Esther “Esti” Taragin of Mt. Washington is the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor and an Orthodox Jew who feels strongly about Israel and the Jewish people.
So, it’s no wonder that this physical therapist made it her mission to volunteer in Israel after Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7.
Taragin, 46, donated her time last month as a physical therapist at ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Village, located in the southern region of Israel. She also attended a solidarity mission in January.
She traveled to Israel for two weeks last month to support the Emergency Volunteers Project. EVP is a disaster relief and rescue organization whose mission is to deploy volunteer teams to Israel in times of crisis.
The demand to volunteer has been so great that she was put on a waitlist.
“I was ready to come. I feel that I can help to ease what’s going on here and give people some level of support,” Taragin said on a video conference call during her first week there.
The patients and staff appreciate her volunteer service, Taragin said. “They are just so touched that people from America would come to volunteer and be there to support them through this time. It’s been great so far.”
Taragin has worked as a physical therapist at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore for 20 years. She currently manages outpatient rehabilitation services at the Sinai Rehabilitation Center. She noted that her workplace has supported her community service.
She was still in touch as a manager for Sinai while seeing physical therapy patients during the day.
In the gym and along the hallways at the hospital in Israel, she saw posters of all the hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7. “It’s a constant memory,” she said.
Israelis, she said, are “continuing to live their lives to the best of their ability. They stay positive even though they are feeling that devastation. The duality is very striking here. I don’t know that we do that so well in America.”
She went on a solidarity mission in January through Kemp Mill Synagogue in Silver Spring and the World Mizrachi organization, a global religious Zionist organization.
“I felt I had the opportunity and did it,” she said.
As the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, she said the solidarity mission and the two-week volunteer experience “means a lot as it’s important to bear witness and show compassion.”
Her Czechoslovakian grandmother survived Auschwitz and was liberated at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. She migrated to Israel, where she met her husband. They brought her father to the U.S. at age 15.
As for the mood of country, “Israelis are feeling like the outside world doesn’t realize what is going on here,” Taragin said. “I wanted to be able to say that I saw for myself the people that would be directly impacted.
“I feel that being able to show support in ways that are meaningful for the country and for the people is very important,” Taragin said. “It’s been very meaningful for me.”
A native New Yorker, she has lived in Baltimore since she was 25. She is married to Ari Taragin, a lawyer working for the federal government. They have four children, aged 13 to 22. The family belongs to Congregation Shomrei Emunah.
Taragin graduated from Yeshiva University in 1999 with an undergraduate degree in biology and received her master’s degree in physical therapy at Columbia University in 2001.
She finds physical therapy a rewarding medical service. “We’re truly improving people’s quality of life every day, all day. That’s the goal,” she said.
“It could be teaching them how to walk or brush their hair,” she continued. “We’re helping them get back to that.”
She said her profession in the rehab setting is as close as a person can get to a patient. “We spend a lot of one-on-one time with our patients and we get to know them and work towards the goal that they have set for themselves. It’s very gratifying.”
