A New Year of Health, Hope and Unity at Ziv Medical Center
A New Year’s Prescription for Health, Hope, and Unity
Prof. Salman Zarka
CEO, Ziv Medical Center
As we enter the new Hebrew year, I would like to share the following thoughts
and wishes.
This year, Ziv Medical Center once again earned the prestigious JCI accreditation - an internationally recognized seal of quality awarded only to medical centers that meet the most rigorous global standards. This achievement reflects the unwavering dedication and daily commitment of our staff across every department and unit.
It is far more than a certificate displayed on a wall; it is tangible evidence of our shared commitment to excellence, quality, and patient safety - every day, under every circumstance, in times of routine and in times of emergency.
Looking ahead, I hope for a year of calm and security, one that will allow the entire North of Israel to recover, flourish, and prosper. I also hope that Ziv Medical Center will continue to grow and strengthen its role as a leading medical center for the North- through enhanced infrastructure, advanced technology, and our devoted professional workforce.
In this way, we will continue to provide the residents of our region, members of the security forces, and all those in need with equitable, advanced, and high-quality medical care here at Ziv, close to home.
As CEO of Ziv Medical Center, Israel’s northernmost hospital, I extend my warmest wishes for a happy and healthy new year to the spouses, parents, children, and families of Ziv’s employees, as well as to the families of healthcare professionals everywhere. Your steadfast support throughout the most difficult, prolonged, and challenging times has enabled healthcare teams to continue their vital work of
saving lives.
As a retired colonel, I pray for the safe return home of all our soldiers, and for peace, security, and decisive success in defending our country against those who seek to harm it.
As a public health specialist, I would like to prescribe the following for the new year - for all of us and for Israeli society as a whole:
High doses of listening,
Low doses of shouting,
High doses of responsibility,
Low doses of blame,
And generous doses of unity and love - not only for our country, but also for the people who call it home.
I also wish to express my profound gratitude to our friends and supporters around the world. Your solidarity and support mean a great deal to us.
May the new year bring health, healing, peace, prosperity, and hope to us all.
Prof. Salman Zarka
CEO, Ziv Medical Center
Safed, Israel
A Personal Note From Me
Dear Friends,
I asked Prof. Zarka to begin our first letter because I wanted you to hear directly from him.
Salman and I have known each other for many years, going back to the time when we were both students at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was studying public health; I was studying political science.
Our lives and careers took very different paths, but our friendship has endured.
Over the years, I came to know Ziv Medical Center as well.
After October 7, what was happening at Ziv - and across Israel’s North - made something very clear to me: this hospital deserved more attention, more resources, and more people who understood why it matters.
That conviction eventually led me to create Ziv Partners.
Ziv is a small government hospital in Israel’s North. It does not have the enormous resources or international fundraising reach of Israel’s largest hospitals. It serves a region that has too often been overlooked and, during the war, was directly in harm’s way.
And yet Ziv has something important to show us.
Druze, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian physicians, nurses, technicians, and staff do not come to Ziv every morning to practice coexistence or tolerance.
They come to work.
They care for whoever comes through the door. They rely on one another. They make difficult decisions together. They protect human life together.
They did it before October 7. They did it through war and enormous personal hardship. And they are doing it now.
This is not an idea for how people might live together someday. It is a model already at work.
Salman and I come from very different backgrounds, but there is something fundamental we share: we are Zionists.
We believe deeply in Israel- not simply as an idea, but as something generations of people have built and that each generation has a responsibility to continue building.
At Ziv, I see that Zionism expressed in deeds.
A Druze physician leads an Israeli hospital. People from different religions and communities take responsibility for one another. A hospital near Israel’s most difficult borders continues to serve the people of Israel’s North, even when its own staff and families are living through the same danger.
There are plenty of words in our world about what divides us and almost as many words about bringing people together. Ziv interests me because these are not words.
They are already doing it.
That is why I created Ziv Partners.
I believe this small hospital in Israel’s North deserves to be seen and strengthened. Ziv is on Israel’s front lines, carrying an enormous responsibility for the people and communities it serves.
What is happening there also has meaning far beyond the walls of a hospital.
And because Ziv does not have hundreds of millions of dollars behind it, philanthropy can make an unusually direct difference there.
I want the people who support Ziv to know where their money is going. I want you to understand why something is needed. I want you to be able to ask me questions. And when possible, I want you to come with me—to Israel’s North, to Safed, to Ziv—and see it for yourself.
I believe philanthropy is better when it is personal.
One Need Right Now
Ziv’s pathology laboratory performs as many as 35,000 tests every year, including tests used to detect cancer and determine treatment.
Every tissue sample must be identified correctly from the moment it enters the laboratory. A specialized cassette printer creates the identification that stays with that sample throughout the process.
The hospital’s current machine is old and has become unreliable. Ziv needs a new one.
The cost is approximately $100,000.
It is not the kind of medical equipment most people have ever heard of. But without it, an essential laboratory cannot work the way it should.
Why I Want to Write to You Each Month
This is the first of twelve monthly letters from Ziv Partners, connecting readers more closely to Ziv Medical Center, its people, its needs and the work ahead.
Each month, Prof. Zarka will share some of what he is thinking about - from medicine and public health to Israel, leadership, war, recovery, and the future of Israel’s North.
And I will write to you from where I sit.
Sometimes I will tell you about something Ziv needs. Sometimes I will share something I have seen or learned. Sometimes I'll simply tell you why I think something happening there matters.
I do not want this to become another institutional newsletter - I want it to feel like a letter between us.
My hope is that over the course of this year, you will come to know Ziv, Prof. Zarka, and Israel’s North differently. And perhaps you will decide to become more closely connected to what we are doing.
You may give. You may introduce me to someone who should know Ziv. You may come with me and see it yourself. Or you may simply read these letters and pray with us for the patients, the staff, the soldiers, the families, and the people of Israel’s North.
All of those things matter.
There is so much in the world right now telling us that people who are different from one another cannot live together, trust one another, or build something together.
Ziv gives me another answer. Not a perfect answer. A real one.
Every day in Safed, Israel, people with different religions, histories, and identities walk through the same doors and take responsibility for human life together.
I think that is worth knowing about and worth protecting.
And I would like to bring more of you into the circle.
With gratitude and wishes for health, healing, and hope in the year ahead,
Pamela Dubin
Founder and President
Ziv Partners
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