Across Israel, doctors push aside personal loss and damaged homes to care for their patients during the war with Iran.
Fulfilling “The Oath of the Hebrew Physician”—the 10-part medical covenant that serves as Israel’s equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath—is not always easy during wartime, especially when a physician’s own home has recently been destroyed or badly damaged by Iranian missiles.
The oath’s first clause states: “You will fulfill your duty day and night to stand by the sick in their distress at any time and at any hour.”
Across Israel—from Eilat to Beersheva and Tel Aviv—physicians continue caring for patients even as they deal with personal losses, damaged homes and temporary relocations.
Dr. Amir Shahar, 76, a senior physician in the Emergency Medicine Department at Clalit’s Yoseftal Medical Center in Eilat and a self-described pioneer of emergency medicine in Israel, was driving from the hospital in Eilat to his home in Tel Aviv on March 15 when his son called to say their home had been badly damaged by a missile launched from Iran.
Fortunately, his son and granddaughters—who live on the first floor of the five-story building—reached the building’s shelter when the alarm sounded and were unharmed.
Shahar’s apartment, located on the second floor of the building built by his grandfather more than 100 years ago, sustained extensive damage.
“Twelve to 14 small bombs from a cluster bomb rocked the house,” Shahar told JNS. “All that is left is a skeleton of the house—no walls, no furniture.”
Shahar said he was currently staying in an apartment in Ramat Gan while continuing his work at Yoseftal Medical Center in Eilat.
He noted that three people in Eilat were recently injured by shrapnel from a missile. Despite the destruction, Shahar maintains both his sense of humor and perspective.
“Unfortunately, I have faced the angel of death many times—with patients and myself—in the army, recovering from leukemia, etc. So, we are acquaintances,” he said.
As he prepared to return to Eilat, Shahar reflected on the support he had received. “You can’t be in Israel without being optimistic. We have a very warm and sensitive society,” he said.
He described how many of his son’s army friends, who served with him more than 30 years ago, came to the apartment to help repair the damage over two days.
“You don’t have this anywhere else in the world,” he said.
Balancing patients and family in Beersheva
In Beersheva, Dr. Roi Levinzon, 38, a family physician at Clinic T in Clalit’s Southern District who also has extensive emergency experience through his 25 years with Magen David Adom (MDA), found himself balancing patient care with concern for his family.
On March 2, Levinzon was seeing patients when a missile alert sounded. He joined colleagues and elderly patients—many “with fear in their eyes”—in the shelter.
“We heard a huge blast and knew it hit the neighborhood,” Levinzon told JNS. “There was dust coming into the shelter from the ventilation system. We knew it wasn’t going to be a good outcome.”
“There was a huge panic in the shelter. People were shouting and crying.”
Although Israel’s Home Front Command recommends waiting for the official “all clear,” Levinzon knew he needed to respond.
“I waited five minutes. In my mind, I knew I couldn’t stay. In my mind, you always think of worst-case scenarios,” he said.
Outside, he saw extensive damage to cars and six nearby buildings. At the same time, he worried about his wife, who was home alone in their 15th-floor apartment a five-minute walk from the strike site.
He continued treating those with “face bleeding, anxiety and pretty mild casualties” before heading home to check on his wife, a social worker in the hematology department at Clalit’s Soroka Medical Center.
“I saw her panicked. She was afraid to leave the shelter. She was afraid that there was nothing left,” he said.
Ten minutes later, Levinzon received a call from Dr. Tsafnat Test, deputy medical director at Clalit’s Southern District.
“Maybe you can go back down to Ground Zero,” she asked.
Levinzon returned to help establish stations where evacuees could speak with social workers, receive emergency prescriptions and obtain assistance from municipal services.
He left his wife, who, he noted, is “used to dealing with anxiety” in her professional work. “She tried to relax. She is a yoga teacher and did deep breathing. After an hour, she calmed down,” he said.
Their home suffered damage to the entrance and shattered windows.
“Thank God it is not huge damage. We can still live there—we are waiting for repairs.”
Levinzon said many residents forced to evacuate their homes faced immediate medical challenges.
“In one second, they have nothing available,” he said. “Some of them have chronic medical issues, so we contacted their pharmacies so they could get their medications renewed.”
Many evacuees were relocated to the Leonardo Hotel, where Levinzon and other aid workers continued assisting them.
Back at his clinic, Levinzon is also helping develop new responses to potential mass-casualty events. Through the Team Shachar rapid-response initiative—a joint emergency medical team created by Clalit’s Southern District together with Magen David Adom—he is helping train physicians and clinics to treat trauma victims if hospitals such as Soroka become overwhelmed.
