By Andrew L. Wang
Chicago Tribune
Copyright 2007 Chicago Tribune Company
CHICAGO — Among men and women who know fires and firefighting, there’s a bond that transcends culture, geography and religion.
It’s a connection Howard Brenner noticed on a visit this year to a fire department in Jerusalem. He also saw that the firefighters’ trucks were hopelessly antiquated.
“Their equipment was really old, beat-up,” said the 75-year-old Riverwoods resident. Some trucks were too big and cumbersome to navigate the ancient city’s narrow streets and the region’s dense forests.
Now, the lifelong firefighting buff and former volunteer firefighter wants to do his part to help. Brenner is spearheading a fundraising effort at Temple Jeremiah in Northfield to buy a mini-pumper, a small firetruck designed to deliver firefighting punch quickly in hard-to-reach places, for a fire station in Israel.
It’s part of an international effort by the Jewish National Fund and Friends of Israel Firefighters to get local congregations to raise money to buy 100 mini-pumpers for fire departments in Israel. In the last two years, 36 trucks have been delivered, and 20 more are being built, said Kevin Quinn, president of E.J. Metals, the Wisconsin company that makes the mini-pumpers.
In addition to being first on the scene for fires, auto accidents and many of the other emergencies their counterparts in the United States must rush to, Israeli firefighters respond to bombings and mortar attacks, said Susan Levin-Abir, a spokeswoman for the Jewish National Fund in the Chicago area.
Temple Jeremiah is one of two North Shore congregations trying to buy a mini-pumper to send to Israel, she said. Moriah Congregation in Deerfield also is raising money.
During the monthlong conflict with Hezbollah last year, an estimated 4,000 Katyusha rockets rained on northern cities in Israel. Firefighters were the first responders in those attacks. With the focus and much of the funding going to maintaining the country’s military, firefighters are like “stepchildren,” Brenner said.
Fire services are stretched thin in Israel. The nation of a little more than 6 million people has about 1,100 firefighters -- the equivalent of about 5,500 residents per firefighter. By contrast, the Chicago Fire Department has about 4,600 firefighters for a population of 2.8 million, or about 600 residents for each firefighter.
Brenner said he learned of Israeli firefighters’ plight earlier this year, when he saw an advertisement in a magazine for the Jewish fund’s mini-pumper project.
A native Chicagoan, Brenner often worked at his father’s tailor shop as a teen, and when he saw a firetruck pull out of the station down the block, he would slip out the door.
“I would chase them down the street or ride my bike after them,” he said. “The trucks back then were slow enough that you could do that.”
In the 1950s, he befriended firefighters on the West Side and sometimes would ride with them on calls, he said. Later, even though his business was printing, Brenner’s passion became all manner of firefighting paraphernalia.
Designed and produced in Hortonville, Wis., the mini-pumpers cost $100,000 each and are constructed on the frame of a Ford F-350, a diesel-powered pickup truck.
Quinn said he felt honored that something his company produced was helping firefighters half a world away.
“This is probably one of the coolest things that I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.
Rabbi Paul Cohen of Temple Jeremiah said he is confident that the money will be raised.
Unlike other causes related to Israel that can polarize people, equipping firefighters is a goal most can get behind, regardless of political stance, he said.
“All of those issues disappear because we’re talking about firefighters,” Cohen said. “They cross all of the boundaries, political, cultural, religious. ... [They have] a broad, interfaith appeal.”