Israel's Terem Medical Clinics will be providing free treatment to Ukrainian refugees who do not qualify to join a health fund.

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Earlier this week, Knesset member Idit Silman (Yamina), who chairs the Knesset's Health Committee, called on the country's health and medical organizations to step up and provide care in Israel as "humanitarian aid."

"It is important for us, as a Jewish state, not to stand aside when a serious humanitarian crisis occurs," Silman said.

Terem normally provides emergency screening and care, including treatments for various pressing injuries, heart attacks and other emergencies. However, the organization said that if Ukrainian citizens have other medical issues that need addressing, including receiving primary care or treatment for chronic diseases, it will also provide that support until they can return to their country.

Moreover, a spokesperson for Terem told JNS that the organization was in discussion with other companies about the possibility that the refugees will also receive free medicine.

Terem was already providing emergency medical treatment to foreign workers and asylum seekers living in the center of the country, especially in southern Tel Aviv, explained Natan Applebaum, Terem Medical Clinic's CEO.

"We will now expand our services to the entire country," he said. "Ukrainian refugees will be able to get care at any clinic, from Eilat in the south to Carmiel or Nahariya in the north. Once they are identified as refugees, they will have access to all of the center's services."

Israel has a socialized medical system that is operated by four large health funds. However, the system is only available to citizens in good standing (including new immigrants) and individuals in certain permanent residency categories.

Tourists, diplomats, foreign citizens and foreign exchange students living in the country can opt-in for private health insurance options through the health funds, with prices ranging between 300 shekels ($90) and 2000 shekels ($610) – prices that could be too high for refugees who have been forced to leave everything behind.

Since the outbreak of the war on Feb. 24, 5,598 Ukrainians who are not entitled to become Israeli citizens have entered the country, according to the Interior Ministry.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Planting trees is a national pastime in Israel. The country prides itself as being one of the only nations in the world to enter the 21st century with more trees than it had 100 years prior, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

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Even before the state was founded, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) had planted 4.5 million trees, the ministry said. Today, more than 200 million trees in forests and woodlands cover some 300,000 acres of Israeli land.

Planting trees is also "a way of saying we are here," a scientist told Yale University researcher Fred Pearce in 2019.

But the forestry of 1948 and 2022 are different, explained veteran KKL-JNF forester Chanoch Zoref, the chief forester in the Jerusalem hills. He told JNS that what used to be known as forestry is now called "ecosystem-based management"—approaching forestry with an eye for the entire ecosystem, including humans.

At the same time, Israel's foresters are aging out.

"We expect that in the next five or six years, more than 50% of the country's professional foresters will retire," said Zoref. "We have to find other people to replace the current generation."

So KKL-JNF took a proactive step toward ensuring a green Israel.

"Forester of the Future" is a new program that is training 30 young adults in ecosystem management and then putting them in the field as members of the KKL-JNF team. The first round of students is expected to graduate next month. The plan is to run a second session, ensuring around 60 new foresters enter the field this year. Of the program's 30 current students, more than half (17) are women.

"Forestry is a profession that was usually staffed by men as foresters have to spend most days in the field," said Zoref. However, he added that during the recruitment process and thus far in their training, he has found women to be equally if not better equipped for the new area of ecosystem management, where the focus is more on topics related to scientific developments in the field of forestry, grazing and preparing for climate change.

There is also a focus on modern technology. For example, following the fires in the Jerusalem mountains last summer, KKL-JNF took significant steps to develop and maintain technologies to prevent fires. The organization has aircraft that produce thermal images of fields in order to detect wildfires before they occur.

It is also using advanced technological tools for assessing the severity of the damage caused by a fire to the vegetation and to locate the undamaged areas in order to continue the existing biodiversity, the organization's spokesperson explained.

Those participating in the program are also learning how to leverage these tools.

The students underwent an intensive five-week in-classroom course and are now engaged in nine month of hands-on training in the field. Upon completion, they are expected to join the Israeli staff in various roles.

'Huge power and potential of forestry in Israel'

Veronica Moreno Llorente is one of the students. She worked in forestry in Spain and Scotland before moving to Israel with her boyfriend. When she found out about the KKL-JNF program, she applied and was accepted.