Sirens in Tel Aviv
Dr. Michal Gur Dick, 44, director of the Plotkin Clinic in Clalit’s Tel Aviv–Jaffa District, worried about the safety of her three children—ages 13, 9 and 5—when she heard the first sirens on Saturday morning, Feb. 28.
She quickly packed clothes, computers and medicine and drove them from their apartment in central Tel Aviv to her parents’ home on Moshav Orat. “I feel lucky and privileged that my children are safe,” she said.
She soon learned that a missile had struck near her home, but that did not deter her. The family medicine specialist returned to work the next day to continue caring for patients.
“I needed to both tell the children their house got damaged and open our clinic in a new place,” she told JNS. “It was very important for me to continue the routine of the clinic—both for my patients and for me.”
Her clinic did not have a bomb shelter. Dick and her team relocated temporarily to the nearby Yad Eliyahu Clinic.
She soon learned that a missile had struck near her home, but that did not deter her. The family medicine specialist returned to work the next day to continue caring for patients.
“I needed to both tell the children their house got damaged and open our clinic in a new place,” she told JNS. “It was very important for me to continue the routine of the clinic—both for my patients and for me.”
Her clinic did not have a bomb shelter. Dick and her team relocated temporarily to the nearby Yad Eliyahu Clinic.
She says the experience deepened her understanding of the role physicians play during crises.
“My broken windows and walls will be fixed,” she said. “It is a privilege to be with people in their broken moments—it gives me strength. That is when we are most needed.”
Each morning, Dick now makes the 40-minute drive from her parents’ moshav to the relocated clinic in Tel Aviv.
She says the experience reinforced something essential.
“When my home was damaged, I realized that routine is not just a work tool—it is part of the healing for all of us,” she said.
“My work gives me a deep sense of purpose and stability. When my home was damaged, I understood that even more clearly. Our patients are looking for an anchor in the storm. When they walk into the clinic and see that the team is there, that care continues and that one thing has not changed, it restores their sense of security. My private home may need rebuilding, but I will not give up on the professional home of my patients.”
Dick hopes the repairs will be completed soon. “The kids really miss their friends—and their routine,” she said.
This article was featured in the Spring 2026 issue of Jewish Action, jewishaction.com, March, 2026.
The hidden economic cost of miluim—and the resilience that carried Israeli families through
Last May, Miriam, originally from Cleveland, Ohio, walked away from her role as vice president of marketing at a start-up with offices across Israel. With her husband, Natan, thirty-seven, serving more than 450 days in Gaza since October 7, the demands of work became impossible to balance with raising their three children under seven on her own. “I made the decision very quickly,” she says. “I was spread too thin.”
The choice came during months of sleepless nights, when sirens sent her racing down four flights of stairs to the building’s miklat (safe room), neighbors grabbing her half-asleep children as they ran. The shelter was stifling, airless, crowded. “We were dripping with sweat, completely exhausted,” she recalls. “It was an incredibly intense time.”
In recent months, Natan, who has been away from home for up to six months at a time, was assigned a better army schedule, and so Miriamrecently found a new job. For now, she is focused on keeping daily life manageable.
Miriam is not alone.
While a ceasefire has been in effect since the fall of 2025, thousands of miluimnikim (Israeli reservists) and their families spent two long years under sustained financial strain as the conflict upended daily life and household income. An underreported aspect of the war is how Israelis, from recent olim to veteran immigrants to Sabras, navigated these pressures while also dealing with the emotional and logistical toll of a conflict that seemed to stretch endlessly forward.
Yet, in a pattern familiar to anyone who has lived in Israel long enough, many responded with creativity, faith and resolve. They drew on fortitude to keep their families afloat—paying bills, caring for children and elderly parents, and serving their country all at once.
Remarkably, and in ways that defy easy explanation, despite the war and a surge of global anti-Israel sentiment, Israel’s economy has demonstrated striking resilience. As of this writing in mid-2025, the Israeli stock market has posted strong gains, reflecting investor confidence.
But national indicators, however encouraging, obscure the human cost beneath them.
These numbers do not fully capture how individual families actually lived through the war—how income was lost, careers stalled and routines dismantled.
Natan, an attorney by training, made aliyah from Toronto in 2006. Miriam proudly refers to her husband as a “front-line soldier,” though she is quick to acknowledge the reality behind the phrase. For much of the war, he was, as she puts it, “very absent”—from his job and from his family.
