NEW JERSEY — Nefesh B'Nefesh held its annual MedEx event at a hotel in New Jersey, drawing approximately 350 medical professionals from North America. The organization partners with Israel's Ministries of Aliyah and Integration, Health, and the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience, as well as the Jewish Agency for Israel, for the event.

Attendees at the recent MedEx event represented approximately 31 medical specialties, along with professions like dentistry, nursing, genetic counseling, and psychology. A new requirement for immigrating medical professionals is passing a Hebrew proficiency exam. YAEL examiners traveled to New Jersey to administer this test directly at the MedEx event.

"That's the Ministry of Health that added that level this year," Rabbi Yehoshua Fass said. Fass is executive director of Nefesh B'Nefesh, which he co-founded in 2002 with Tony Gelbart. "That means when you hit the ground you have four or five days until you have a license in hand," Fass said. "And you have a job lined up, because the hospitals and the medical clinics have been fighting for you during the day to offer you a position. It is a dream."

Previously, Israel's medical licensing process required new doctors to complete a supervised clinical period, known as the stage, which lasted nearly a year and during which they could not work or earn income. MedEx now provides registrants with a QR code that contains their curriculum vitae, allowing hospital representatives to scan it. According to Israel's Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the country needs approximately 2,000 new doctors annually, while Israeli universities train fewer than 1,000 medical doctors each year. A generation of doctors who immigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s is currently retiring.

The International Medical Aliyah Program was launched in 2024 with a goal of bringing 2,000 doctors to Israel by 2029. The program receives funding from the Marcus Foundation, the Gottesman Fund, Jewish Federations of North America, the Azrieli Foundation, and the Arison Foundation.

Lance Dunlop, a psychiatrist practicing in Alaska who serves in the U.S. Army Reserve, will begin working as an attending physician at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa in August. Dunlop attended a one-year program at Tel Aviv University in 1984 and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. He served four years in the Israel Defense Forces as a paratrooper, including combat operations in Lebanon. Dunlop holds an Israeli medical license and board certifications. The U.S. Army deployed him to Israel a year ago as part of an American air-defense unit.

"Part of it's scary," Dunlop said. "I love my life here. I have a really, really good life. But I know that I'm not going to be happy unless I'm in Israel." He also said, "You have to be freaking brilliant." "Because I'm an American soldier," Dunlop said.