SA psychiatrist awarded for extraordinary contribution in Israel

Professor Rael Strous received a special award from Israel’s ministry of immigration and absorption on 10 November for his extraordinary contribution as an oleh in the field of medicine. He’s one of the first South Africans to be honoured with this award.

His contribution is in the field of psychiatry.

Every year, the Ministry of Aliya and Absorption selects four or five olim who have made a special contribution as an oleh in the past few years to the country and the people of Israel. They are awarded in five different areas: medicine, science, sport, community, and culture.

Strous is head of the psychiatric department at Maayeni Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak. He is also a professor of psychiatry at the faculty of medicine at Tel Aviv University, and is the head of the psychiatry study programme at the faculty of medicine at Ariel University.

Strous was notified of his award two days before the “Iron Swords” war began in 2023. His award was then extended to include 2024, and the ceremony postponed until 10 November this year when he was given the award by Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer.

Strous said Herzog told him how much he admired the South African Jewish community. “South Africans don’t usually win these kinds of awards. It’s always Americans, Russians, or Europeans. The minister told me that he thought it was the first time that an oleh from South Africa had won this award. I was proud because we’re a relatively small community of South African olim.”

Strous told the SA Jewish Report that though being recognised by the Israeli government was a massive personal achievement, he felt a bit embarrassed as he doesn’t like the limelight. Rather, he said, he prefers to view this award as giving much-needed recognition to the field of psychiatry and advocation of mental health care.

“I received the award not necessarily for me, but for the importance of investing in the mentally ill,” he said, “and as an oleh hadash [recent immigrant], if I can do that and make a difference, it’s very meaningful.

“Especially now with the war, everyone is seeing how important mental health is for the country,” said Strous, “Everyone is suffering on so many different levels, and mental health isn’t less important than anything else. The pain of mental illness is no less than other things, and it should be recognised as nothing to be ashamed of and people should get help and treatment when needed.”

Strous said mental illness should have the same treatment as any physical illness in terms of the professionalism of the doctors and the conditions of treatment.

“Where medical hospitals look like hotels in Israel, the psychiatric hospitals don’t,” Strous said. “The mentally ill deserve to be treated in better conditions.”

He said the award gave him hope that Israeli society was recognising an area of medicine often forgotten.

“It contributes towards decreasing the stigma of mental illness when they aren’t shying away from recognising the area of mental health as an area of importance to give an award,” he said.

Strous said that from the age of seven growing up in Durban, he knew that he wanted to live in Israel and contribute to it. He made aliya in 1998 to Beit Shemesh after completing medical school at the University of the Witwatersrand and specialising in the field of psychiatry in the United States at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Harvard.

He recalled being a boy of 10 when he met former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was visiting South Africa. Strous said he told him he wanted to move to a kibbutz in Israel and help drain the swamps. Peres urged him rather to get a profession so that he could make aliya and contribute to Israel the best way he could.

“Meeting Peres was a big motivator along my professional career to come to Israel and contribute and do the best I could in my little area of psychiatry,” said Strous. “You can judge the greatness of a society and a country by how well they look after the weak, and the weak in medicine in Israel and all around the world are the mentally ill, so I found it something important to invest in.”