Before the war, Natan worked at a large Israeli law firm before moving to an in-house counsel position, a shift he hoped would bring greater predictability. “The new job had the promise of better, family-friendly hours,” Miriam notes wryly. Instead, since October 7, he was rarely at work. Fortunately, his employer continued to pay his salary while he served in miluim.
What no employer could compensate for, however, was his absence from home.
“For the majority of his time in miluim, he had no cell phone, and we had no real conversations,” Miriam says. Only in recent months has some measure of routine returned. “He has a set schedule: ten days in, five days home, ten days in, five days home. And it is the first time he has had his phone.”
Atzmaim: When Miluim Meant Losing a Paycheck
For salaried employees in larger firms, the economic safety net—though stretched—largely held.
In the case of miluimnikim working in high tech, finance, law and other large organizations, employees generally continued to receive their regular salaries during long periods of reserve duty, even when absent from work for months at a time.
For the self-employed, however, there was no such buffer.
Self-employed workers (known as atzmaim, or freelancers) entered the war without the institutional protections of payroll continuity. They faced the financial consequences of reserve duty directly.
Shlomo Wiesen grew up in New Rochelle, New York, watching siblings and fellow congregants from the Young Israel of New Rochelle serve in the IDF. He joined the army at age twenty-five and has been serving in miluim for the past twelve years. A self-employed digital marketing professional, Wiesen did not have the benefit of an employer continuing his paycheck. “As a freelancer, it was very difficult; there was no paycheck waiting for me when I came home,” he says. While he does not have children to support, the Tel Aviv resident served extended stints in southern Hebron. “It was impossible to get any work done in the first month of the war. There was just too much going on.”
A self-employed digital marketing professional, Shlomo Wiesen did not have the benefit of an employer continuing his paycheck while he served in miluim. Courtesy of Shlomo Wiesen
And yet professional obligations did not simply disappear. Both Wiesen’s Jewish and non-Jewish clients in the United States were understanding and supportive, though expectations remained. “I told the non-Jewish clients I was on pause, out of commission,” he says. While Wiesen managed to make ends meet, and is grateful for that, he recounts stories of fellow soldiers in his unit who did not fare as well, including a psychologist in private practice who was forced to close his office and work instead in a public clinic.
Wiesen describes the amount of responsibility he and fellow soldiers faced early in the war, as well as the “very spotty internet on the base,” which made it nearly impossible to get any work done. As he began getting short leaves, he was “checking in” and “looking at my sites,” though he wasn’t doing any “real work.”
Gradually, amid the instability, a routine emerged. Wiesen’s schedule became more regular. “Work picked up,” he says, “and I could more aggressively pursue new clients.”
Wiesen was pleased that the army began giving freelancers priority in choosing days off so that they could “go home and do work.” This flexibility made it possible for some to remain professionally afloat. He reports that he and other religious soldiers would request to go home during the week so that they could do their computer work and other tasks. “As painful as it was to not go home for Shabbat, we needed to be home on a day when we could use the computer.”
Wiesen is grateful to his clients for their understanding and notes that one Jewish client insisted on paying him even while he was in miluim and not working. “I definitely appreciated that.”
While the war disrupted Wiesen’s professional life, it deepened his spiritual one.
Serving in miluim strengthened his faith. “The religious guys in the army would go out of their way to make a minyan—three times a day. You’d even see non-religious soldiers helping to make minyan, especially during Chanukah with candle lighting.” He describes singing “Shalom Aleichem” together on Friday night, eating Shabbat meals huddled indoors, and praying in makeshift spaces. “There was a strong sense of spiritual community,” he says.
Looking back on his months of service, Wiesen speaks with quiet pride. “I am grateful that I had the opportunity to do something so important.”
Professor Manuel Trajtenberg, professor emeritus of economics at Tel Aviv University and senior faculty at the Mandel Leadership Institute, describes Israelis as “incredibly resilient,” recounting stories of reservists in Gaza “with laptops who keep running their start-ups.”
Professor Trajtenberg, who has held diverse positions in the Israeli government, including chairman of the National Economic Council at the Prime Minister’s Office and chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, is also careful to note the limits of that resilience. Israel, he says, cannot sustain a prolonged war, in large part because more than two-thirds of its army is made up of miluimnikim. “They are not a marginal addition to a standing army.”
He emphasizes that miluimnikim like Natan and Wiesen “are the best of the workforce—twenty-five- to forty-five-year-olds who are in their prime working years.” Those in combat units, intelligence units and the air force, he adds, “are the very highest-quality people in the workforce.” Mobilizing them for extended periods, he says plainly, “is a serious blow to the economy.”
