Remarks at the Clinic Dedication

By Guy Leibovitz

I usually keep most of our philanthropic work private. Over the past two years we have done so much that sometimes even I find it hard to remember it all. But this time it feels important to share, because this touches all of us.

Over the past two-plus years we have been through an unbearably difficult period. We experienced moments of fear, confusion, grief, loss, disappointment, and a deep sense of failed leadership – a reality in which ordinary citizens were required to carry an entire country on their shoulders.

Guy, AFI Board member delivering a heartfelt speech.

From the very beginning of the war, Nathalie repeatedly asked me to support a project connected to mental health. At that time, there were other urgent and immediate needs, situations that simply could not wait. Places where there was no functioning government and people were left without even the most basic support. That is where our resources, energy, and hearts went.

Recently, everything rose to the surface again for me. I was exposed to data showing a sharp increase in severe emotional distress, suicides, families breaking apart due to long reserve service, and men and women who returned home…but did not truly return to being the people they once were. People the country leaned on in its most critical moments, and who are now struggling to receive the proper care for their pain.

Then, through an almost coincidental meeting, a window of opportunity opened before us, a window we felt we could not allow ourselves to miss. And so a project was born that moves me deeply, a project that will provide real, professional, and dignified care to those people.

We were given the privilege of contributing to and establishing a dedicated post-trauma clinic at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, a clinic that will allow those affected to receive proper, continuous, humane, and professional treatment. A clinic that will be a place of healing, of hope, and of new beginnings.

I would also like to express my deep gratitude to the Aliyah foundation, Paul Klassen and to our Bard, to the clinic’s team, and to the management of Ichilov Hospital for honoring my request to dedicate this clinic to the memory of Omer, Oz, and Shaked, the crew of Tank 3, Battalion 77.

On my first journey to Poland, when I was 16 years old I read the book “Oz 77” by Avigdor Kahalani. It deeply moved me and told the story of the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers of the battalion, sacrifice driven by one simple and sacred mission: to protect the citizens of the State of Israel.

When I later learned about the heroism of Omer, Oz, and Shaked, and of Nimrod, who survived and kidnapped, their courage, their willingness to engage, and their choice to act in order to save as many lives as possible, I understood once again that despite everything, young men and women live among us today, and because of them our very existence is not taken for granted.

This clinic will carry their names not only as a memorial but as a living continuation of their spirit.

This is not just another project.
It is a moral obligation.
It is a calling.

And it is our small way of saying to those people and their families:

You are not invisible.
You are not forgotten.
We are here for you and we honor you.

May God bless you and light this clinic.

Guy Leibovitz
Aliyah foundation