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Category: Zefat Personalities

  • ask

    Chava Benzion set out on her dream to become a midwife at age 20, while still livingin California. It took her 7 years to become a Licensed Midwife, recognized by the Medical Board of California. Three more years, and hundreds of births later, Chavah

    Ask A Midwifemade aliyah (immigrated to Israel) with her husband and 2 year old son. They came directly to the north and after a two-year sojourn in a small yishuv, they moved to Safed.

     

    It didn’t take long for women in the small, close knit mountain community to find out that they had a midwife in town. Not only that, but the midwife was ready and willing to answer questions, give support, and accompany women on their journeys through pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. Chavah started to develop a reputation as a good person to ask pregnancy and birth related questions to. Women would come to her and ask her to check the position of their babies, listen to the heartbeat, or assess the progress of a labor.

    Chavah also gave birth to three daughters of her own while living in Israel. She remarks that being cared for by the Israeli medical system was somewhat strange for her, “As a midwife, I knew what to ask, and what information to provide. I knew a lot about self-care and how to communicate with care providers to get my needs met and make myself heard.” Chavah observes, “I can’t imagine how the average expectant mother could possibly get cared for appropriately and adequately. I really feel that the woman’s needs are very much negle

    cted at this important time.”

    Chavah knew that midwives play a main role in the hospital delivery rooms, but what surprised her was the realization that midwives have absolutely no role in the prenatal care framework. Pregnant women typically have a brief visit with a doctor a few times in the pregnancy to have an ultrasound and take some blood work, but no real education occurs and no strong connection is formed between mother and care provider. If the woman has a question or concern after-hours, there is no one to call or ask and they must wait sometimes weeks to speak to a doctor or go into a hospital to get any answers.

    This new awareness about the state of maternity health care in Israel was what inspired Chavah to create Ask a Midwife, Israel’s free English language online midwife support service. She created a website, a Facebook page, and a private, just for women Facebook group with over 500 members just since April 2014. She welcomes women to ask their questions about pregnancy, birth, babies, and beyond.

    She makes a point to help any woman she can, and does not require payment. If a woman has received valuable support a

    nd help through Ask A Midwife, she may decide to donate something to Chavah’s project as a way of saying thank you. Ask A Midwife does not claim to treat patients over the internet, and the advice and support that Chavah provides are not intended to be substitutes for care from the woman’s own doctor, but rather, to compliment it.

    Women can also benefit from the dialogue with other members almost as much or more than they benefit from Chavah’s advice. The nice thing is that since the comments are all midwife moderated, it assures that the advice and input from the other members are sound and will be held to a standard of a professionally trained midwife. Ask A Midwife is based in Safed, but can be accessed anywhere in the world on line.

    Ask a Midwife

    Ask a Midwife on Facebook

  • MEIR GLASER AND CARLEBACH

    Meir Glaser , a Safed resident for over 30 years believes in influencing the world in the spirit of the late Rabbi Shlomo

    Meir Glaser Carlebach. As a college student in Boston University he found himself at a “Shlomo” concert physically and spiritually. That single experience changed his life and caused him to journey on the long and winding road to Judaism. Shlomo’s music and magic pulled him inside the circle that Shlomo created and suddenly Meir felt he wanted more. Meir discovered the Hillel House on campus and there he met the Hillel director Rabbi Joseph Polak. Meir became part of the Hillel community and soon found himself not only taking in this new way of life but also giving. Meir learned how to be a hazan as a young boy and Rabbi Polak recognized his talent which led to his leading the Orthodox minyan. Meir also learned to play guitar at 14 and soon after the Shlomo concert he was playing Shlomo songs on the guitar.Meir came to Israel in 1975 to learn in Shapell Yeshiva.

    Journey To Safed

    After two years he came to Safed , met his wife Hannah and together they built their home and family. Singing and performing in the Carlebach tradition became a natural part of Meir’s life. In 1991 Meir helped to revive the Beirav Synagogue and a few

    years later began to pray every Shabbat using Shlomo’s tunes to the services. With his partner Shmuel Polsky they made Beirav into an icon where hundreds of people flowed through this little shul’s doors every week.

