‘I don’t really feel safe telling people I’m Jewish’: The British doctors planning to make aliyah

Antisemitism in the UK is giving British doctors and dentists an “extra incentive” to make aliyah, as some “don’t feel safe”. Around 150 British medical workers attended the MedEx UK event in London last week. MedEx is a programme which offers support and grants to doctors moving to Israel and is run by the International Medical Aliyah Program (IMAP). Dentist Shlomo Franks, 59, from Edgware, is planning to return to Israel with his family after previously living there for five years 30 years ago.

He said: “I've always wanted to return, and it was just more a matter of timing. So I was waiting for the kids to grow up.” Asked if antisemitism in the UK was pushing him to go, he said: “I would want to go anyway. Even if everything here was 100 per cent perfect. I just want to go. But it just gives us an extra incentive.” He continued: “My youngest child is going to finish university next year, and he wants to make aliyah as well. The two are finishing university and we are going together.”

One of Franks’ children is following in his footsteps getting into medicine and plans to join the IDF as a psychologist. Franks himself will continue practising dentistry in Israel. “That’s the plan unless I win the lottery,” he joked. A 23-year-old medical student from Hackney who wanted to remain anonymous. She told the JC: “I don’t really feel safe telling people I’m Jewish anymore, and I don’t want to live like that, really.” Participants at the MedEx event listening to a talk about making medical Alliyah (Image: Meron Persey Photography)[Missing Credit] “Being a doctor... you don’t get the best deal in the UK anymore.

You don’t get any respect. You don’t really get paid very well. “I think Israel offers a huge diversity in medicine that I can learn from, and there is a variety of different types of medicine you can practice.” She said that she wants to get into the field of practising rural medicine, which she explained is the area which makes use of little resources. “I’m interested in rural sort of medicine, low-resource medicine. The degree I’m doing sort of teaches you how to work in very low-resource clinical settings.”

She wants to do this in Israel because “it feels a lot more innovative, and it feels like people really respect you and they want you to do well as well, and you don’t always feel like that in the UK”. She said that she wants to live somewhere rural or on a small kibbutz. Another doctor, who wanted to remain anonymous said: “I have always wanted to make aliyah. I grew up in a very Zionist household and with a very strong connection to Israel.

But I think October 7 expedited those plans. It made the idea much more concrete. Speaking about rising antisemitism in the UK, she said: “You get used to things gradually. It is a bit like a frog in boiling water. You get used to security and then something else happens and you get used to that too. But sometimes something makes you stop and think about what has actually become normal. “Jerusalem would be where I would want to live. There is a special pull about Jerusalem for me.

It is a very special place. “I work in family medicine and I would love to contribute to Israel.” She went on to say that friends that she has in Israel practising medicine say it is “completely different to the UK”. “They feel they are making a significant difference every day. Sometimes here you can get lost in the rat race here. The idea of doing your work and really feeling that it is making an impact is very appealing to me.” A fourth attendee said: “I never planned to practise medicine anywhere other than the UK.

When I was dating my husband, he raised aliyah and I was very clear that I did not want to go because I did not want to practise medicine outside Britain. It was effectively a line for us. We were staying here. “But the world changed and my perspective changed with it. In the end, I was the one who said we were making aliyah. “I am excited about working in Israel, somewhere that understands the context of my life. In Britain you are constantly explaining things or trying to fit your family life around a system that does not necessarily understand it.

“In Israel, people understand the Jewish calendar, family obligations and the rhythm of your life. I know the medical system there will have its own difficulties, but the idea of working somewhere where people understand me in that way is incredibly appealing.” Esther Price, 53, a psychiatrist from Budapest has worked in the profession for 26 years. Esther Price, 53, a psychiatrist from Budapest was at the MedEx event (Image: Meron Persey Photography)[Missing Credit] She travelled all the way from Hungary to the event as it was the closest aliyah event she could find.

She said: “I am moving to Israel because that is where I feel where I belong. It is the only place I would ever move to. “I've been in the field over the past 26 years, and I saw that perhaps I will transfer my profession to Israel.” “I want to live in the north, in Haifa and I want to work in the community. When asked if Israel’s pioneering medical industry played a role in her wanting to move, she asserted. “No. I am making aliyah purely because I want to live there.”

Price said that to her, moving to the Jewish state is more important than continuing her career. “If I will work something else, but not the medical profession, that's fine as well,” she said. She added: “I am moving on my own but I already have a few friends there. My two kids are both studying abroad so I am free to move. Offering guidance to those attending the event was Daniel Lipczer, 51, the director of medical personnel at Israeli urgent care network TEREM who made aliyah from Essex over two decades ago.

He said: “I felt that was where the future of the Jewish people lies, in Israel. I guess for Zionist reasons, I wanted to make aliyah with my family. At the time my kids were, like, under five, and I thought it was a good time to do it.” He went on to say that he feels he made aliyah at the right time, not only on a personal level, but also because of the rising antisemitism of recent years in the UK. “I am not sure I would want to have been living in England at this period.

“Over the last few years, I've watched with unease the way Jewish people seem to be treated in the UK. “For 20 years before I moved, I travelled on the tube every day, and in all the years I travelled on the tube, I never felt any antisemitism towards me at all. But from what I see on the media over the last few years, it's not safe to walk around certain parts of London, particularly if I want to walk around with my kippah. “Working 20 years ago in the NHS, however, I felt a certain sense of self-consciousness about walking around with a kippah.

I feel, though, that if I was doing that today, I think that my concern would be tenfold.” He continued: “I genuinely worry about the people who are working in the NHS today, about how they can go in on a day-to-day basis to the hospitals, without, I mean, again, assuming that what I read is true, how they manage to continue on their day-to-day lives knowing that there's whole sections of their coworkers who have issues with them.” “I do feel that some Jewish doctors are being pushed to move to Israel because of it, unfortunately.

Jews are being pushed into making Aliyah, not necessarily for the right reasons. “And I would hope that they would make Aliyah for the right reasons and see all the positive sides there are of living in Israel, and not feeling that they are obliged to move because they don't know what tomorrow might bring.” British-born Daniel Lipczer, Director of Medical Personnel at TEREM (Image: Meron Persey Photography)[Missing Credit] Medical researcher Mikey Libret and his wife, family doctor Rivka, who made aliyah together from Manchester in 2021, attended the event to offer guidance on those making the move.

The couple runs a group chat with over 700 medical practitioners on, which offers advice to doctors before, during and after making aliyah. Libret said: “When we made aliyah, Rivka was really struggling to find the support she needed from the medical community. There was no unified community of English-speaking doctors. “We started as a very small WhatsApp group, and since then it's grown to a community of more than 700 doctors who support each other.

“It's peer support. It's helping each other find jobs, helping each other with licencing issues, with salary issues, being there for each other. It's a very special community.” According to data provided by IMAP, Israel is facing a shortage of doctors as its population grows and hundreds of doctors approach retirement. Many of the doctors, according to IMAP, came from the Soviet Union during mass immigration in the late 1900s, many roughly the same age and therefore all coming towards retirement at the same time.

Israel has 3.5 practising doctors per 1,000 people, compared with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 3.9, according to the data, hence the country’s push for more. The JC has contacted the NHS for comment.