Even working underground, treating sick children while Iran was bombing Israel has not diminished David Gottlieb’s happiness in having made aliyah. “Not a day goes by where I don’t pause on my way to the hospital and think how lucky I am,” he tells the JC.
The paediatrician, 31, who is originally from Hampstead Garden Suburb in north-west London, spent most of his five-year career working at North Middlesex Hospital before coming to Israel.
“My great-great-grandfather came to Petah Tikva 100 years ago. There was nothing but swamps. Now I am here in a hospital with amazing healthcare that serves everyone from every religion and from every ethnicity, with staff from everywhere.
“The healthcare here is incredible and so is the training. How lucky am I to be a part of it.”
He works in Schneider Children’s Medical Centre. For several months it functioned almost entirely underground amid air attacks from Iran but is now operating normally once more.
The healthcare system in Israel is so efficient, Gottileb says, that when it came to moving everything back above ground, he “hardly noticed the move”.
“I am blown away by the quality of it all here,” he tells us, “especially the teaching.
“I am gaining so much and I want to give back.”
Gottileb already had Israel in his heart, but since moving, his connection with the country has deepened.
“Working at a national children’s hospital, I get to see people from all walks of life and from all the different towns.
“I get to work with everyone, and I get to learn about the culture.”
He had previously not spent long in Israel, just visiting for holidays but it has been easy to settle, he says, and he is working hard on learning Hebrew.
He is one of several British doctors who have moved to Israel in recent months, swapping life in the NHS for the country’s insurance-based healthcare system.
GP Rivka Lebrett, 29, left Manchester’s Salford Royal with her husband and two young children in 2022, bound for Rehovot, where she lives just a 20-minute ride from the beach.
“It has been the complete opposite experience in my work since being here,” she says. “I was watching all my colleagues in England not being able to share their opinions on Israel and not being able to trust others and what they might think of them and not being able to express themselves.”
Lebrett says that she doesn’t think she could have coped with the antisemitism experienced by her colleagues in Manchester.
“My experience in Israel is one of love and understanding and the feeling that we are all in it together. This has never been more my experience than since October 7.
“The contrast between how I feel here and how I felt back in England has made me feel like I really did make the right decision.”
She has had a third child since making aliyah. “The sense of belonging and being able to be our authentic selves everywhere and in all aspects of our lives is amazing,” she says.
She feels a sense of community everywhere, from Purim and Pesach posters put up on every wall in the clinics to frequent parties for the children.
She also says the weather and the food are great, and is enjoying the more relaxed culture.
“In the clinics and hospitals it is very informal. People here are happy to ask doctors any question and to exchange numbers – and that is how connections get built.
“In England, it is all extremely formal. Here, you see top consultants walking around in jeans and sandals.
“Everyone is always blessing you and hugging you. People are very comfortable wrapping their arms around their doctor. It is such a difference in culture.
“Also, on the wards there are no visiting hours. It’s just not a thing. If grandma is not well, the whole extended family is there with a picnic and they stay all hours.”
Lebrett has also experienced darker days. “Not long after October 7, a patient came to me,” she recalls. “She had her kids with her and she was in pain.
“I could tell it was all from stress from that terrible day and what it resulted in. She was running a stables, while trying to support her family and her husband had been called up to fight. She was trying to juggle it all on her own.”
Lebrett was able to help the woman by introducing her to a volunteer group she knew which would support her at the stables. This was a prime example, Lebrett says, of the level of community and connection in Israel.
Alex Jaffe, 31, is another young doctor who had always dreamed of making aliyah. The trainee GP from Hendon had mainly worked at Watford General Hospital. Eight months ago he arrived with his wife and three young children in Beit Shemesh, undeterred by the recently finished 12-day-war with Iran.
“It is something that my wife and I always wanted to do. The reason we made aliyah was because of the Zionist dream to be back in Israel.
“We discussed it when we got married eight years ago. We always said that the best time to go would be after I finished being a junior doctor in England – and that was when we went.”
Jaffe, who spent three years studying at a yeshivah in Israel when he was younger, works at a clinic in the city and says that he has been “very welcomed” since the beginning.
In Israel there are four main private healthcare providers and Jaffe says that due to the competitive nature of the business of health “each organisation is determined to keep their customers and staff and provide a good service”.
This, he believes, is what makes Israeli healthcare “absolutely excellent”.
He tells us that despite the situation in Israel being especially volatile the last few months, he “hasn’t regretted making aliyah for a second”.
Jaffe says that it is a great feeling to be part of the war effort and that it is reassuring living and working in a place where “everybody is on the same page about Israel being a country at war for its very survival”.
“I have helped people in clinic who have tripped over when a siren has gone off and also people suffering from panic attacks and flashbacks. I really feel like I am part of it and I am contributing.”
One particular encounter with a patient stands out as redolent of his new home. “A patient who was taking the weight loss jab came to me,” he recalls. “Obviously it takes away your appetite, which is why people take it.
“The man says to me “We have got Pesach next week. I need to be able to eat the matzahs and drink the four glasses of wine and at the moment I couldn’t eat a thing!’ I thought to myself, ‘Only in Israel.’”
To get more Israel news, click here to sign up for our free Israel Briefing newsletter.