While Israel plants a lot of trees, she said the country is not yet considered a leader in forestry—commercial or management. But she has been surprised by the KKL-JNF program and the "huge power and potential of forestry in Israel."

She said that she plans to stay on and help replant and replenish the Jewish state's forests. Llorente is learning Hebrew and hopes to take a job with KKL-JNF.

Maya Millet enrolled in the program after working in the Israel National Parks system and teaching science and geography for several years. A mother of three with a bachelor's degree in those fields from Ben-Gurion University, she was looking for a change.

"Foresters of the Future," she said, "is a very special program in a very special organization. I am really enjoying what I am doing."

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She said she has lofty expectations for the program and a real desire to succeed for herself and her family. She also sees it as a win for women.

"In America, women have broken more glass ceilings in jobs that are not traditionally so-called 'women's work,'" Millett told JNS. "There are more women construction workers and police officers.

"Now, Israel has a new platform for women to advance forestry," she continued. "KKL-JNF discovered that women are equally qualified as men, and it is coming to fruition in this program."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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A Saudi Arabian professor who now lives in Dubai has said that peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia "will happen" but that it could take more time.

"If you ask me, logically and rationally, it will happen," Dr. Najat AlSaied said. "But Saudi Arabia is complicated and peace may take some time."

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She noted that while Israel and Saudi Arabia share a common enemy in Iran, security is not the only consideration for a country like Saudi Arabia, which she said represents the Islamic and Arab world as the home of Mecca and Medina.

Nonetheless, AlSaied said that peace could happen and, if it did, "it would bring peace between Israel and the entire Muslim world."

AlSaied was in Israel from Sunday to Friday last week, during the same period that several top Israeli officials visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Emirati parliamentarians met with colleagues at the Knesset. She said that the recent surge in visits by Israel and Emirati officials to each other's countries were meant to send a message: Peace is stronger than hate and violence.

She said that the recent visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov and police chief Yaakov Shabtai were timed to the tensions simmering in the region.

A drone attack by the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels on a fuel depot in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 17 killed three civilians. It was followed up by at least two more missile attacks, both intercepted, including one during Herzog's trip.

"They [the Houthis] don't want to see this kind of peace and normalization between Israel and the Gulf," AlSaied said of the Abraham Accords, which were signed in September 2020. "But when the Israelis are coming despite these missile attacks, Israel and the Gulf are saying, 'Do whatever you want to do, the peace will not evaporate and fail because of your silly, immature actions.'"

She called the visits by the officials "symbols of peace" and said that when there is a warm, people-to-people peace, the Iranians and their proxies use it for hegemonic purposes – as a reason to show their force to the Arab public.

"They don't want to resolve the conflict, they want to use it" to spread hate, AlSaied said.

AlSaied was in Israel through her role as the academic and media consultant for the NGO Sharaka, which means "partnership" in English. The organization was founded by young leaders from Israel, the UAE and Bahrain in the aftermath of the accords, to help turn the vision of people-to-people peace into reality.

In addition to her volunteer work, AlSaied is a professor at American University in the Emirates. She previously served as a researcher at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR) in Abu Dhabi, and as an assistant professor at Zayed University in Dubai.

She is also a columnist for several Arabic-language publications and for Israel Hayom.

AlSaied said that her days in Israel were packed from "early morning until late at night" meeting the people she had connected with via online webinars and other virtual activities in the last 18 months. This was her first trip to the country. She had tried coming to Israel six earlier times, she said, but each trip was canceled for one reason or another, from the Israeli elections to COVID-19 and even the weather.

She met with representatives of the Government Press Office in Jerusalem, where she spoke about women in journalism, schmoozed with professors at Hebrew University and the Open University and held meetings with her contacts in the Foreign Ministry – in addition to visiting friends from various sectors.

"I am just so glad I made it here after building all of these contacts," she said.

AlSaied noted that she easily clicks with Israelis, whom she believes share a lot culturally with her people.

"I thought when I would arrive, I would see like a mini-New York," AlSaied said. "But my expectations were wrong: Israel is like a part of the Arab world, more Middle Eastern than Western."