    Today Meir prays in the House of Love and Prayer on Safed’s main street opposite Bank Hapoalim and has founded the Path of the Heart – The Tzfat Experience which plans coordinates and runs a wide variety of exciting spiritual adventures for families and groups. When Shlomo prayed it had to be with song. Prayer and music when merged into one create the language of the soul. It is the way the soul can be expressed. It is the way the inner you can be heard. Through the years Meir has led Shlomo minyans all over Israel and in the United States when he toured with his duo Shamayim. For him it is the only way to really pray. He always says that the difference between a Carlebach hazan and any other is that a Carlebacher succeeds when the WHOLE congregation joins in the prayers in song and dance. The hazan is just a catalyst to get every one involved.

    Contact Meir

    Meir invites you to contact him for a wide variety of Carlebach related experiences- tours, music, Carlebach Shabbat, bar/bat mitzvah and more.

    Web: www.shvilhalev.co.il

    mail: shvilhalev@neto.net.il

    tel: 972 50 7505695

  • Ilan Shohat -The Mayor

    In the two short years since he was elected, Ilan Shohat has already added some remarkable achievements to his name.

    Ilan Shohat -The Mayor

    He has managed, with the help of his American born wife, Sivan, to raise over $3 million from American sponsors for the benefit of Safed. He’s been able to bring Israel’s incipient fifth Medical School to Safed, and he began his campaign to get Safed internationally recognized as the World Capital of Spirituality and Jewish Culture. His vision is to complete the circle by reconnecting the holy city of Safed to its glorious 16th century spiritual kabbalist past and bring that leading status forward to the 21st Century. He hopes that he can restore Safed’s position, to what he believes it was then – a leading scientific educational hub for the whole Galilee region and beyond.

    Qualifications

    A local boy made good, Ilan Shohat is at 35 young to be mayor of the city but, he comes with a lot of experience – five years sitting on the local city council, head of the opposition, a MA in Political Science -specialization -Local Government (Haifa University) and a BA in Educational Management Systems. He has also worked on both sides of the employment fence, as Head of the Association of Factory Managers/Owners in the North and as Head of the Unemployment Office in the Lower Galilee. Charming, personable and good-looking, the mayor’s English is also, unlike many Israeli politicians, fairly fluent -all necessary requirements in this image driven media savvy age.

    Projects

    Practical projects include upgrading the overall infrastructure of the city like the Yigal Allon Theater, which he sees as

    a base for a city orchestra. For the young he aims to increase science education at the high

    school level and increase new building allocation for the college – including the creation of dormitories, youth centers and children’s parks throughout the city, as well as the opening of a new swimming pool. For tourists he wants to open a spectacular visitors center and encourage visitors to stay overnight by increasing the number of available hotel rooms.

    Future Plans

    Apart from bringing the Medical School to the city, which currently takes up about 65% of his time, the mayor desires to bring hope to the people of Safed. If the Medical School also becomes the springboard for the new regional University planned for the Galilee, it will increase educational opportunities for the young people of the city. The Medical School alone will upgrade the level of care in Z

    iv hospital, bringing with it new jobs, housing, and better recreational facilities. He expects that if proposals to extend the rail line from the coast through Karmiel to Rosh Pina up to Kiryat Shmonei are carried out in the next ten years, this will also expand the overall work opportunities for residents in the area.

    Passion

    Ilan Shohat is obviously very passionate about his home town and believes that it needs to be a ‘world brand’ to

    attract an extensive number of international tourists to Safed. He also wants encourage a wide range of people to come make the city their home and who will respect its unique character. As part of that effort, he tries to ensure that all visitors, secular or religious, and new temporary and permanent residents alike, appreciate the city’s reputation as a very special city in Israel, where everyone gets along and respects each other.

    As someone who could easily earn more money elsewhere, Shohat is not Mayor of the city for the salary. He says if he could choose to be mayor of any city in Israel, he would still choose Safed because he just loves the city.

  • Yehoshua Sivan

    If you wonder who is that respectable, well dressed older man collecting sacks of returnable deposit bottles from r

    estaurants on the midrahov, it is probably Yehoshua Sivan. Collecting bottles and claiming the

    Yehoshua Sivan money back is one of the ways he volun

    teers in Safed.

