaims responsibility for the area...

...There is also an apparent willingness by the Bush administration to negotiate with the Arab bloc over the terms of a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity...

...if a match is found, the transplant involves a safe procedure in which the donor provides a small amount of bone marrow that the donor's body replaces in 7 to 10 days...

...I write about her as a paradigm of a problem and an opportunity...

...Her soul cries for comfort, and we are not well organized to provide it...

...That only a tiny fraction of Soviet Jewish emigres has elected to settle on the West Bank and less than 10 percent is settling in Jerusalem has not forestalled the effort by the Arab bloc to put Soviet Jewish emigration at the top of their agenda...

...Allan Gerson is an international lawyer with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research...

...Such talks are reported to have been going on since February...

...As it was, her friends and family cared for her well...

...A simple blood test screens for a match of six antigens...

...Depending on his or her skill as a pastoral counselor, the rabbi would have provided comfort, a connection to community and a sense of security...

...The thrust of the Fourth Geneva Convention is that the situation as it existed before the outbreak of hostilities be frozen, without changes in existing laws and institutions...

...Since the massive influx of Soviet Jews, the Arab bloc claims that Soviet Jewish settlement is an effort to displace the Arab population on the West Bank...

...During his presidential campaign Reagan took the position that the Israeli settlements are "not illegal...

...She needs help in talking to God and we can grow as we try to help her...

...Nobody knew what to say...

...But no one in the group speaks of a Jewish or a religious perspective on the task of rebuilding hope and faith in the future...

...Most non-Orthodox Jews don't take mitzvah as commandment—to them a milzvah is a good deed that they may or may not feel like doing...

...Techniques of meditation, yoga and visualizing are now seen as valuable aids to recovery Allison Atlas Needs Your Help A call is out fof Jewish volunteers from anywhere in the United States or Israel to be tested for a possible bone marrow donation to Allison Atlas, a 20-year-old New York University business major from Potomac, Maryland...

...But how much settlement activity is significant enough to change the status quo ante...

...That effort has not been altogether unsuccessful...

...At that moment, my friend forged a new connection to her Judaism...

...They broke down a few weeks ago when their Arab sponsors refused to budge on their demand for a clear statement that the settlements "violate prevailing international law, and are an obstacle to peace"—a formula unacceptable to the Bush administration, which announced that it was willing to allow passage of a resolution declaring settlement not helpful to the peace process, but would not be prepared at this point to join in one declaring them illegal...

...Some rabbis guard this role...

...Toward the end of Carter's term, a three-page letter from the State Department legal advisor, Herbert Hansell declared the Israeli settlements illegal as a matter of international law...

...it would only serve to distract from the real task of peacemaking—pushing the parties to direct face-to-face negotiations...

...They are not well trained in pastoral counselling or helpful to sick people...

...Six months after her mastectomy, one month after the end of chemotherapy, she looks for a Jewish environment to give a spiritual dimension to her process of healing...

...They leave it to the other—their rabbi—to do for those others—the sick...

...These are difficult questions that the Reagan administration deliberately chose to ignore—at least in public debate...

...In contrast, the Reagan administration adopted the position that because of diverse viewpoints on the legality of Israeli settlements, UN discussion of the legality issue was bound to be counterproductive...

...And they don't allow the rabbi much time to spend with the sick...

...If my friend were part of a Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist synagogue, she would have been less likely to benefit from an organized program of bikkur cholim...

...One lever the administration could use is finances to tighten the screws of that malleable instrument, international law, to say it requires Israel to cease settlement activity on the West Bank—including, with or without modification, East Jerusalem...

...Until that moment, she had not felt any need to be connected to Jewish tradition or to a particular Jewish community...

...Those who are comfortable with bikkur cholim, who see it as their obligation and send buses of visitors to major hospitals, speak easily to other Orthodox Jews...

...But now my friend wants something more...

...He is the author of Israel, the West Bank and International I^aw (Cass, 1978) and The Kirkpatrick Mission (Free Press/MacMillan, 1990...

...But her rabbi would have visited her in the hospital...

...But their theology is unacceptable to my friend and her questions...

...I could see tears wet on my mother's cheeks...

...I felt as if I were drinking from a well, drinking water that would give me strength to survive...

...She gets wonderful support from the hospital's group for women in treatment for breast cancer...

...The Atlas family has exhausted the possibility of finding a match within their immediate family and they are now testing volunteers throughout the United States...

...President Bush and the State Department have spoken of their concern...

...Ashkenazi Jews provide the best chance for a match because Atlas's ancestors are of Eastern European descent...

...The world has changed and administrations have changed but the Arab bloc's effort to obtain the condemnation of Israeli settlements as illegal continues...

...Most of those groups don't undertake the mitzvah of visiting the sick, a commandment that compels them to act...

...Then the rabbi asked them all to hold hands, and to hold mine, and he chanted a prayer of healing...

...Many chaplains are rabbis for whom this is but a low-paying, part-time job...

...That would have helped tremendously...

...The Reagan administration, therefore, decided that the United States would veto any UN Security Council resolution condemning the settlements as illegal...

...Coming out of surgery, I looked up and saw my family standing around me...

...There are, however, two new wrinkles to the current phase of this old drama...

...it can be cured, however, by a bone marrow transplant...

...Nudging Israel to modify its position on the peace process remains a major concern of the Bush administration...

...Although she had grown up in a warm, Jewish home, she had chosen to marry a man who was not Jewish...

...they don't want to share it with congregants...

...If my friend were Orthodox, she might belong to a community that takes the mitzvah (commandment) of bikkur cholim (visiting the sick) seriously...

...Assuming that no synagogue would welcome an interfaith couple, they had not sought to join one...

...Now, though, she is searching for connection...

...Tax deductible contributions made out to the Jewish Social Service Agency are also needed to help cover the costs of testing...

...Reagan also considered the attempts to label Israeli settlement activity as illegal as part of a larger orchestrated campaign waged by the Arab bloc in conjunction with the Soviet and non-aligned bloc, to condemn Zionism as racism and push for Israel's expulsion from the United Nations...

...That will be difficult to find...

...Her community would have visited her in the hospital, cooked food for her family and helped her with errands after she came home from the hospital...

...Testing can also be arranged by overnight mail for those who live in outlying areas...

...The group leader is skilled, compassionate: The women share a deep bond...