The Entrepreneurial Spirit: Keeping a Business Running during the War
Chaim Jacobson describes his life in high tech as “good.” Still, he was uneasy about long-term stability.
Jacobson, forty-one, of Tel Aviv, began his career as a computer engineer in Israel’s famed high-tech industry. When he later encountered an opportunity to open retail stores, he took a calculated risk. Aware of highly profitable makolets in Jerusalem, he thought the approach could be replicated in Tel Aviv. “I realized that if owning a store worked, I could make a comfortable salary,” he says. “I thought, why not? I could open a bunch, maybe even a reshet (chain), and then exit. I took a chance.”
Five years later, Jacobson owns two makolets and a café in Tel Aviv. He attributes his success partly to the affluence of the surrounding community, but just as much to relationships. “You need a real connection with the community,” he says. Known for his friendliness, he emphasizes service and quality—and recounts going out of his way to secure basic products like milk during shortages, even when it meant no profit. “Sometimes I don’t make a penny,” he says, “but people need what they need.”
Jacobson himself has not been called up for reserve duty. “I guess I’m not relevant anymore,” he jokes. His business, however, has not been spared the effects of the war. Several of his employees were called to miluim, forcing him to scramble. For small business owners, this created immediate staffing challenges.
“You have to find replacements,” he explains. “When they were gone for months, we hired new employees.”
The logistical burden was compounded by bureaucracy. At the start of the war, employers were required to continue paying the salaries of employees serving in miluim, with reimbursement from the government coming later. “We didn’t know how much or when,” Jacobson says. “For months, we were paying double salaries.” Eventually, Bituach Leumi (the National Insurance Institute) reimbursed him and later shifted to paying reservists directly. “It worked out,” he says simply. “But it wasn’t easy.”
Professor Trajtenberg notes that the government has generally been “very generous in supporting miluimnikim.” At the same time, he corroborates Jacobson’s experience, noting that “owners of small businesses were affected” in a range of ways. Some, like those who own businesses in the north of Israel and had been evacuated, suffered. Others, like Jacobson, are doing well but dealing with all the red tape.
Some sectors, Professor Trajtenberg explains, actually performed well during the war. With fewer Israelis traveling abroad and more consuming locally, supermarkets flourished, as did banks. Defense-related industries prospered too.
Tourism: A Livelihood on Hold
Not all sectors, however, were able to adapt. Tourism was hit especially hard during the war. Tour guides, hostel owners and zimmer (private guesthouse) operators found themselves with little or no work for months at a time. Having barely recovered from the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, Israel’s tour guides were once again among the first to feel the ground shift beneath them.
“Tourism has always been a volatile profession,” says Shulie Mishkin of Alon Shvut, a thirty-year resident of Israel and a tour guide for two decades. “Over the past five years, we’ve been knocked down over and over again.” While Mishkin found “guiding-adjacent” teaching work during both the pandemic and the war, others temporarily switched fields.
Patrick Amar, a tour guide who made aliyah from Montreal to Modi’in twenty years ago, was forced to reinvent himself. Before October 7, his calendar was full. “I plan my schedule a year in advance,” he says. When flights stopped and tours were canceled, the work vanished overnight.
After spending several months in the United States visiting family and speaking to communities, Amar returned to Israel and confronted reality. With guiding opportunities scarce, he enrolled in cooking school, then spent four months running a local burger restaurant with a friend.
Patrick Amar, a tour guide who lives in Modi’in, was forced to reinvent himself, as Israel’s tour guides were among the first to feel the economic shock of wartime. Courtesy of Patrick Amar.
Still, Amar, a father of five children ages twelve to eighteen, insists that guiding remains his calling. What sustained him—beyond adaptability—was faith. “I lost 90 percent of my income. I am a man of faith. I have emunah, especially when it comes to making a living. I grew up in a Sephardic business community where people have faith. If you’re a businessman without emunah, you won’t survive!”
By late December, Amar reported that guiding work had resumed. “Thank G-d, I’ve been busy since the end of the holidays. It’s quiet now, but 2026 is already filling up.”
High-Tech Growth
The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel reports that the largest employment gains during the war were in the health, welfare and social services sector, as well as in education, while the steepest declines occurred in hospitality and food services and in information and communication services. The high-tech sector continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace; according to the Taub Center, fewer than 2,000 high-tech jobs were added during the war, compared with roughly 14,000 during equivalent periods in previous years.
Much of Israel’s economic strength is anchored in its high-tech industry. The sector accounts for roughly 14 percent of the economy, making it not only a central driver of growth but also a critical contributor to government revenues.