    Who Is Yehoshua?

    In 1966, as a young couple, Yehoshua and his wife Hilary made aliyah from England, living at first in the center of the country. With his Doctorate in Chemistry, Yehoshua began work at the Weizmann Institute. He then transferred to Bar Ilan University where he trained teachers in science and chemistry. As their family grew, they decided that they preferred to live in the unique, friendly environment of Safed, and moved to the city in 1977. Yehoshua taught chemistry at the local high school until he retired a few years ago while Hilary, an English teacher, finished her career as the Principal of the Ulpanit in Safed.

    Why Volunteer?

    Coming from the volunteering culture of England, Yehoshua couldn’t help but get involved with a good cause. When the beginning of the Ethiopian Aliyah started with Operation Moses in 1985, many of the new immigrants came to Safed and needed a lot of help with their absorption. Yehoshua offered to help one of his friends who was working with the project, and very soon he became completely involved.

    What Does The Committee Do?

    The Committee for Ethiopian Jews in Safed aims to help the complete integration of the Ethiopian community into Israeli society by giving financial and social support. Over the years the committee has built up a network of supporters in both North America and Israel who donate the $60,000 plus a year the committee needs for its work.

    Although the committee will give grants and loans to individuals suffering financial difficulties, it really prefers to help people to become self supporting. One of the main ways it does this is to enable students to continue their education by giving financial assistance. Even something simple like having a dictionary, money for texts books or supplementary courses can make all the difference to a student’s

    success.

    Many of these students have gained B.A’s and M.A’s and are now working with the Ethiopian communities around the country themselves. Others have been helped to take trade courses like bus driving, hairdressing, or infant ‘carers’ courses. The committee also helps supports student nurses at the Nursing School in Safed.

    The Pina Neima (Cosy Corner)

    Thanks to the Committee, the Ari Primary School was the first school in the country to have a Pina Neima or Cosy Corner. This is a special therapeutic room, developed by Pamela Mond, which helps students deal with fears, trauma and violence. It has been a model for others in the country and the committee also helped set one up in the Beirav Primary School. These facilities have been especially helpful for students deeply affected by the 2006 Lebanon War.

    Awards

    Yehoshua doesn’t just collect bottles to raise funds for the Ethiopian community in Safed, even though last year he mana

    ged to raise over 29,000 nis in this way. As the mainstay behind the Committee for Ethiopian Jews in Safed, he has been recognized for his outstanding work. In 1995 he was given the President’s Award for Volunteering, “For work in absorbing Ethiopian new immigrants”. In 1999 he and his wife Hilary were granted the Distinguished Citizen of Safed Award, and in 2002 the Absorption Award from the Jewish Agency “For your contribution and your work in absorbing new immigrants”.

    At the end of 2011, on the 20th anniversary of Operation Solomon, the Mayor of Safed presented the Committee with

    a testimonial: “The Safed Municipality wishes to thank the Committee for Ethiopian Jews in Safed for their contribution and action towards the social and educational advancement, and successful absorption, of Ethiopian Jews in Safed in particular, and elsewhere in Israel in general.”

    If you want to get involved yourself with this project or donate, email Yehosua at: ysivan@hotmail.com

  • Areyeh Ben Binyamin

    If you are looking for gardening advice together with a sprinkling of spiritual wisdom, look no further than Areyeh Ben Bi

    Areyeh Ben Binyamin

    nyamin who worked for many years in the garden nursery on Aliyah Bet Street.

    Early History

    Areyeh was brought up in a very “never again” Zionistic family in Boston. As a young child he would play in the woods

    pretending to fight for “Am Yisrael“. Later he fought for real in Vietnam, and then went to college on the G.I. bill.

    Kibbutz Life

    Coming to Israel in 1971 he joined kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, the kibbutz which stopped the Syrians in their tracks d

    uring the War of Independence. He loved kibbutz life and worked training dogs for the Israeli army. His wife didn’t like being a kibbutznik and they divorced, and Areyeh ended up returning to the States where he worked for 20 years.

