Two years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, medical students at Quisqueya University earlier this month took part in the island nation’s first “White Coat Ceremony,” marking the commitment of medical students there to providing compassionate, patient-based care.

This symbolic ritual for future doctors, now common at U.S. and Israeli medical schools, was introduced in 1993 by the Englewood Cliffs-based Arnold P. Gold Foundation. It has since spread to 18 countries, including Afghanistan, Japan, and now Haiti, thanks to the efforts of Tenafly resident Dr. Galit M. Sacajiu.

“Some of you may be asking yourselves, when medical school buildings and operating rooms have yet to be rebuilt and a single medical textbook is a luxury, when we have no laboratories, and so many of our brothers and sisters still live in makeshift homes, why invest in an event such as this ceremony of humanism in medicine?” asked Sacajiu, in her remarks at the Jan. 16 ceremony.

A swift and massive Jewish response followed the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, that caused more than 250,000 deaths and at least as many injuries in Haiti.

The Jewish Federations of North America partnered with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to funnel millions of dollars of contributions to help in the relief work. Israel was among the first of many countries to send humanitarian aid.

The 236 military, security, rescue, and medical personnel sent by Israel’s Foreign Ministry arrived at Port-Au-Prince on two Boeing 747 jets leased from El Al by Tzahal (the hebrew acronym that stands for Israel Defense Forces, or IDF). A Tzahal field hospital was set up in a soccer field near the airport just four hours after landing on Jan. 15, the first such treatment facility to be up and running after the devastating earthquake.

With the Jewish communities of Bergen County on heightened alert, some 200 religious and community leaders gathered on Jan. 12 to discuss the recent string of anti-Semitic incidents in the county with law enforcement and government officials.

The meeting followed by one day the most recent, and most serious, attack — a firebombing that could have claimed the lives of eight people. The incident targeted the old Queen Anne building in Rutherford that houses Orthodox Congregation Beth El, as well as the home of its rabbi and his family. Five of the eight potential victims were children.

In the wake of last week’s attack on a Rutherford synagogue, social media is helping create a new sense of security there.

Adam Wolf, a West Orange resident who works in real estate, grew up in Rutherford and his parents live two blocks from Temple Beth El, the site of last week’s firebombing. When he heard about the attack, Wolf wanted to do something to help, and the result has been a viral campaign through e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter to raise money for the shul’s security upgrades.

On Monday, Rabbi Nosson Schuman went shopping with his wife to buy new sheets to replace the ones scorched by a Molotov cocktail thrown through their bedroom window just before dawn on Jan. 11.

That night, he had planned to kick off a new adult-ed class on prayer in Congregation Beth El of Rutherford, the small synagogue that shares the house where he and his family have lived since August 2009. Instead, the congregants gathered to discuss the incident, which police are still puzzling over.

Neighborhood watch organizations are nothing new, but a group of security professionals five years ago decided to localize the idea even more by creating Community Security Service, a volunteer organization that trains members of Jewish organizations in vigilance.

“Law enforcement can’t do everything on their own and we have the ability to help them,” said Joshua Glice, CSS’s director of synagogue and school operations . “It’s very important that the community try to help. Nobody will know the members of a congregation as well as the congregants themselves.”

As police continue to investigate an escalating series of attacks on area synagogues, which reached new urgency following last week’s firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue, they are also addressing a recent string of anti-Semitic graffiti incidents in area parks. They do not see a link between the two, however.

The Fair Lawn Police Department responded Friday, Jan. 13, to a call about graffiti in Beaver Dam Park, where an employee earlier that morning discovered three swastikas and an anarchy symbol spray-painted on a basketball court and shed. On Jan. 1, the Bergen County Police Department (BCPD) responded to a call in the Fair Lawn section of Dunkerhook County Park where three swastikas were discovered inside a Porta-John. Later that day, the police department received a second call about two swastikas and hateful slogans discovered on a storm drain in the Glen Rock section of Dunkerhook.

Bergen County is home to more than 70 synagogues, 13 day schools, and an ever-growing number of kosher restaurants. Jewish life is flourishing here, so the recent anti-Semitic attacks have raised questions about how “it” could happen here and how safe Jews are in northern New Jersey generally.

“We’ve always known that New Jersey is not immune from hate groups,” said Etzion Neuer, acting director of the Anti-Defamation League’s New Jersey office and a Bergen County resident. “As long as extremist groups have operated in this country, New Jersey has been a home to these movements, as well.”