How a cadre of 1,500 MDs began paying house calls to Israel’s Holocaust survivors
Post-October 7, non-profit LeMa’anam faces greater challenges in meeting the medical needs of elderly survivors, many who have been re-traumatized by the war
Renee Ghert-Zand is the health reporter and a feature writer for The Times of Israel.
Ninety-six percent of the remaining 133,362 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today were younger than 18 during World War II. Now, all of them are among the country’s oldest citizens. Their average age is 87, with the oldest being 111 and the youngest 78.
As a resident in internal medicine, Dr. Tamara Kolitz began making voluntary house calls to some of these survivors. She learned about the barriers they face in getting the medical care they need from the public system, some of which other Israeli senior citizens do not face.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the challenges for survivors to gain access to healthcare grew, especially since they were isolated at home or afraid to go out even when lockdowns ended. In response to the situation, Kolitz began asking colleagues if they would be willing to lend a hand.
Kolitz told The Times of Israel this week that she was overwhelmed by the hundreds of positive responses she received.
As a result, she started LeMa’anam (“for their sake” in Hebrew), a non-profit organization providing timely healthcare free of charge to Holocaust survivors, in April 2020.
The service is given by 1,500 senior physicians of all specialties from all over the country who volunteer their time in their private clinics, patients’ homes, or one of LeMa’anam’s two ear-nose-throat, dermatology and ophthalmology mobile clinics.
Kolitz, now an endocrinologist at Tel Aviv-Sourasky Medical Center and Maccabi Healthcare Services, explained to The Times of Israel why receiving required medical care is so hard for many survivors.
“It’s either because they can’t do all the online appointment scheduling or they have problems with the bureaucracy, which can make even a young person lose their mind,” she said. “Some of them don’t have families that can take them to medical appointments and some are bedridden. Some also distrust doctors because of their Holocaust experiences.”
But the biggest problem survivors face is the long waiting times in the public system. “It is unacceptable for survivors to need to wait anywhere from three to eight months to see a specialist,” she added.
Since launching its call center in November 2020, LeMa’anam has received around 30,000 calls, half in 2023 alone, as the organization has become better known through partners and media coverage. To date, the volunteers have provided 7,000 treatments.
“Most have been by our doctors, but some have also been given by several hundred other healthcare providers who volunteer with us. These include occupational therapists, physical therapists, communication therapists and social workers,” Kolitz said.
A staff of 20 medical students does the initial intake over the phone. A team of students, managers and coordinators make sure that all appointment records are documented and continuity-of-care follow-up is done. The staff tries first to schedule any required tests or treatment through the public system, but for long wait times, free private services are arranged.
According to Kolitz, her organization’s services have become even more critical in recent months. October 7 and the war have re-traumatized Holocaust survivors, especially the 2,000 who live near Gaza and on the northern border. Some agreed to be evacuated from their homes, while others insisted on remaining.
Survivor Moshe Ridler, 91, was murdered, and survivor Yaffa Adar, 85, was taken hostage and released after 49 days. Many others — no matter where they live — have family members who were killed by terrorists or while fighting in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ahead of Yom Hashoah, The Times of Israel asked Kolitz about the specific event that prompted her to launch LeMa’anam, the organization’s sources of financial support, how Holocaust survivors are faring post-October 7 and how LeMa’anam is responding.
The Times of Israel: Why did you establish LeMa’anam specifically on April 20, 2020?
Dr. Tamara Kolitz: That date was the eve of Yom Hashoah that year, and it was on that day that Dr. Magda Greif was found dead in her apartment. She was an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor who had worked for many years as a pathologist at Soroka Medical Center and a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. It appeared that she had been dead for nearly two weeks, since Passover eve. She left a note saying that she had no family in Israel or abroad and was very sick. All she asked was that someone take care of her pet birds.
What are the hurdles you still face in reaching survivors?
Our goal is to make them aware that we are here for them. We invest a lot of time and effort in trying to figure out how to best do this because we cannot just get the list of all the survivors and actively contact them and give them a magnet with our hotline number to put on their fridge.
We cooperate with other organizations serving the survivor community and I and our other doctors let our patients at the hospitals and the clinics know about LeMa’anam. My experience has been that once you give a survivor our telephone number, they call. I hear daily from survivors that thanks to our organization, they have someone to call and don’t feel they are alone.
How is LeMa’anam funded?
We are funded by individual donors and foundations, as well as by The Claims Conference. Recently we have begun to receive some government support through the National Insurance Institute. Most of our funding comes from within Israel, but not all.
What have your organization’s volunteers seen in terms of survivors’ reactions to October 7?
It’s variable. Every survivor I’ve met personally responded differently. Some of them are even more eager now to fight, survive, live and win. Others feel like they’ve totally failed their families, that they did not keep their promise to the families that they’ve built here to protect them and provide them with a safe environment unlike what they endured when they were young.
I met a woman who is nearly 100 who survived the worst places that we know and she said, “I’m feeling sorry for getting to this age because I didn’t want my story to end like this. I didn’t want that chapter to be included in my story.”
It’s very difficult to hear something like this from such a vivid woman who is in very good physical shape for her age.
How has the psychological stress affected the survivors’ physical health?
There has been a deterioration, no doubt. First of all, the mental burden and stress and the reliving of the trauma are harmful. Also, they are at home and not going out like they used to. This brings them back to the Corona effect, which is very deleterious and dramatic for old people and shortens their lives. And there are all these survivors evacuated from their homes. I don’t need to explain what it does to someone who’s 85, 90, 95 or 100 to be uprooted from their normal environment.
How has LeMa’anam responded to the situation?
We are providing more at-home medical care because of this. We are also emphasizing mental health and psychological needs. We have also expanded our work by establishing temporary clinics for evacuated survivors at hotels at the Dead Sea, and we have used our mobile clinics to provide medical services to soldiers in the staging grounds on the Israeli side of the Gaza border. In addition, we are providing medical services to the families of the hostages.
So your mandate extends beyond Holocaust survivors when needed.
Yes. Another example is when we sent 150 doctors and 10 tons of medical supplies to Chișinău, Moldova, [to treat Ukrainian refugees] when the Russia-Ukraine war began [in February 2022]. We were there for two months.
We take it upon ourselves to expand to other urgent needs that arise, which is unfortunately too often.
LeMa’anam can be reached by phone at *3191 or at moked@lemaanam.org.il