    Spiritual Beliefs

    About 20 years ago he had a revelation and became aware of God’s presence in the world. He is well versed in the Bible and can quote chapter and verse. He is a strong believer in the imminent coming of the Messiah which he is convinced is much closer than we think and will happen in his lifetime. He believes that “Hashem (God) brought me back to Israel and to Safed”. As proof, he says he came wi

    th very little money and no job prospects and knowing nobody and yet a short time later he had found an apartment and a job in the nursery.

    The Nursery

    He started gardening when he was a child, continued wherever he was living. He worked in Tzfat’s nursery for many years and knew most of his customers by name. People would come from far and wide for the benefit of his wisdom and experience, appreciating that he knew what he is talking about and tells the truth, even if it meant that he might not make a sale.

    He was also happy to share his spiritual views, political opinions, and knowledge of history with any of his customers who had the time to listen. He would say “the reason Hashem said “Shema Yisrael” is because we need to learn to listen”.

    The 2006 Lebanon War

    During the recent war in 2006, Areyeh refused to leave, even though he did not have many customers. He said “they are not running me off my land and from my country”. He came in every day to water the plants and believes he was “watched over” citing the time when five minutes after he closed up, a katuysha landed at the back of the nursery, injuring a woman waiting at the nearby bus stop.

    The Plants

    The nursery continues to thrive, though Aryeh, who retired, is missed. The nursary has everything from small bedding plants to fruit trees, and the current staff will be very happy to advise you on what plants to buy. They will even refuse to sell you something that they don’t think will be suitable for your garden or balcony.

    Aryeh is single and still lives near the nursery with his three dogs and two cats.

    Garden Nursery, Aliyah Bet Street. Tel no. 04 692 0155

    Opening hours:

    Summer Sunday to Friday 8.30am -2.00pm  Afternoons: 4.00pm -7pm except Tuesdays and Fridays

    Winter Sunday to Friday 8.30.pm – 5.pm, closed Tuesday & Friday afternoons.

  • Mimi Semuha

    Mimi Semuha, originally from America, has lived and worked in Israel since 1961. She moved to Safed  from

    Mimi Semuha

    Rishon LeZion, and has recently retired from her work with autistic children. Being the doing type, in the early 80’s she set up what became the National O

    rganization for Teachers in Autistic Education. This enabled teachers of autistic children to get together and compare notes, exchange i

    deas and help to improve what was available to these children. With her retirement, Mimi looked for something meaningful to do in addition to her private work as a consultant in autism.

    Something Needs To Be Done

    Walking her dog around Safed every day, Mimi saw that there were a lot of things that could be improved. Coming from America, she is much more environmentally aware than some of the old timers in Safed who have a somewhat more fatalistic “what can you do?” attitude about life. Mimi decided that “something needs to be done” to counteract the acceptance of the street litter and the general lack of pride in the city by many of its inhabitants.

    Peninat HaGalil (Pearl Of The Galilee) Organization

    She decided to set up the Peninat HaGalil organization to help improve and beautify the town, protect its green spaces, and campaign on the environmental issues affecting Safed residents. With a mailing list of over 500, the organization was very active during the recent local elections, holding a public meeting at the Yigal Allon Center to address the issues involved. She believes that this meeting, and the organization as a whole, was influential in helping to elect the most promising of the mayoral candidates, Ilan Shochet, who said he would help to develop and beautify the city.

    The Swimming Pool Issue

    The organization is campaigning on a variety of issues including probably the most important issue that affects a majority of Safed residents. This is the possible loss of the local public swimming pool which is under threat from the developers.

    The Emek Hatchelet is the only public open-air swimming pool in Safed and is set in a beautiful nature reserve. It is the only green place in Safed where whole families can go and spend the day in nature without having to leave the city. Summer day camps al

    so take the children there to enjoy the pool and play under the trees.

    Under a previous mayor, the land was sold to help pay off some municipal debts and a high density housing complex has been proposed on the site. Lawyers believe that there is a good case to save the Emek, as there are some questions regarding the legality of the sale. They can also argue the need to protect this vital city resource and its nature reserve on environmental grounds. Peninat HaGalil has taken on this issue and is fighting the case in the courts with the help of the Adam Teva V’din, a national organization which fights to save natural resources.

