Entering where the international community fears to tread, the Greater New York chapter of the American Red Cross has signed a friendship pact with the Jerusalem Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross society. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies recognizes as full members 181 national Red Cross organizations – including those from Iran, Cuba, and North Korea – but not Israel’s.

On February 9, a delegation from the Jerusalem MDA – Magen David Adom means Red Star of David – is scheduled to visit New York as part of a continuing exchange between the societies, to learn from the work undertaken by the New York Red Cross, according to officials from the New York chapter. In late November the New Yorkers journeyed to Israel, where they met with MDA officials in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and visited a settlement to observe how the MDA responds to, and prepares for, emergency situations. At the end of the trip, members of the New York and Jerusalem groups signed a memorandum of understanding making the cooperation official.

One of the benefits of that cooperation is increased training in responding to terrorist attacks, the CEO of the American Red Cross in Greater New York, Terry Bischoff, said.

“Certainly we believe that given issues Israel has unfortunately had to deal with around disasters and terrorism responses, there are things we can learn from them to enhance our response capability,” she said. In exchange, Ms. Bischoff said, the Americans are more experienced in providing mental-health and other support services to victims of terrorist attacks and other disasters, an expertise the Israelis hoped to learn from in dealing with the aftermath of suicide bombings and other attacks.

The New York-Jerusalem cooperation “really builds on a 50-year history … the American Red Cross has always been supportive of bringing the MDA into the Red Cross movement,” Ms. Bischoff said. While the MDA is not an official voting member of the international federation, Israel’s national Red Cross organization enjoys bilateral friendship agreements with several other countries, including France and Bulgaria in addition to America. Ms. Bischoff said those agreements – and greater working relationships between the MDA and other nations’ Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations – are helpful to the cause of getting Israel fully recognized by the international Red Cross apparatus.

For its part, Ms. Bischoff added, the American Red Cross signed a friendship agreement with the MDA in 2002 and has withheld $25 million in dues from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies since 2000. It has continued, however, to make contributions to the field work of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The director of the international department of Magen David Adom, Yonatan Yagodovsky, said he did not see the lack of formal international recognition as a major stumbling block to the MDA’s work. “This is a political obstacle that will be overcome,” Mr. Yagodovsky said.

He said that while the MDA still hopes to receive official recognition, “there aren’t any clouds above the relationship between Magen David Adom and the international movement.” Mr. Yagodovsky cited the MDA’s recent tsunami-relief work alongside other Red Cross societies as an example.

Magen David Adom was established in 1930 and was denied admission to the international Red Cross community by one vote in 1949, a year after Israel declared statehood.