Professor Trajtenberg offers a playful perspective on the role of high tech in Israel’s economy. “Israel’s economy is very easy to describe—we sell brains and we buy everything else! Fifty percent of the economy is high tech.”
Even agriculture, he notes, is deeply intertwined with technology. While regions such as the north suffered greatly, Israel’s “brain economy” proved more resilient than industrial economies dependent on physical infrastructure.
Unquestionably, however, the war impacted reservists’ career trajectories. In fact, Professor Trajtenberg’s main concern is the war’s negative effect on “human infrastructure.”
Ahuva Ross Cohen understands this firsthand. Her husband, Meir, who works in venture capital, served extensive periods in miluim. “After seven months,” she says, “from the company’s perspective, you’re not here.” While they managed financially, she worries about missed opportunities and long-term career impact.
Ahuva Ross Cohen compares the situation of miluimnikim like her husband, Meir, returning to work to new mothers returning to work from maternity leave. Courtesy of Ahuva Ross Cohen.
Cohen compares the situation of miluimnikim returning to work to new mothers returning to work from maternity leave. “It can feel challenging to return and quickly get up to speed. There’s an inherent pressure to be fully reintegrated and productive within the next few months. Even though you may physically be back, the mental switch from war zone to high tech is a hard context switch.”
Cohen works for the global high-tech firm, monday.com. Given her husband’s extensive miluim service and the need to care for her children, ages four and one, she has been affected at work. She praises monday.com. “They were amazing,” she says, citing grants, gifts and sustained attention to families of reservists.
By this past winter, her husband had served over 200 days. “We’re managing,” she says, “but the war isn’t really over,” as many of the men are still serving in reserves. Their faith, she explains, was central. “It carried us emotionally.” So much so that they named their daughter, born in September 2024, Lielle Emunah. “Our faith has given us both comfort and confidence in knowing our role throughout this war, that our fight is a moral one and that Hashem will perform miracles if we do our hishtadlut.”
While the war strained Israelis across every sector, those interviewed for this article share a common determination: to continue building lives in Israel, despite uncertainty and cost.
Miriam and Natan insist they “are grateful to live in Israel and to raise our children here.” Miriam currently works in real estate, and Natan has returned to his role as in-house counsel—though another miluim date looms ahead. They feel a deep sense of gratitude that they have been able to continue making ends meet during these difficult times.
“We really believe in this,” Miriam says. “It comes with a price. But we want to live in Israel, and we’re doing it for the Jewish people.”
Her husband puts it more plainly. “Every generation pays a price,” he says. “This one has to be paid. It’s the only real option for the survival of the Jewish people.”
Howard Blas is a social worker, special education teacher and inclusion specialist. He frequently leads Birthright Israel trips for people with disabilities and is the author of a recent book on b’nai mitzvah and disabilities. He recently made aliyah and lives in Tel Aviv.
While many people use artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT to write papers, pick movies or streamline business tasks, Israel’s medical community is pushing AI far beyond convenience.
At Tel Aviv University this week, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors demonstrated how AI is already being used to make complex clinical decisions—and, in some cases, save lives.
The Fifth Annual IDSAI (International Data Science and AI Initiative) AI and Health Day conference, part of Cyber Week, brought together several hundred participants for a fast-paced, 10-hour program focused on real-world medical applications. The audience filling the Bar Shira Auditorium included representatives from academia, industry, government, the military and the financial sector.
On Tuesday, the morning sessions offered a broad overview of AI in health care, explored data challenges and featured lightning talks from health-tech startups and venture-capital firms. Afternoon sessions shifted to accelerating product development, academic research on agents and machine learning, a panel on computational oncology and deep-learning applications.
Opening the conference, Professor Saharon Rosset, chair in modern statistics and data science in Tel Aviv University’s Department of Statistics and Operations Research, set the tone.
“It is clear AI will become more central as we move ahead,” he said, noting efforts to “foster academic and medical institutions with the challenge of data sharing.”
Ziv Katzir, head of the TELEM (National Infrastructure Forum for Research and Development) program for artificial intelligence at the Israel Innovation Authority, described AI as “finding new answers to very old challenges” and said it has gotten “much better in the last five years.”
He highlighted advances in predictive analytics, treatment optimization, risk scoring and personalized care, pointing to dozens of Israeli companies already active in the rapidly expanding AI-health ecosystem.
‘Complexity of the health-care system’
One of the most compelling presentations came from Prof. Ron Balicer, chief innovation officer and deputy director-general of Clalit Health Services, Israel’s largest health-care provider. Opening his talk on “AI-Driven Health Care,” Balicer said that “we are no longer in a place where we are the sole decision-makers and know what is best for the patient.”
