Growing up on the east side of Indianapolis, my experience was uniquely defined by one stark reality: we were the only Jewish family in the neighborhood. This wasn’t just a demographic fact; it was the lens through which my childhood was viewed, often unwelcoming and isolating. Even before I understood the complexities of religious identity, the neighborhood kids made it abundantly clear that I was different. This was the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when our city, like many others, grappled with cultural homogeneity. While the nation mourned leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and JFK, a true embrace of cultural diversity hadn’t yet reached our small corner of the world. For me, this manifested in the sting of anti-Semitic slurs hurled by children my own age – “Christ killer,” “Jew boy,” “kike” – epithets born from an era of ingrained prejudice, not from malice of their own making.
The integration of our school system through busing brought my first encounters with African-American children, offering a glimpse into a broader spectrum of experiences and communities. Later, two young Vietnamese refugees joined our grade school, their presence a stark reminder of the distant realities of war and a world populated by people speaking languages other than English. Innocently, I hoped each new face would deflect some of the attention, lessen the weight of being “different” that I carried. But the spotlight of being the “Jewish kid” remained fixed.
Christmas time was always a tightrope walk. My parents, wanting to ease my path, would plead with me not to reveal the “truth” about Santa Claus to the other children. For a precocious child already navigating a complex social landscape, this was akin to asking me to ignore a tempting chocolate cake. More than that, it was a missed opportunity. I felt a need to push back, to challenge those who teased me for not eating ham sandwiches or pigs in a blanket during lunch, to disrupt the narrative that constantly placed me outside the norm.
“Your mom and dad hide your presents in the closet, in the trunk of the car, or under their beds, and then bring them out when you’re asleep… you idiots!” I would proclaim, a fifth-grade whistle-blower.
The predictable response was a tearful, “You’re just jealous because Santa Claus doesn’t come to your house ’cause you’re a Jew.” This was often followed by a hasty retreat home and the inevitable return, chorus in tow, to chant “you killed Jesus.”
By the time the fifth-grade Christmas program rolled around, I had reached my limit of passively participating in a world that felt alien. Standing in the choir, amidst the forced cheer of Away in a Manger, Silent Night, and Little Drummer Boy, I chose quiet defiance. Arms crossed, lips sealed, I stood in silent protest for the entire school to witness. The aftermath led to a somber meeting in the principal’s office, my father by my side. Tears flowed, years of feeling excluded and othered pouring out. In that moment, I found an unexpected understanding in the eyes of both the principal and my father. From that day forward, school, and perhaps my place within it, was irrevocably changed.
Experiences, sometimes even a single encounter, can profoundly shift perspective, shake the very foundations of our beliefs. The collective tragedy of 9/11 serves as a stark example of how one event can permanently alter our global worldview. Similarly, in 1993, a patient challenged my own perceptions, leading me to ponder if, beneath the surface of different faiths, we are all connected, perhaps “worshiping the same God, with reservations in the same heaven.” This reflection came not from a sermon, but from the bedside of a critically ill patient on Christmas Eve, a moment where faith and medicine intertwined in the most unexpected way, revealing a shared humanity that transcended religious boundaries, experienced through the eyes of It Was A Jewish Doctor.
It was November 30th when a young, beautiful woman arrived in the ER, heavily pregnant and deeply worried. She hadn’t felt her baby move in some time. An ultrasound confirmed her worst fears: the infant was deceased. The profound grief of this mother was palpable as she was taken to labor and delivery, where she delivered a stillborn baby. Tragedy compounded tragedy when, immediately after, she became acutely ill and was rushed back to the ER. Her condition deteriorated rapidly. Her breathing became labored, her oxygen levels and blood pressure plummeted to dangerous lows, and a fine rash erupted across her skin. Fluid filled her lungs, her heart raced, and she slipped into a coma – a victim of life-threatening septic shock. We aggressively administered twenty liters of fluid and deployed potent medications to support her critically low blood pressure, which barely registered at 50 over zero. Her lungs failed, her kidneys shut down, and within hours, the initial rash transformed into large, blood-filled blisters covering almost her entire body. The diagnosis was confirmed: sepsis caused by a devastating Neisseria meningitis infection. This relentless pathogen had claimed her baby and was now rapidly consuming her own life. Medical literature painted a grim picture: a near 100 percent mortality rate for a patient in her advanced stage of illness. As third-year residents from the University of Pittsburgh, my colleague Bill and I took over her care, bracing ourselves for the inevitable.
Unforeseen circumstances placed her under our care for the following month. Our November ER rotation in this small community hospital had just concluded, and we were now transitioning to the hospital’s six-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Thus, from the ER, she became our responsibility in the ICU.