    Other Issues

    As well as campaigning for the Emek, collecting hundreds of signatures on petitions, getting written objections to the building proposals and generating publicity, Peninat HaGalil sends observers to the municipal council meetings. They were also instrumental in getting a new municipal environmental committee set up, on which they have representation. They send photos and information on environmental issues on what needs to be done to the local paper and report on improvements as they happen.

    Contact

    Mimi has moved from Tzfat to be closer to her children but other members of her organization, Peninat HaGalil, continue to advocate for increased ecological awareness. Mimi can be contacted at miriams800@yahoo.com

  • Six Self-Guided Walking Tours of Tzfat

    One of the biggest complaints among people who are involved in tourism in Tzfat is the fact that few tourists spend the

    Six Self-Guided Walking Tours of Tzfattime needed to really explore and understand the city.

    Exploring Tzfat

    Tzfat is one of Judaism’s four Holy Cities, rich in history and heritage, and central to understanding how Judaism developed to what it is today. People throughout the world are fascinated by Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, but even those who make their way to the City of Kabbalah don’t get the chance to properly understand what Kabbalah really is.

    If this is the situation today, 30 years ago, it was much worse. Tzfat’s thriving Artist Quarter received its fair share of visitors, but guides who understood the place of Tzfat in Jewish history and could and would explain it to the visitors whom they were guiding were few and far between.

    Yisrael and Phyllis Shalem arrived in Tzfat in 1980. Both were American immigrants who had completed their Israeli army service and subsequent university studies in Jerusalem, and were drawn to Tzfat. Yisrael worked for a time with Jewish Agency summer programs. His high school teaching job frustrated him — he saw that he was spending too much time on discipline and too little time instilling love of Torah and the Land of Israel in his students. He preferred the informal education of his summer program youth group work.

    A Way to Help Visitors

    Yisrael began to guide groups in Tzfat, and as time progressed, became more and more convinced that, with the proper infrastructure, many more visitors would be able to appreciate Tzfat and its rich history and traditions. He and Phyllis wrote a basic tour bo

    ok of Tzfat, Six Self-Guided Walking Tours of Tzfat, which has, through time, become the most used Tzfat guide for both tour guides and tourists who want to have a more complete and fulfilling Tzfat experience than the simple “in-and-out of two synagogues and shopping” which unfortunately characterizes many visits.

    Yisrael also produced a short 10-minute movie, Tzfat, the Mystical City, which can be viewed today at the Tourist Information Center of Tzfat. Whereas the book concentrates on Tzfat’s sites, the movie gives an overview of Tzfat’s history from the Spanish Expulsion period onward. Many visitors who otherwise would not understand why Tzfat occupies such an important place in the history of Judaism gain a thorough understanding through the movie.

    Yisrael and his partner, Haim Sidor (who, in addition to his guiding, is well-known today in Tzfat for his work in mapping out Tzfat’s cemetery) ran afoul of the Ministry of Tourism for their lack of a guiding license, which is required by law in Israel. The two guides insisted that the Ministry representatives come on one of their tours, and by the end, the Ministry officials continued to insist t

    hat Yisrael and Haim become licensed…..but asked that THEY organize the course (and teach in it!) which would grant them, and other guides of the area, their licenses.

    Yisrael and Phyllis collaborated together, and later with the travel writer Aviva Bar Am, on other Land of Israel guide books, notably on the Golan Heights, Tiberias Region and the Negev. As a book about Jerusalem was being written, Yisrael passed away after battling cancer for 3 years.

    Yisrael and Phyllis’s guide is still the premier Tzfat guide for visitors who want to get a further understanding of the town and its history. It can be purchased by writing to the Shalem’s son, Medad. Medad can be contacted at medad4@gmail.com. Medad has completed courses in Land of Israel studies and his love of the Land is a testimony to his remarkable father.

    To purchase Six Self-Guided Walking Tours of Tzfat, please email medad4@gmail.com

  • Home Away From Home

    The dream of many Jewish couples is to retire to Israel. If they live in a cold climate, they imagine living in a place w

    Home Away From Homehere there is often sunshine and warmth. They think about having a simpler life, spending time on the beach, or working in the garden.