Balicer shared a post by Dr. Alon Toor titled “A Life Saved—Thanks to AI,” describing how an AI-based clinical decision-support system flagged a patient for urgent testing. “I told the patient openly: This is what the system suggests. Let’s do it,” Toor wrote.
The test revealed dangerously high blood pressure that routine visits had missed. “Here’s the truth. I wouldn’t have ordered this test on my own. The system saw what I didn’t. It saved a life.”
Balicer said AI is already guiding decision-making in Clalit clinics. “We can look at the future, see something bad will happen and take it out of harm’s way,” he said, adding that AI may soon warn patients directly. “Our data suggest you may have a heart attack in the next few weeks.” He went further, predicting that “in the not too distant future, non-AI-guided diagnosis may become substandard medical conduct.’”
At the same time, Balicer cautioned against overreliance. Just as drivers can lose navigation skills by depending too heavily on Waze, physicians risk excessive dependence on algorithms.
Medical-school curricula, he pointed out, will “have to take into account” AI tools, ensuring doctors continue to work collaboratively with technology. Still, he expressed optimism: “The future will allow AI to heal health care of its current ailments.”
Professor Noam Shomron, head of Tel Aviv University’s Digital Medicine Research Team, urged the field to become “proactive and not reactive.” He described how AI-driven analysis of DNA can help determine therapies and noted applications particularly relevant to Israel’s post-war reality. AI, he said, can help predict which soldiers are most likely to experience PTSD, enabling early intervention that could be critical to recovery.
Data challenges were a recurring theme. Dr. Steven Labkoff, a physician executive and collaborating scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, addressed the difficulty of building reliable AI models.
“How do we create data foundations that allow AI to understand patient journeys, treat effects and disease trajectories?” he asked. “We are entering the era where the most valuable asset in healthcare is not the algorithm; it’s the data foundation that makes algorithms meaningful. But we can only get there by working together.”
Collaboration across sectors emerged as a key takeaway. Startups such as Viritis, Agado, Taracyte, Path-Keeper and NucleAI presented their technologies, while investors offered their perspectives on scaling innovation.
Marc Greuter, general partner at Planven in Zurich, shared what he called “The European VC Perspective,” joking that he was “not smart enough to become a scientist, so I became an investor.”
He said Israel’s challenges in health-tech are less about technology and more about the “complexity of the health-care system.”
Bruce Taragin, managing director at Blumberg Capital, drew sustained applause when he opened his remarks by saying, “We are Zionists; we have been here for 3,000 years. We have never left, and we never will!”
Taragin said he was in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and praised Israelis for their “grit, resilience and tenacity.” Blumberg Capital, he said, prefers to “get in early and be supportive however we can.” Calling Israel a global leader with “more AI development than any country on the planet per capita,” he concluded, “I have one message: You are not alone. Am Yisrael Chai. We are with you.”
After nearly four hours without a break, a long line still formed to speak with Taragin, an indication that Israel’s AI-driven health-tech sector, even amid war and uncertainty, remains vibrant and determined to turn innovation into impact.
A safe haven. Jewish life-rich, antisemitism-free, Hebrew language-focused, cost-effective, three-year options for studying for a bachelor’s degree in Israel.
Featured image: A PROTESTER raises a flag that states ‘Free Palestine’ at an encampment at the Auraria Campus in Denver, Colorado. Since the October 7 attacks, university campuses across North America have witnessed protests and encampments in support of the Palestinians.(photo credit: KEVIN MOHATT/REUTERS)
When students at Manhattan’s Ramaz Upper School meet with director of college guidance Raphael Blumenthal this fall as part of their college search process, he will have more options to share than in past years – as long as students and parents are willing to expand their search to include institutions of higher learning in the Holy Land.
Blumenthal and nine other college advisers from Jewish day schools in the United States – including SKA, Ramaz, Ma’ayanot, Yeshiva High School for Girls, Bnei Akiva Schools, RASG Hebrew Academy, Frisch School, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School, Schechter School of Long Island, and the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy – recently returned from an exhausting, exhilarating, and eye opening trip to Israel from June 24-27 where they visited nine colleges in four days to learn about Jewish life-rich, antisemitism-free, Hebrew language-focused, cost-effective, three-year options for studying for a bachelor’s degree in Israel.
While many of the college advisers were already familiar with such Israel study options as the decades-old Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University (TAU) overseas programs and the 30-year-old Reichman University (formerly known as IDC Herzliya), the trip was an opportunity to refresh their memories about them and learn about a range of additional options at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Ariel University, Bar-Ilan University, Jerusalem College of Technology/Machon Lev, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the University of Haifa.
