Ariel Wasserstein thought he would only spend a gap year in Jerusalem, but the now 22-year-old, originally from Silver Spring, has made Israel his home.
“There’s definitely a chance I want to be back here,” he recalled thinking during his post-high school graduation trip in 2021. “There’s, for sure, a chance that this is where I should be. But I remember it being, ‘Maybe.’ Obviously, I wanted to go back to [the States for] college.”
Wasserstein’s plan was to participate in the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Hevruta gap year program before starting college at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
During the gap year, he began volunteering as an emergency medical responder through Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service. He was trained in administering CPR and using certain devices on ambulances, then worked regular ambulance shifts, picking up Hebrew as he went.
One shift involved transporting a teen Israeli soldier who was injured with six bullet wounds.
“He was bleeding out; we were trying to get him to a hospital, and that really stuck with me,” Wasserstein said. “I remember thinking, ‘I can’t go sit in college, learn and not do anything here. He’s my age. He’s 18; I’m 18. He’s dying in front of me. I can’t go back to the U.S.’”
That crucial ambulance ride kickstarted Wasserstein’s service. He endured six weeks of training to become an EMT.
Then, after Oct. 7, 2023, MDA rallied staff to go down to southern Israel.
The day after, Oct. 8, Wasserstein began volunteering in 16-hour shifts in the south. Clad in a bulletproof vest, he treated casualties during an unpredictable, highly volatile situation. The intensity of that work taught him skills such as leadership and remaining calm under pressure.
“No matter what, you can’t panic,” Wasserstein said. “You just always have to remember that you are the one who’s supposed to be there and in charge and calming the situation and deescalating it … That’s more important than anything else.”
He said Oct. 7 has forced MDA to upgrade its equipment and emergency preparedness. MDA now uses military-style tourniquets that better stem bad bleeding.
Wasserstein initially didn’t want to pursue paramedic school — his plan was to start college in the States. But a particularly difficult pediatric CPR case changed his mind.
“It really pushed me into thinking, ‘I’ve got to do more; I could do more,’” Wasserstein said.
A year and a half of studying later, he is a fully certified lead paramedic with a medical license, helping to train and mentor new staff. The job brings him a sense of pride.
“I like the fact that I’m able to be there at the worst day for somebody, and I’m able to bring them to the hospital with a smile,” Wasserstein said. “No matter how bad their day could be, how hurt they are, how sick they feel, you know you’re able to try as much as you can to help them feel better.”
But it doesn’t come easily.
“The job is overall very challenging,” he said. “Hours are abnormal and it’s crazy … There have definitely been times where it’s really, really difficult.”
Despite — or perhaps because of — the intensity of the work, Wasserstein doesn’t see himself doing anything else.
“I feel like I just need to be there,” he said. “I need to be in the field. I need to be moving. I need to keep seeing and helping and trying my best.”
Wasserstein first got a taste of the medical field as a student at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, where he took classes in sports medicine: “It always interested me.” He originally attended Berman Hebrew Academy, then transferred to CESJDS in 10th grade.
“When Ariel switched to JDS, he really found his own passions, and sports medicine and kinesiology was a big part of it, which led to his thoughts about the future and then his eventual move into the medical field,” Wasserstein’s mother told Washington Jewish Week. “I definitely believe that was a huge [influence].”
Though he never meant to stay beyond his gap year, Wasserstein no longer considers moving back to the United States.
“There’s just nothing like this country,” he said of Israel. “There’s a sense of community, of always belonging, of no matter what, someone’s going to help the person next to you.”
In 2022, in honor of Wasserstein making aliyah and serving as an EMT for MDA, his family and friends sponsored a LUCAS chest compression device to help save the lives of patients undergoing cardiac arrest.
“We’re incredibly proud of Ariel and incredibly proud that he’s found his way to serve and to help and to fulfill himself,” Wasserstein’s mother said.
Wasserstein’s mom raised her children in Kemp Mill, a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, with the “importance of Israel.”
“I don’t think we ever pushed aliyah, but it’s not surprising that he chose to make aliyah,” she said.
Wasserstein said this was a common reaction shared by his family and close friends to his decision to stay in Israel.
“No one was surprised — they saw it coming,” he said. “I was the one who was surprised.”
