Whiz Kid: 13-Year-Old Turns Over Gifts to Help Others

Daniel Lev is no ordinary boy celebrating his 13th birthday.

When Lev reached that milestone important to any boy, but especially to one in the Jewish faith, he wanted to share a part of his Bar Mitzvah gifts. He and his father, Ronan Lev, were discussing worthy projects, and came across an article about the first-responders to the shooting scene in Arizona where Congresswoman Giffords was seriously injured.

They saw that lives were saved at that scene because of specially designed first aid equipment. Emergency teams there carried kits modeled from the military first aid kits used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Do our first responders have that equipment available?” Dr. Lev said they wondered. “That is the purpose of the IFAK fund,” he said. IFAK stands for Improved First Aid Kit.

On September 9, Daniel Lev and his family met with George Hodak, Captain of the , at the Congregation Bnai Amoona to donate the first IFAK. They hope to donate more of the IFAK kits to more area police departments, as long as the fund lasts.

The donated kits contain special military-grade tourniquets and flexible tourniquets that each officer can keep inside a bullet-proof vest, along with emergency blankets and nasal airways.

Hodak said he was very appreciative of Daniel's donation. “It supplements what we already have in our cars,” he said. “It’s fortuitous, that we were already thinking of buying some of these things for our officers.”

Dr. Lev commended his son on his choice because it involves the community as a whole, and also, “you have impeccable timing, because you bar mitzvah falls on the Shebat right before 9-11,” he said.

“We thought it could be a great help to the police in case of an emergency. I hope they will not have to use it," Daniels’s mother Michal Lev said. "He’s been really anxious to help.”

Daniel’s grandfather, Eitan Lev said the gesture reflected maturity and intelligence.

“To be mature is one thing, but to have the community in mind, is something else. And this is a very, very big thing,” Eitan Lev said, “To us, it means a lot.”