What was her favorite part of her experience in the Holy Land? The Old City of Jerusalem, she said.

AlSaied walked around between the various quarters – Arab, Christian, Armenian and Jewish – and said she was struck by the mosques, churches and synagogues all situated in close proximity to one another and coexisting, at least most of the time.

"I saw the Abraham Accords embodied in front of my face," she said. "It was amazing. This is something that will always be captured in my mind."

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Zehava, 36, developed a rare and life-threatening gynecological disease that spread to her lungs and made it impossible for her to do the most basic tasks, like walk or go to work. The Jewish-Iranian wife and mother of two spent months isolated in a hospital in Iran, with no hope.

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"It was a bad dream," Zehava told Jewish News Syndicate.

But a dramatic turn of events saved Zehava from what she believed was her tragic destiny. In a wheelchair and attached to an oxygen tank, she left Iran and made her way to the Israel to receive life-saving treatment, with the help of an Israeli doctor from Sheba Medical Center.

"I'm sitting here in my office and two ladies come to see me, and they say they are the aunts of a patient in Iran who has something wrong with her lungs," Dr. Amir Onn, head of Sheba's Institute of Pulmonary Oncology, recalled in an interview with JNS. "They're showing me medical papers in Persian. I have no idea what they're talking about or how I could even communicate with this patient."

The women asked Onn to get in touch with their niece, Zehava, via WhatsApp. At first he refused, out of concern that the communication could be intercepted, and that he and/or Zehava would be accused of espionage, or worse. But Onn did not want to just say no. So he gave the aunts his telephone number to pass on to Zehava, and said she could reach out to him – assuming she would not do so.

That was mid-afternoon on Dec. 1, 2020. At 6:24 p.m., Zehava had sent him a WhatsApp message.

"I have seen patients from across the ocean and in other countries, but this was the most bizarre interview I have ever had with a patient," Onn recalled. "She is in Iran, and I am here in Tel Aviv, and we speak as if she is just across the street."

Jews have lived in Iran for more than 2,500 years. The Tomb of Mordechai and Esther, the heroes of the Purim story, is located in the Iranian city of Hamedan. Today, there are only around 8,500 Jews living in the country, according to Iran's most recent report on its population authority website – the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel. The majority of the community fled in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Around 250,000 Iranian Jews are living in Israel, and the rest of the once flourishing community are spread out around the world.

"I was sure from the very beginning that someone was pulling my leg," Onn said with a laugh. "No one believed me when I told them."

The few that did warned him not to do anything.

"My son was in an intelligence unit in the army, and he told me not to talk to her because it was too dangerous," he said.

Onn ignored the advice and kept the conversations going.

"We were chatting many times a day and we had video calls," Zehava told JNS. "Yes, it was dangerous," she admitted, "but there was no other way. I had to do this in order to get help."

Zehava, a computer engineer by training, speaks fluent English, which enabled them to communicate. The medical records, however, were in Persian. Onn blacked out Zehava's confidential information and found a resident whose mother spoke Persian to help translate the papers. The resident's mother had no medical background, so it was not easy, according to Onn, but it got the ball rolling.

Zehava had been diagnosed with a medical condition associated with a gynecological disease that, like a cancer, had spread, in her case to the lungs. As a result, lesions developed, causing her significant difficulty in breathing. And the situation was worsening by the day.

"When they discovered my disease in Iran two years ago, all the doctors told me there was no treatment and I should just live with it until I died," Zehava told JNS.

The situation became even more acute when, as the coronavirus pandemic raged through Iran, she caught the virus and developed severe disease. Zehava was put in an induced coma and hooked up to a ventilator, unable to see her children for two months.

Zehava connected Onn with her non-Jewish Iranian doctor via WhatsApp, and they spoke for months.

"It was very impressive that he was allowed to communicate freely," said Onn. "I don't know if someone was on the other side of the room or on the other side of town monitoring the communication, but it was purely for medical purposes."

Consulting with Sheba gynecologist Dr. Jacob Korach, Onn provided advice to the Iranian physician – until one day he just disappeared. Zehava's doctor had been forced to flee Iran for England. After that, he refused to communicate.

