Magen David Adom is an organization that offers disaster relief and emergency services to Israeli citizens. It is Israel’s official representative to the International Red Cross, and helps collect blood for the injured and sick, milk for infants and ambulances for emergency providers, among other things. Its role is essential to keeping Israelis as safe as they can be — and since Oct. 7, 2023, support for Magen David Adom from Jewish and non-Jewish communities in the United States have skyrocketed.
In Philadelphia, the community has rallied together and made a huge impact on Magen David Adom and its work in Israel, said Dawn Saidel, associate director of major gifts at American Friends of Magen David Adom and the head of the organization’s Greater Philadelphia division.
“There was a real surge of support from the Jewish community and the non-Jewish community in Philadelphia and throughout the country to help after the seventh,” she said.
“A lot of people in Philadelphia didn’t know about us before. They thought we were just your ambulance company. And now people realize that we’re just so much more than ambulances.”
Magen David Adom’s blood bank in Ramla, the Marcus National Blood Services Center, is a six-story building that is housed underground to protect it from earthquakes as well as missile, chemical and biological attacks. The Sussman Family Foundation Human Milk Bank, which provides donated breast milk to infants affected by the war, has seen triple the amount of donations since Oct. 7, 2023.
Gershon Trimpol is chairman of the International Magen David Adom and vice chairman of American Friends of Magen David Adom, but he came to the organization as a donor.
“I’ve just fallen in love with this organization because it’s such a precious, life-saving organization. We had a conference in Israel where a president or prime minister said the two most important organizations in Israel are Magen David Adom and the IDF,” he said.
“We are not political and not religious. We save all lives in the state of Israel.”
Prior to Oct. 7, the organization donated about 100 new ambulances to Israel a year. In just a few months after the attacks, the organization garnered 300 new ambulances. In total, the organization donated 659 new vehicles from Oct. 7 to the end of May 2025. In 2019, Magen David Adom had 25,000 volunteers over the course of the year. That total rose slightly to 27,000 in 2022 before ballooning to 34,000 in 2025.
And it’s not just Jews who are pitching in.
Amy Hansen is director of ministry support and relief at the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, a Christian organization that works to help Jewish people and the state of Israel.
She said that the organization’s relationship with Magen David Adom grew out of a cross-cultural friendship right here in Philadelphia. A former executive director of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry was friends with a Jewish woman who worked with American Friends of Magen David Adom, and she introduced him to the organization.
“It was really based on a personal friendship here in the Philadelphia area,” Hansen said.
“She was able to introduce us to people in Israel and also help us get more involved with the Jewish community here in Philadelphia, which is how we began and really what we [still] do today.”
The organization has contributed more than $1.1 million to Magen David Adom over the last decade-plus.
“We’ve given ambulances, and we’ve helped fund the new blood center, and we support paramedic training and all sorts of different equipment throughout the country,” Hansen said. “I work with people like Dawn [Saidel] at American Friends of Magen David Adom — we talk all the time, and she’s always telling me how things are going, what they need, where they need it, and we do everything we can to help get resources [to them].”
Philadelphians love where they’re from, and many come back home. Saidel said that this has created a special dynamic: multiple generations of givers from the same family to the local chapter of Magen David Adom.
“Their parents are giving, and now they’re giving, and sometimes even their children are giving, which I think is very indicative of the Philadelphia landscape,” Saidel said. “Either you don’t move away, or you come back to Philadelphia.”
There have also been blood drives in the area, as well as fundraisers and events in Cherry Hill and other areas of South Jersey. But it isn’t just individuals and charity organizations helping in Philadelphia, either. Bloomberg offered a match on donations for a period after the attacks. Saidel said that other national corporations have contributed to the cause, like Comcast and Aramark, as well as well-known local law firms.
American Friends of Magen David Adom even held a gala event in Philadelphia after Oct. 7 that raised more than a million dollars.
“Unfortunately, the seventh has made us a household name in the Jewish community in Philadelphia,” Saidel said. “Everyone is doing such good work by helping Israel, saving lives and by helping bring new babies into this world. Philadelphia has really helped significantly.”
Overall, the support of non-Jewish members of the local, national and international community means as much to Magen David Adom as the support from Jews. One Magen David Adom paramedic came to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, earlier this year to speak to a crowd about the work he does from the perspective of an Israeli Muslim.
“There are a lot of people who obviously care about the IDF, and they want to know that Magen David Adom is working together with them,” Saidel said.
In November, the organization will hold its second gala in Philadelphia, and Saidel said that the team at Magen David Adom is happy to be holding an event in a city that works so hard to further their mission.
“People just want to know how they can help,” she said.
Trimpol said that there are a lot of great Israeli charities, and Magen David Adom is one of them. Simply put, it saves lives. Those who give blood and give their time to Magen David Adom leave a piece of themselves behind in Israel, literally and figuratively.
“It’s just a wonderful organization,” he said.
