A Helping Hand, Aref Assaf
May 5, 2007

Last Saturday, I was honored to represent AAF by attending the Barnert’s Hospital's  99th Anniversary Gala Dinner  at The Villa, an opulent banquet facility in the exclusive town of  Mountain Lakes. It was rather paradoxical for an inner city hospital like Paterson's Barnert,  struggling to survive and to continue to carry its founder's dream of providing health care to the needy to hold its event at a place located in a town where tree-lined streets conceal  multi million dollar mansions.

That evening, I had three invitations to select from but I opted for this one for a couple of personal reasons. Paramount was the great news that one of our own, Dr .Nazmi El-Rabie was to receive the Hospital’s Leadership Award. It is rare that we get this high level recognition and I wanted to be there to show my support for Dr. Nazmi. Turn out from our community was light as most physicians (hopefully) were in attendance at the annual NJ Arab American Medical Association's dinner taking place the same evening.

Dr. Rabie was recognized for his outstanding service to the hospital and the community. We at the American Arab Forum extend our sincere congratulations to  Dr. Elrabie. We are confident that he will continue to be a stellar example of unassuming generosity, a thoughtful and an articulate commentator on the issues important to our people and a helping hand to those in need. I fondly recall his championship to fund raise about a million dollars to furnish  the first and only complete burn unit in Palestine (Al-Makased Hospital in Jerusalem). Alf-Mabrook.  Click here to view the Dr. Nazmi’s bio.

It is fittingly appropriate to note that the founder of the hospital was Jewish philanthropist named Nathan Barnert who built the hospital in 1908. Mr. Barnert donated money and  16 city lots to building the "Miriam Barnert Hospital". Now the hospital caters to a multitude of patients from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Arab and Muslim American physicians comprise about 30% of the staff.