    For some people, choosing the city in which to make a new home is easy. Those who yearn for the sea will choose the coast. Those for whom the idea of Israel has an intrinsic link to Jerusalem cannot imagine living anywhere else. Then there are the golf addict

    s who gravitate to Caesarea with its famed golf course.

    Admire, Aspire, Acquire

    But for Hava Har Even, the decision to move to Safed was decided by a click of her computer mouse. Hava and her husb

    and Shimon knew what they were looking for, but didn’t know where it might be found until Hava, by chance, clicked on a link that led her to a computer-generated depiction of a house, poised at the edge of a precipitous “wadi” or gully. As Hava explains, this was a case of, “Admire, aspire, acquire.”

    What was it about the image on the screen that so caught Hava’s imagination in 2005? Hava and Shimon had already sat and made a list of their priorities for what they sought in a post-retirement home. A villa in Neve Oranim, in the city of Safed fit all their specifications to a T.

    Hava, who was nearing retirement from her job as a legal secretary for a North London firm, along with Shimon, already retired, dreamed of buying an affordable home. This ruled out the kind of luxurious living accommodations found in Israeli cities like Savyon and Raanana. Safed would also afford the couple a life in the countryside with a garden, something they might not have had in a larger city. The Har Evens knew too, that in Safed, more religious, traditional Jews like themselves could feel at home, but would also live in peaceful harmo

    ny alongside secular Jewish families.

    Indefinable Quality

    To Hava, that villa on her computer screen “seemed to sit balanced between heaven and earth,” summing up the special, indefinable quality of Safed that so appealed to her, the, “creative, artistic, slightly hippie atmosphere,” and so, Hava had her answer: Safed, “the city in the sky.”

    But there is more to the story of Hava Har Even. Once the couple was ensconced in their new digs, they began to explore the area using the local bus lines. Hava was struck by the similarity of Safed to the English landscape so familiar to her. The “magic factor” that made the city a sound psychological fit for Hava was in its topography of hills overlooking a sea.

    To Hava, this felt almost like, “a seaside town on the moors or downs overlooking the English Channel near Brighton in East Sussex, England,” where she’d been raised as an infant, wandering with her mother among, “the cornfields and poppies of the South Downs.” As Hava put it, “I needed to get away from the city and seeing the landscape of my beginnings I felt spiritually at home.”

     

  • One Man, Many Hearts

    Without Fanfare

    One Man, Many Hearts

     

    One of the hidden treasures of the city of Safed is a plain-spoken, humble Chassid who calls himself simply, Reb Moshe. Witho

    ut any fanfare, Reb Moshe embarked on a project to film all of the many Jewish holy sites, including famous graves, in Safed and i

    n all of northern Israel. In these 350 video clips, Reb Moshe is seen and heard telling stories and giving practical advice. Many of the clips have exceeded their status becoming actual short films, with not a few having received a professional edit.

    Reb Moshe calls his project, “I Love Torah,” and his clips appear on many venues, including:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ilovetorah and www.torahvideo.com . A search at www.google.com brings up even more of Reb Moshe’s voluminous film work. In all, the films have received over one million views and there are hundreds of comments registered on the youtube site. People want to see the films because they intend to travel to the area and need sound advice on how to get there and what to see. The films and clips are so affecting that many viewers decide to immigrate to Israel after viewing them.

    The presence of this unusual fellow is felt elsewhere as well. At www.myspace.com/ilovetorah, Reb Moshe has attracted over 12,000 myspace members. People want to befriend Reb Moshe because he teaches from Safed, a holy city that tends to attract those on a spiritual sojourn. Facebook, another popular social networking website is a rather new venue for Reb Moshe, who has already attra

    cted a following of 970 Facebook friends to date.

    Whisky Shots

    Reb Moshe and his wife Rochel Faiga also feed many guests at their Sabbath table and estimate they’ve hosted some 350 guests. Reb Moshe’s way is to have a small shot of whisky and allow the kids to ask him a question on any subject from Chassidut to Kabbalah. These impromptu question and answer periods sometimes last until 3 AM. The couple is now at the top of the city lists for likely Sabbath hosts and Reb Moshe and Rochel are always willing to take in, “just one more guest.”

