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JERUSALEM — President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helped inaugurate Israel’s most advanced rehabilitation center, the Hadassah Medical Organization’s Gandel Rehabilitation Center, in Jerusalem on Monday, October 27, 2025.
The leaders joined Carol Ann Schwartz and Ellen Finkelstein, National President and CEO, respectively, of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, which owns the medical center and whose members contributed significantly to the new rehabilitation center’s funding; Yoram Weiss, MD, the medical center’s director general; and Dalia Itzik, its board chair. Also on hand were government ministers, Knesset members, donors, staff members, and, critically, many recovering soldiers.
More than 2,000 soldiers and civilians have already regained their physical and emotional health because of the center’s sophisticated facilities, cutting-edge therapies and compassionate and highly trained staff. Many of the center’s patients came to the center after receiving life-saving care at one of Hadassah’s two hospitals, Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus, on whose campus the Gandel center is located, and Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem, both in Jerusalem.
Recognizing Israel’s acute shortage of rehabilitation beds, the Hadassah Medical Organization began construction of the Gandel center several years ago, accelerating the opening after October 7, 2023. The first wing opened just three months after the terrorist attack, offering wounded soldiers access to the most comprehensive and advanced treatments available.
The center’s principal donor is Australia’s Gandel Foundation, whose deputy chairman, Graham Goldsmith, attended the opening. To support this project, the Foundation, which is headed by John and Pauline Gandel, made its largest gift ever, that generosity supplemented by millions of dollars in donations made by members of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, and Hadassah International, its global fundraising arm.
The Gandel center’s many state-of-the-art facilities include therapeutic swimming pools, each with a modular floor that can be adapted to a patient’s needs; advanced lifts for moving patients not yet able to get around on their own; computerized systems that track range of motion; and a sophisticated gait laboratory.
The large and compassionate staff of doctors; nurses; occupational, physical and speech therapists; psychologists; social workers; and nutritionists uses traditional and futuristic-looking equipment, like anti-gravity machines and robotic technologies, to bring patients back to health.
Unveiled at the launch was the Boulevard of Revival, located in the Gandel center's lobby. The "boulevard" features imprints of the footprints of IDF officers and soldiers, amplifying the idea central to the center’s ethos that no one walks alone and that progress is made step by step.
In his remarks at the opening event, President Herzog described the Gandel Rehabilitation Center as "granting an essential gift to every human being it helps: hope – hope for the healing of the soul and the strengthening of the body, hope for independence, hope to dream again."
Acknowledging the significant financial contributions of Hadassah members all over the United States, Prime Minister Netanyahu quoted his father, the late historian Benzion Netanyahu, who once told him that “women can be a pivotal force. Just look at the women of Hadassah!"
Hadassah National President Carol Ann Schwartz told the guests that Hadassah’s members had “eagerly joined Israel’s national mission, determined to raise the funds needed to open the Gandel Rehabilitation Center ahead of time out of a sense of duty to care for the wounded.”
"The investment in infrastructure and equipment, made possible only by the extraordinary generosity of many in Israel and worldwide, enabled us to build the most advanced rehabilitation system in the Middle East," said Dalia Itzik, Chair, Board of Directors, Hadassah Medical Organization.
"For more than a year and a half, the team at the Hadassah Medical Organization’s Gandel Rehabilitation Center has been proving its true strength — in healing, in emotional and psychological support, in uncompromising professionalism and in compassion,” said Yoram Weiss, MD, Director General, Hadassah Medical Organization, adding that it is due to the staff’s dedication and relentless commitment that the Gandel center’s patients have been able to “begin their new lives strengthened, prepared for the challenges ahead and in a spirit of victory and determination."
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About the Hadassah Medical Organization:
For more than a century, the Hadassah Medical Organization, the Jerusalem-based medical center of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, has set the standard for excellence in medical treatment and research in Israel. The experience and ingenuity of Hadassah’s doctors and scientists have led to new tools and treatments in all areas of medicine, including therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices. Visit hadassah.org/how-we-help/our-hospitals.