At a function for a Jewish Israeli hospital held June 16 in Birmingham, about a third of the attendees were Arab American and one of them was honored.

The hospital, Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, is known for treating Arab, Jewish and other patients equally.

And local attorney Tim Attalla, who has been involved in various Arab-Jewish coexistence projects in the Holy Land, has joined new efforts the hospital has taken on to improve health care in the West Bank.

Attalla is helping lobby the U.S. government for funding to build the first children’s hospital in Jerusalem, and to conduct a study carried out by Shaare Zedek, the University of Washington and Bethlehem University, studying genetic causes of breast and ovarian cancers in Middle Eastern women.

In the past, similar studies have only included Jewish women.

Attalla said the funding for the study would also go toward training  Palestinian clinicians to identify and treat cancer throughout the Occupied Territories.

“Tim is really helping us so that we can bring better medical care to the West Bank,” said Alison Pure-Slovin, Midwest Region Director of the American Committee for Shaare Zedek. “He’s helping us push though this lobbying effort in Washington.”

Attalla was presented a “Guardian of Peace Award” at the hospital’s annual Jerusalem Peace Dinner for his efforts.

Pure-Slovin said the hospital takes pride in its reputation for equal treatment and equal employment, and that, through Attalla, the coexistence of Arabs and Jews at the Jerusalem hospital is now expanding to unite Arabs and Jews here in the U.S.

“It’s an oasis of peace inside the hospital, and why can’t it be an oasis of peace outside the hospital?” she asked. “We did come together as one people. We see it in the hospital and would like to see it everywhere.”

Pure-Slovin said Attalla opened her eyes to the potential for progress in peace in general, as a result of the efforts of the hospital.

“I do believe that if more of us came together, we could see that we really do want the same thing, and that is a two-state solution.”

Attalla said he was approached for help with the project as someone who had worked with groups like Seeds of Peace, a group that tries to bridge gaps between Arabs and Jews.

“When I looked at it, it was hard not to say yes,” he said. “If I could bring immediate relief to people, why not do it?”

Attalla said he visited the hospital before agreeing to help, seeing for himself that it had an open door policy, and that Arabs even held high-level staff positions.

“I found a lobby filled with Arabs and Jews, orthodox Jewish women and women wearing hijab,” he said.

He said he’s hoping to expand the proposal to include general health funding to go toward facilities in Gaza.

Some, often his own family members, have criticized Attalla’s work, he said, for cooperating with people who support what many consider an apartheid state.

“What I’m doing is very hard, sensitive, complex and difficult to comprehend,” he said. “It’s not for everybody…  But it’s not a political entity. It’s a hospital. They receive no aid from the Israeli government. They are treating Palestinians. They have an open-door policy.”

He said that working closely with Israelis and Jewish Americans in support of Israel often has its tense moments, and arguments are had. But they don’t walk away from each other angry, he said.

“We do have political discussions and we have our differences,” he said.

Between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East and in the U.S., Attalla said, “There is fear and distrust.”

“The best way to overcome it is to interact…   This is just one little piece of humanity. Arabs and Jews coming together.”

He said Shaare Zedek is a state of the art facility where, alongside Israelis, Palestinians receive care that they can’t get anywhere else.

“If our community can build a state of the art Palestinian hospital, I’m going to help. But that’s not happening right now. These are people that need help… You’ve got to think of a woman in a refugee camp who has breast cancer. Where’s she going to go for help?”

Attalla told the crowd at the annual dinner after receiving the award: “It’s time to tear the wall down and replace it with a bridge.”

Attorney Michael Traison and Weight Watchers entrepreneur Florine Mark also received awards at the event for philanthropy. Attalla said he intends to involve the two in the pediatric center and cancer study projects.

He said the next step for the project is identifying more local Arab Americans willing to go to Washington with members of the local Jewish community, to lobby for the funding. It would be a historic moment, he said, where the two groups work together for a single cause.

Pure-Slovin said that during the time that she spent at the hospital helping to care for children, she found that when holding a sick baby, “you don’t see them as Arab or Jewish.”

The current pediatric center at Shaare Zedek has a pediatric dialysis unit, the largest in Israel, that caters mostly to children of Arab descent, who make up 60 percent of its patients. Kidney disease is found at a far higher rate among Arabs in the area than in the general population.

Pure-Slovin hopes the funding will come for the new pediatric center that will have transplant capabilities, bettering care for everyone in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

“Peace will come with that,” she said, “because you cannot forget, when you’re walking in the streets, who cared for you and who saved your life.”