Her condition was so precarious that we remained constantly at her bedside, day after day, making minute adjustments to her ventilator and medications, desperately hoping to defy the overwhelming odds and pull her back from the brink of death. Her body became grotesquely swollen from the massive fluid resuscitation. Large patches of skin blackened and died. Her eyes and skin turned yellow from liver failure, and her coma deepened. Yet, against all expectations, a faint blood pressure persisted. We employed high doses of steroids and an experimental antibody serum flown in specifically for her case. We delved into medical literature, searching for any possible intervention, but all indicators pointed towards a fatal outcome. We initiated a modified form of dialysis, carefully removing toxins and fluids, just enough to sustain her vital functions. Remarkably, days turned into weeks. A CT scan of her brain surprisingly showed no major damage, and an EEG revealed faint but present brain activity. It was as if, deep within her ravaged body, her brain was still fighting, silently pleading, “My soul has not left; tell my mother that I’m still here and I’m not ready to leave.”
For three agonizing weeks, she lingered in the liminal space between life and death. She lay motionless, resembling a figure in a casket, her only visible sign of life the rhythmic rise and fall of the ventilator. It became increasingly clear that without a significant turn for the better, death would likely claim her around Christmas.
Christmas Eve found me, as it has every year since medical school, working in the hospital. I am acutely aware of the profound significance this holiday holds for my non-Jewish colleagues and friends, and I always readily volunteer to cover shifts. Realistically, too, for someone of Jewish faith, after catching the latest movies and perhaps not being in the mood for Chinese food, Christmas Day itself doesn’t offer many traditional activities. I also held a personal conviction: if the essence of the “Jesus” story was true, surely he would prefer that I be tending to the sick and vulnerable on his birthday rather than indulging in festive celebrations. So, every Christmas, Jewish individuals often find themselves in movie theaters, Hunan and Szechuan restaurants, and, like me, in hospitals across America. However, this particular Christmas Eve carried a different weight. Instead of the usual holiday anticipation, there was a heavy sense of dread, a fear that this young woman would succumb to her illness on this sacred night, forever associating her family’s holiday with tragedy.
Her room was unusually quiet that night. The radiator was adorned with a collection of get-well cards, unlit prayer candles, flowers, and several small, gilded-framed pictures of the Virgin Mary. Her family, maintaining a Christmas vigil, lay asleep in the ICU waiting room, their holiday dreams replaced by anxious waiting. I moved softly around the room, methodically checking IV lines, monitors, searching for any subtle sign of change. My gaze drifted to the trinkets on the radiator, touching the cool wax of the candles, reading the heartfelt messages on the cards, inhaling the faint scent of the flowers, and finally pausing at a picture of the Virgin Mary.
In a moment of quiet desperation, I spoke, almost involuntarily, to the image. “You know… I’m Jewish, just like you’re… well, you know. And I don’t know if you listen to my prayers too… but if you have an ‘in’ with God somehow, the time is now to step up and help this poor girl, ’cause we don’t have much left to offer at our end… if you know what I mean.” As the words left my lips, the air conditioner unit in the room violently shuddered to life, startling me profoundly. After regaining my composure and glancing around to ensure no one had witnessed my slightly absurd moment, I chuckled softly. Turning back towards the young woman in the bed, I saw it – a faint but unmistakable movement of her hand, and then, her eyelids fluttered open. My own heart nearly stopped.
She lived. Her journey was far from over, requiring multiple surgeries, extensive skin grafting, ongoing dialysis, and eventually a kidney transplant. But she returned to her life, to her family, to those who loved her, and went on to celebrate many more Christmas days with them.
This experience didn’t lead to a dramatic conversion or a sudden shift in my religious identity. I didn’t exchange my Jewish Community Membership Card for a YMCA membership. But I did experience something profound, a deep spiritual connection, a fleeting sense of closeness to a higher power in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Throughout my career as it was a Jewish doctor, I have faced countless critical situations, moments where I felt a guiding presence, a sense of calm amidst chaos, a focus beyond my own abilities. In this particular instance, however, my plea wasn’t for personal guidance or strength. I felt a sense of peace, knowing I had exhausted every medical intervention. Lines were placed, medications were infusing, tubes were correctly positioned. It was, medically speaking, out of my hands. The only remaining action was to surrender to something larger than myself. Yet, on Christmas Eve, praying to the God I knew, in the way I was accustomed, felt somehow… inadequate. I was transported back to that fifth-grade Christmas program, again the Jewish boy on a stage not quite his own. This time, however, I was playing the role of a voice for a dying woman, appealing to the mother of the God she knew, on a day profoundly sacred to her, in the only way I could – with direct, honest candor, arms metaphorically crossed in a stance of earnest plea… and perhaps, in that unexpected intersection of faith and medicine, she listened.
Dr. Louis M. Profeta is an emergency physician practicing in Indianapolis and a member of the Indianapolis Forensic Services Board. He is a national award-winning writer, public speaker and one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices and the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Patient in Room Nine Says He’s God. Feedback at [email protected] is welcomed. For other publications and for speaking dates, go to louisprofeta.com. For college speaking inquiries, contact [email protected].
