Melamed Likens Jewish Doctors to Maccabees

The Jewish Medical Professional Network (JMPN) gave Chanukkah a new light at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta on Dec. 21, presenting “Miracle Makers in Medicine: Lights and Laughter,” featuring comedian Ami Kozak.

JMPN President Dr. Michele Melamed welcomed the crowd with a stirring motivational charge. “As we gather under this grand menorah, I don’t just see doctors, nurses, therapists, and healers, I see modern-day Maccabees, armed with compassion, and an unbreakable spirit … we don’t just save lives, we ignite hope and strength and act as conduits of a higher authority.”

This is why, in 2024, she founded the JMPN, where Jewish medical professionals can “step out of the glare of the hospital and into the glow of shared community, faith, and purpose.”

Gavy Friedson, who’s also head of United Hatzalah, served as the evening’s emcee. JMPN’s vice president, Dr. Paul Scheinberg, shared how his storied career has led to this place of leadership. A young New Yorker escaping the East Coast for the South, he knew he had the skill to carry him to the “goal post,” but along the way, especially in the suburbs, the established Atlanta practitioners didn’t jump to refer patients to him. He values the JMPN, “I know what it’s like to be an outsider. The blue bloods here weren’t quick to refer to me.”

Relying on his clinical competence, patience, and business savvy, Scheinberg built a successful pulmonology practice and made it to the top of his field.

Guitarist Dov Rosenblatt performed some upbeat songs before Rabbi Yossi Lerman, of Chabad of Gwinnett, lit the final night’s candle.

An upbeat Kozak began with “doc” jokes like how he feels safe if he would collapse in this room full of doctors. Then, there’s the dermatologist’s standard consult script, “Cause unknown: use steroids. If wet, dry it. If dry, wet it.” Later in his act, he leaned into his impressions, especially of President Donald Trump.

Fans Elaine and Dr. Ben Strauss said, “We thought he was really funny! Especially his political humor and marital jokes. We thought some of his really funny ones were about two types of grandparents: the security guards — where the grandparents literally just sit there and watch the kids. Then, there’s the senior level management type of grandparents — getting on hands and knees and really engaging with the kids.”

Kozak told the AJT, “I’m an equal opportunity offender, when asked if his predilections lean to the “right.”

Melamed shared the organization’s mission, where flames burn the brightest: “To build a national — and one day, global — network of Jewish medical professionals who see themselves not as cogs in a corporate machine, but as healers of humanity and the world.”

She concluded, “Tonight, we don’t just light candles; we defy darkness. We extinguish the darkness of exhaustion that creeps in after long enduring shifts, the shade of antisemitic whispers in hospital corridors and faculty lounges, the thickness of standing alone in a white coat that suddenly feels too shrill against the world. Just as the Maccabees stormed a desecrated Temple, found one sealed cruse of pure oil, and watched it blaze impossibly for eight days, so do you, modern Maccabees in scrubs and stethoscopes, take the tiniest remaining reserve of strength, compassion, and unapologetic Jewish pride and turn it into miracles that last entire shifts, entire careers, entire lifetimes. Tonight, as we light this grand menorah, let its flames remind you: You are not alone. Your light matters. Because when medical professionals stand together, we don’t just heal bodies, we impact the world. So, tonight let’s laugh loudly, savor the latkes, and raise a glass to the miracles you’ve brought forth and ones ahead. When you leave here, carry this light back to your families, hospitals, clinics, and patients.”

Melamed also addressed the recent tragic mass shooting in Australia at a Chabad Chanukah event. “This has touched us all deeply. Why this occurred, how it could happen, and to what purpose. Tonight, our focus is on coming together as a community, in light and joy. This is our resilience, our unwavering commitment to rededicate ourselves and to infuse the world with renewed positive energy.”