While the Reichman degree program is in English, most programs involve students spending the first year taking academic courses in one’s major area of study in English while simultaneously taking intensive Hebrew language courses.
The goal is for students to transition to the university’s regular Hebrew language academic program where they will complete their degree.
An aerial view shows the Dome of the Rock in front and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Jerusalem, April 26, 2023. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
Many will elect to stay in Israel – which is in line with the goal of its funder, David Magerman.
MAGERMAN HAS long been a supporter of Jewish day schools through his Kohelet Foundation, which was in operation from 2009-2019. His newer venture, the Tzemach David Foundation, founded in 2022, is a grant-giving and operational foundation that is “dedicated to transform the Israeli educational system by providing comprehensive support and fostering innovation.”
A University of Pennsylvania graduate and until recently, a Penn donor, Magerman has been very public in criticizing his alma mater in recent months over both the Palestine Writes festival held a UPenn last September, and anti-Israel and antisemitic protests on the Penn campus in the wake of the Gaza War. The philanthropist has discontinued millions of dollars in support for Penn and has redirected some of his money to Israeli institutions of higher learning.
Magerman, who is also a member of Yeshiva University’s board of directors, recently gave $1 million to Jerusalem College of Technology/Machon Lev and announced additional $1 million gifts to the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Bar-Ilan University and two others to be announced soon.
TAMAR KRIEGER, executive director of the Tzemach David Foundation, notes that supporting institutions of higher learning in Israel “became a natural outgrowth” of his previous support of higher education in the United States.
It also fits in with an important goal of Magerman and the foundation – to encourage young people to make aliyah at a period in their lives before they have become settled in to careers and married life.
Krieger shares that one goal of Magerman’s new foundation is to “make aliyah easier,” stressing that “olim integration should be a goal.” They are hoping that mastery of Hebrew and obtaining a bachelor’s degree from a top Israeli university – while socializing with Israelis and enjoying rich Jewish life on campus – will help their ultimate successful integration into Israeli society.
Krieger is working to operationalize and implement this vision and ultimately share it with college advisers at Jewish day schools in the US. She observes, playfully, “We found college advisers to be the low hanging fruit – they are the ones who tell the students where to go – they have to have info about student life, in the same way they know about Penn and Binghamton,” a leading SUNY university.
Before putting together the Israel trip, Krieger and the foundation needed to learn more about the programs the Israeli universities already offer as well as the types of support they offer students.
ONE HELPFUL starting point was Maureen Adiri Meyer, who for thirteen years has served as director of Lowy International School at TAU.
She explains that the university already has a long history of supporting the specialized and evolving needs of students, which predate October 7. The director notes that their support of current students from India, China, the EU and the US, through their dual degree program with Columbia University reflects their ability to meet unique needs of various groups of students.
Adiri Meyer offers that their experience meeting such needs will be helpful in supporting future students.
As an example of TAU’s ability to adapt, she shares that it began realizing the needs of Modern Orthodox students who began participating in the Columbia program during the Covid pandemic in 2020.
“They were used to Hillel and Chabad on campus and were looking for something,” she says.
“Some of our kids were living in Herzliya and coming to Ramat Aviv to learn.” These students were choosing to live close to Reichman University where they could take advantage of the robust Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus program of the Orthodox Union.
As a result, Adiri Meyer and her team collaborated with JLIC to start a program at TAU.
RABBI JONATHAN Shulman, who served as the initiative’s director at Penn from 2010-2014 and now serves as director of OU-JLIC in Israel, actually credits a pioneering group of gap-year students who approached him nearly ten years ago who pointed out the lack of supports for students from abroad. “They came to me and said, ‘Why should we lose out?’”
In 2017, a JLIC couple came to Reichman. “Increasingly, an idealistic group of students chose to be here,” Shulman reports, noting that Hillel on Israeli campuses has always focused on Israelis, but there was “no one working in the international student space.” The initiative’s work then expanded to Bar-Ilan and has continued to grow on campuses throughout Israel.
Adiri Meyer feels that creating community for these students on campus – through JLIC and in general – will be a major key to the success of the students in Israel. She has enjoyed working with Rabbi Shulman, noting, “It has been fabulous working with him since day one.”
Shulman credits Magerman for his long-time support of JLIC and for helping set up a structure to support foreign students. “David has been a visionary and took it to the next level – even before 10/7.” Shulman notes that over 20% of gap-year students remain in Israel and that “not all go right to college first.” Shulman is pleased to partner “with great universities” and credits them with continuing to grow and evolve as they offer hybrid programs for these students.