But Onn "always gave Zehava hope," her Israeli aunt, Daliah Tzadiki, told JNS. "He would say that if she could come to Israel, he could take care of and treat her. Zehava heard this, and knew she had to come."

Onn remembers that it was Zehava who had faith in him.

"She was sure I was the one who could save her, and I was doing my best to help, but I was not really doing anything," he said. "I never proposed her coming here because I did not think it was a fair suggestion. It did not occur to me that someone could leave Iran in 2021. I thought it was impossible."

In reality, it is not hard for Jews to leave Iran, "but if we leave we cannot go back. I can never go back," Zehava told JNS.

She said this is especially the case if a Jew wants to visit or move to Israel.

"If they [Iranian authorities] understand [that you plan to travel to Israel], they will stop you and arrest you," Zehava said. "I did not let them understand."

Instead, she left her elderly parents in Iran and quietly bought a ticket to Turkey, in hopes that from there she would be able to enter Israel. She knew she was unlikely to ever see them again.

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The family flew to Istanbul in what was a remarkably challenging mission, and arrived at the Israeli consulate in the country. There she presented a letter from Onn about her emergency condition and was admitted to Israel. She has since immigrated.

She arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on a Monday. The next day, she checked into Sheba's emergency department, where she was given the medicines and other care she needed. While her treatment is not over, Zehava will live.

One month later, Zehava can walk again, and is no longer constantly connected to an oxygen tank.

"Dr. Onn gave me back my niece," Tzadiki said. "No one believes that she came back to life."

For his part, Onn said the message is "never give up" – even when tasks seem impossible.

And Zehava? She is just grateful, she said.

"I have my life, thanks to God," she said with joy, "and after God, thanks to Dr. Onn."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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For the first time in Israel, donor liver machine perfusion (MP) has been performed before transplantation, and the improved liver was successfully transplanted into a patient, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center reported last week.

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MP is a preservation method that has been developed to reduce the incidence and severity of donor liver injury and to improve outcomes after organ transplantation, said Dr. Yaacov Goykhman, head of the Organ Transplant Unit at the hospital.

"Liver transplantation is a life-saving and complicated procedure because of the patients' medical conditions, the complexity of liver transplantation and because the organ can only survive outside the body for a short period of time," he told JNS. "This [liver MP] is a significant event that could revolutionize liver transplantation in Israel."

Specifically, a patient received a liver this week from a donor after brain death. During the operation, the liver was prepared on the machine, and "it was a remarkable success, and the patient who received the transplant is now recovering from the operation," said Goykhman.

לראשונה בארץ בוצע זילוח כבד עם מכונה טרם השתלת כבד במטרה לשפרו. ד״ר יעקב גויכמן, מנהל יחידת ההשתלות מסביר: ״השתלת כבד היא פרוצדורה מצילת חיים והליך רפואית מסובך ומורכב מאוד. מדובר באירוע משמעותי שעשוי להביא למהפכה בתחום השתלות כבד״. pic.twitter.com/4Vod3LIL6k

— בית חולים איכילוב (@tasmc1) January 19, 2022

A shortage of organs available for transplantation remains an issue worldwide, and for the last few decades, little progress has moved the supply.

According to the organization Donate Life, some 8,000 Americans die each year waiting for a transplant.

Goykhman said Israel has also seen a shortage of organs, including livers.

At the same time, there are sometimes "marginal livers," such as those from aged donors or individuals with significant comorbidities that are discarded for transplantation because of the high risk of the non-function. In addition, as doctors use an increasing number of marginal livers, they are concerned about their functionality post-transplantation.

He said in recent years, technology has been developed for the perfusion of the liver with a machine for the purpose of improving the organ and better evaluating its function.

There are two types of perfusions: cold perfusion with oxygen, which is used to improve the quality of marginal livers; and perfusion at body temperature, which is what allows doctors to assess the function and to decide which grafts are suitable for transplantation.

The specific machine used in Israel, which was developed by Organ Assist in Holland, combines both kinds of perfusion. For now, it is available in Israel only at Sourasky Medical Center.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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