    Reb Moshe’s hope is to reach disaffected Jewish youth and adults and help them to find meaning through his outreach. To that end, Reb Moshe’s presence can also be felt at www.ilovetorah.com, www.askreb.com where he answers questions on just about any topic you can think of, and at the www.ilovetorah.com/blog where he posts his thoughts on a sometimes hourly basis.

    Reb Moshe hopes and dreams he might one day open an institution of Torah learning, which will, of course, be named, I Love Torah. The man succeeds in reaching people because he sees each person’s unique qualities, sees each person as special. There is no coercion in his warmth and openness; it’s just love, with no strings attached.

  • The Doctor Who Sat And Waited

    Yitzchak Stern was born in Jerusalem during Israel’s War of Independence, in 1948. While Stern was educated in Je

    The Doctor Who Sat And Waitedrusalem, places in the local medical school were rare and difficult to obtain. Many Jerusalemites in the same position attended medical

     

    school in Italy, but Yitzchak had made a decision that he would study in English, thinking that having these two languages, Hebrew and English, would put him in goo

    d stead for his future as a doctor. His wife Linda points out that this, “turned out to be one of his best decisions, ever.”

    Israeli Emissary

    Yitzchak was accepted to medical school in Dublin, Ireland. During the long years of his training, Yitzchak was active in the Bnei Akiva youth organization where he served as an Israeli emissary and through which he met his wife Linda, who was a youth leader for this organization in the Stamford Hill section of London. As a result of Yitzchak’s work with the organization, many youngsters returned to their Jewish roots and heritage and not a few made Aliyah to Israel. To this day, many of these children, now grown adults, have remained

    close to the Sterns.

    At the end of Dr. Stern’s time in Dublin, the now married couple thought long and hard about where Yitzchak might do his internship. Yitzchak liked Safed for its quaint, Old City-style atmosphere, which reminded him of Jerusalem, the city of his birth. Linda had already made aliyah in 1973 and the couple hoped that by choosing to work in an intimate hospital in Safed, Yitzchak would have more free time to spend with Linda than he would have had working for a big hospital like Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital where Yitzchak might have been on call around the clock.

    Inexpensive Housing

    So, in 1979, the Sterns were lucky enough to find inexpensive housing just up the street from Safed’s Rebecca Sieff hospi

    tal. Yitzchak was thrilled to discover that the hospital had accepted him as an intern for the entire year. It was more common for interns serving at smaller hospitals to spend some of their internship working for larger hospitals, such as Rambam in Haifa. Linda moved with Yitzchak to the town of Safed where the couple lived in a large apartment block in the Ofer neighborhood in a section reserved for new immigrants. The couple had children and made many friends with people who had children the same ages as their own.

    After internship, Yitzchak gained experience for about 15 years in the Tzfat hospital’s Internal Ward (Pnimit), did a y

    ear of Tzva Keva in Lebanon in 1987 where he was instrumental in establishing the hospital in Bint Jbeil, and only then started working as a family doctor for two Israeli health funds, Maccabi and Meuchedet. This was a new concept at that time, since most patients saw doctors at branches of the funds’ clinics. The Stern’s had moved into larger quarters and turned part of their home into a clinic. Dr. Stern also opened a branch clinic for Maccabi in the nearby town of Hatzor, where no such facilities existed.

    At first, Stern sat and waited for patients. But there were many English speaking immigrants to this area and word spre

    ad that here was a physician who spoke their native language. Linda says that Yitzchak didn’t wait long for his practice to take off and soon he was, “drowning in patients.”

    Unrealized Potential

    The couple has been happy in Safed these past 29 years and the Sterns are active members of the community. Yitzchak stood for mayor in the last mayoral election, and his campaign was based on a need to exploit what Linda describes as the vast unrealized potential of Safed. Dr. Stern refused to make any empty promises and was determined to run a clean campaign. Linda feels pleased at the impact her husband has made on the local political scene and the couple continue to contribute in every way possible to the town they love, Safed.