Donation fulfills dad’s dream
Fort Lee family presents ambulance to Magen David Adom
Growing up in the East Bronx neighborhood of Parkchester, Jaime Weiss often heard his father, Arthur, talk wistfully about a gift he could not afford to give.
“He always said, ‘I’d like to donate an ambulance to Israel,’” Mr. Weiss recalled.
“We had a very modest upbringing. My father worked for the Defense Contract Audit Agency. He had a salary, a pension, and stability. We didn’t belong to a golf club. We didn’t belong to a tennis club.”
Now, at age 83, Jaime Weiss has realized his late father’s dream. He and his wife, Susan, recently donated an ambulance to Israeli emergency response network Magen David Adom.
“My dad was really the motivating factor here,” Mr. Weiss explained.
The brand-new vehicle, which just arrived at Israel’s Port of Ashdod after being manufactured abroad, is dedicated to the memory of Arthur and Lucille Weiss and to the memory of Susan’s parents, Max and Helen Luttinger.
The ambulance dedication ceremony in Florida drew about 100 friends of the snowbird couple. Jaime and Susan Weiss, who have been married for nearly 27 years, have been splitting their time between Fort Lee and Boca Raton since 2011.
Mr. Weiss said he considers it “bashert” — Yiddish for fate or destiny — that a couple of years ago he was introduced to Yishai Mizrahi, director of major gifts for American Friends of Magen David Adom’s southwest region.
Mr. Weiss agreed to host a gathering in Boca to introduce the organization to his neighbors. One neighbor was inspired to donate an ambulance right away. Then another followed suit. Each ambulance sponsorship costs roughly $115,000.
Mr. Weiss decided it was his turn next. “I said to Yishai, ‘I’m going to donate one,’” he said.
“For Jaime, this third ambulance wasn’t just a gift,” Mr. Mizrahi said. “It was the fulfillment of his father’s lifelong dream to support Magen David Adom in this way. To know those ambulances are responding to emergencies, helping people in their most critical moments, and even delivering new babies into the world, is something really special.”
The driver-side door of the new emergency vehicle carries an additional dedication in honor of the couple’s children and grandchildren. Jaime has two sons, Jordan and Matthew of Manhattan, each with one child; and Susan has a daughter, Hayley, of Boston.
Mr. Weiss, founder and president of Weiss Realty, based in Moonachie, has been a Bergen County resident since 1972; he has lived in Tenafly as well as Fort Lee. He served on the board of directors of the Jewish Community Center of Fort Lee and was one of the original members of the JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly.
“I have very strong roots in the Jewish community of Bergen County,” he said.
Even the very first transaction of his fledgling real estate brokerage, in 1981, had an unintended connection to the county’s growing Jewish infrastructure. This transaction involved acquiring 1600 Queen Anne Road in Teaneck from United Methodist Publishing House and immediately selling it to another entity that leased the property to Sony Broadcasting for 10 years. After that lease expired, the building was bought as the permanent home of the Torah Academy of Bergen County.
Through a mutual acquaintance in Englewood many years ago, Mr. Weiss met and befriended Rabbi Mordechai Weiss, who led the Chabad House of Teaneck and was the executive director of Friends of Lubavitch of Bergen County for 20 years. (The two share the same last name but are not related.)
Rabbi Weiss and his family made aliyah in 2002 and later hosted Jaime and Susan Weiss when they visited Israel. Rabbi Weiss, a licensed Israeli tour guide, escorted his friends to the Western Wall and other significant locations during their two-week stay.
“He loves Israel, and it rubbed off on me,” Mr. Weiss said. “We stay in contact continuously.” This relationship further deepened Mr. Weiss’s sense of commitment to the Jewish homeland.
Rabbi Weiss said he was happy to learn of his friend’s ambulance donation. “It’s very pleasant to hear that I played a small part in his decision to do this,” he said. He described Mr. Weiss as “a philanthropic and sweet guy.”
Coincidentally, Rabbi Weiss served as chaplain and captain of the Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps for several years before moving to Israel.
These days, Rabbi Weiss enjoys taking tourists to Magen David Adom’s new national headquarters in Ramla, which houses the unique underground National Blood Services Center — impervious to missiles, the center processes and supplies hundreds of thousands of blood units annually to hospitals and the military — as well as the MDA National Human Milk Bank, Paramedic School, and National Emergency Dispatch Center.
“I’m happy to see that Jaime and Susan are so connected to MDA, because it does fantastic work,” he said.
Mr. Weiss concurs. “With all the crises in the Middle East, MDA has to be prepared for wartime service,” he said. “Some of its ambulances were converted to serve the IDF and the population affected by all the bombs, all the missiles, and all the destruction” following October 7, 2023. “When a missile hits a residential building, and people are injured, or unfortunately killed, Magen David Adom is there to respond.”
In October, he plans to travel to Israel on an MDA mission to see the donated ambulance in service for the first time. He will no doubt have his late father in mind, having fulfilled Arthur’s unrealized wish.
“I’m very proud of the ability to accomplish this, and how happy my dad — and my mom — would have been,” he said. “I once bought my father a Lincoln automobile as a surprise. This is even better.”