After lying on a gurney for several hours, J smelled and then saw the pots of soup being pushed on carts through the throng of humanity, by young women. That’s right, they really were distributing chicken soup to the Emergency Room patients who were waiting to be seen.
The young women, probably doing their national service, asked each person in the ER waiting room whether they would like some soup. If the soup was wanted, the woman would take a big ladle and distribute a nice-sized dollop into a paper cup, add a spoon, smile, and move on.
But because this was Israel, when the soup distributors arrived at someone like my husband and a few others who waved them off, the soup ladies understood without pressing: it was a minor fast day. No soup for them.
When J was finally seen by a surgeon, the doctor conducted a brief examination, then sewed up his leg: twelve perfectly evenly-spaced black stitches. Not surprisingly, the medical care was the same (minus the soup) as what you would expect from any first rate urban hospital in the States.
When the doctor finished her stitching, she handed J a prescription for antibiotics, said good-bye and moved on to the next patient.
J left the Emergency Room marveling at how similar to home it had felt. Because it was home.