The Israel OU-JLIC director also praises the Diaspora Affairs Ministry for their support. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, connects his support of the new initiative to current events in Israel and around the world.
An entire nation under attack
“On October 7, a severe war began not only against the State of Israel, but against the entire Jewish people,” he says. “Jewish communities worldwide found themselves under severe attack, culminating in violent riots and displays of hate on elite campuses in North America. The State of Israel serves as a home and refuge for every Jew regardless of their background, and makes great efforts to assist as much as possible.
“The ministry is proud to promote this program in collaboration with the Tzemach David Foundation, aiming to increase awareness of the various study programs offered by universities in Israel,” Chikli said. “We invite all students to consult with the advisers about the many academic opportunities in Israel.”
Adiri Meyer is happy to welcome these students to TAU. She feels having these American students complete their undergraduate degrees there can be beneficial both to them and to the university community. She notes that they will receive a top level, affordable, Jewishly rich education in Israel in three years, while also enhancing life on campus.“We are the largest university in Israel with 30,000 students,” she says proudly, noting that most undergraduates are 23 and after their army service. “Having these American students study in the university will add a lot to the university. The more integrated they become, and the more our Israeli students meet smart, talented kids from around the world, the more global they will be.”
Once Krieger and the foundation better understood the landscape of higher education in Israel, they decided to move quickly to invite college advisers on the quickly but carefully planned Israel trip.
ESTHER GENUTH, a member of the College Guidance department at the Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, was delighted at the invitation to participate on the trip.
She notes that her entire department has been observing a trend in the past five years towards more gap year participants staying in Israel to complete army or national service and to remain in Israel for college. She notes that Frisch even offered a panel this year where three Israeli universities shared information about their programs. “There has been an even bigger shift this year toward exploring Israel study options,” she says.
Genuth was pleased with how they were received and with what they learned. “The schools were so grateful for us coming,” she observes, adding that she was pleased to learn how “Israeli schools are adapting and forming new programs for both those who plan to make aliyah or [who] go back to America.”
She feels well prepared to share updated information with her students, which she obtained first hand. “Seeing places and meeting people was invaluable,” she reports. “After the trip and after meeting with JLIC, I have no doubt our students will be successful!”
ANNE GREENSPOON is co-director of college guidance at Berman Hebrew Academy in Rockville, Maryland, where she reports that more than 90% of students traditionally participate in gap year programs in Israel, mostly yeshiva or seminary. “In the past, a handful had plans to do a gap year, then IDF service, then maybe come back for college. Now, parents want a backup plan,” she says.
Greenspoon has observed a shift in her students as they consider post gap-year plans. “This year, we saw more students who planned to return to America for college changing their minds. Many are choosing to stay and serve in the IDF.” Many of those students may elect to remain in Israel for college.
The college guidance co-director further notes that, when she and her Berman colleagues began one-on-one meetings with 11th graders and their parents in January to discuss college options, “Many said they were only considering Yeshiva University or Touro (Jewishly affiliated) colleges – or college in Israel.
After Passover and the pro-Gaza/anti-Israel encampments, more people asked, ‘what do you know about universities in Israel?’ We have been talking about this a lot.” She notes that the school hosted a webinar in May with Rabbi Shulman of JLIC for their college counselors.
For Greenspoon, the Israel trip came at a perfect time. “The big thing for our students is that they feel they will miss out on campus life. I think these new programs, where they can attend university in Israel alongside a JLIC community, is a big game changer for our students!” She also notes that “these new hybrid programs will attract students who are a little older and may be good for those who served in the IDF or did national service.”
She anticipates the concerns of her students’ parents about both just how competitive the Israel universities are, and how the Israel degree will be viewed if they come back to the US.
ADIRA MEYER of TAU assures potential applicants that “students will be studying with top academics in a top university.”
And while Ramaz’s Blumenthal knows that the Israel university option is not for everyone, he already has a top student in mind for university study in Israel. “I am thinking of a student who will thrive at the Technion or Jerusalem College of Technology/Machon Lev – he will love having Torah learning alongside the academics.
“I am intrigued, excited and impressed with the level of education that Israel universities provide,” he says. “They clearly have top-notch experts in their fields. When you think about the Start-Up Nation, they are providing an education that is producing world leaders.”
It is now up to the college advisers to share their newly acquired knowledge of the Israel university option with their students and their families. Magerman, the universities and the Start-up Nation eagerly await their arrival.
